Opinion ID: 166407
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Specific Legal Issues

Text: We turn now to the criteria governing recognition of a valid R.S. 2477 right of way. First we address burden of proof, and then we turn to substantive standards. For reasons explained in the previous section, we begin with the common law standard as developed in the law of the State of Utah, a standard which is based on continuous public use. We will then address arguments by the BLM and SUWA that, instead of the public use standard, we should adopt a 67 “mechanical construction” standard, as set forth in the BLM administrative determinations, and that valid R.S. 2477 claims should further be limited by the BLM’s proposed definition of “highway.” Finally, we will address arguments by all parties regarding the meaning of the statutory term “not reserved for public uses.” We review the district court’s legal determinations de novo. United States v. Telluride Co., 146 F.3d 1241, 1244 (10th Cir. 1998).
The district court correctly ruled that the burden of proof lies on those parties “seeking to enforce rights-of-way against the federal government.” 147 F.Supp.2d at 1136. Under Utah law determining when a highway is deemed to be dedicated to the use of the public, 19 “[t]he presumption is in favor of the property owner; and the burden of establishing public use for the required period of time is Utah Code Ann. § 27-12-89 (1953) (current version at Utah Code Ann. § 19 72-5-104(1) (2005)) provides: A highway shall be deemed to have been dedicated and abandoned to the use of the public when it has been continuously used as a public thoroughfare for a period of ten years. The Utah Supreme Court held a nearly identical earlier version of this statute applicable to R.S. 2477 claims in Lindsay Land & Live Stock Co. v. Churnos, 285 P. 646, 648 (Utah 1929), relying on Laws of Utah 1886, ch. 12, § 2 (“A highway shall be deemed and taken as dedicated and abandoned to the use of the Public when it has been continuously and uninterruptedly used as a Public thoroughfare for a period of ten years.”). 68 on those claiming it.” Leo M. Bertagnole, Inc. v. Pine Meadow Ranches, 639 P.2d 211, 213 (Utah 1981); Draper City v. Estate of Bernardo, 888 P.2d 1097, 1099 (Utah 1995). 20 Courts in other states have reached a similar conclusion. See, e.g., Luchetti v. Bandler, 777 P.2d 1326, 1327 (N.M. App. 1989). Because evidence in these cases is over a quarter of a century old, the burden of proof could be decisive in some cases. This allocation of the burden of proof to the R.S. 2477 claimant is consonant with federal law and federal interests. As the district court noted, “‘[T]he established rule [is] that land grants are construed favorably to the Government, that nothing passes except what is conveyed in clear language, and that if there are doubts they are resolved for the Government, not against it.” 147 F.Supp.2d at 1136 (quoting Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc., 462 U.S. 36, 59 (1983), in turn quoting United States v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 353 U.S. 112, 116 (1957)) (brackets in district court opinion). Other courts have applied this rule to R.S. 2477 cases, Adams v. United States, 3 F.3d 1254, 1258 (9th Cir. 1993); United States v. Balliet, 133 F.Supp.2d 1120, 1129 (W. D. Ark. 2001); Fitzgerald v. United States, 932 F.Supp. 1195, 1201 (D. Ariz. 1996), and we agree. On The burden may be different in cases where the R.S. 2477 claim has 20 previously been adjudicated, or where there is a federal disclaimer of interest, memorandum of understanding, or other administrative recognition. We have no occasion in this case to opine on the legal effect of such administrative determinations. 69 remand, therefore, the Counties, as the parties claiming R.S. 2477 rights, bear the burden of proof.
Under the common law, the establishment of a public right of way required two steps: the landowner’s objectively manifested intent to dedicate property to the public use as a right of way, and acceptance by the public. 21 Isaac Grant Thompson, A Practical Treatise on the Law of Highways 48-52 (1868) (dedication); id. at 54-57 (acceptance); Joseph K. Angell & Thomas Durfee, A Treatise on the Law of Highways 146-65 (2d ed. 1868) (dedication); id. at 174-83 (acceptance); 6 R. Powell, The Law of Real Property § 84.01 (2005) (hereinafter Powell); see The President, Recorder and Trustees of Cincinnati v. White’s Lessee, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 431, 438-40 (1832). Dedication by the landowner could be manifested by express statement or presumed from conduct, usually by allowing the public “the uninterrupted use and enjoyment of their privilege” over a specified period of time. Thompson on Highways, supra, at 48-49; see also James Kent, 3 Commentaries on American Law 604-06, -51 (10th ed. 1860); 21 Alternatively, where land intended for highway use was privately owned and the landowner did not dedicate the land to use as a right of way, the government could proceed by condemnation and compensation. See Joseph K. Angell & Thomas Durfee, A Treatise on the Law of Highways 64-131 (2d ed. 1868). Because this case involves only routes across land that was public when the route was established, we will disregard this branch of the law. 70 for a modern example of presumed dedication, see Draper City v. Estate of Bernardo, 888 P.2d 1097, 1099 (Utah 1995). In the years after its enactment, R.S. 2477 was uniformly interpreted by the courts as an express dedication of the right of way by the landowner, the United States Congress. See Murray v. City of Butte, 14 P. 656, 656 (Mont. Terr. 1887); McRose v. Bottyer, 81 Cal. 122, 126 (1889); Street v. Stalnaker, 85 N.W. 47, 48 (Neb. 1901); Wallowa County v. Wade, 72 P. 793, 794 (Ore. 1903); Okanogan County v. Cheetham, 80 P. 262, 264 (Wash. 1905), overruled on other grounds by McAllister v. Okanogan County, 100 P. 146, 148 (Wash. 1909); Nicolas v. Grassle, 267 P. 196, 197 (Colo. 1928); Lindsay Land & Live Stock Co. v. Churnos, 285 P. 646, 648 (Utah 1929). The difficult question was whether any particular disputed route had been “accepted” by the public before the land had been transferred to private ownership or otherwise reserved. As one court noted: The act of congress already referred to [R.S. 2477] does not make any distinction as to the methods recognized by law for the establishment of a highway. It is an unequivocal grant of right of way for highways over public lands, without any limitation as to the method for their establishment, and hence a highway may be established across or upon such public lands in any of the ways recognized by the law of the state in which such lands are located; and in this state, as already observed, such highways may be established by prescription, dedication, user, or proceedings under the statute. Smith v. Mitchell, 58 P. 667, 668 (Wash. 1899). 71 The rules for “acceptance” of a right of way by the public (whether under R.S. 2477 or otherwise) varied somewhat from state to state. Some states required official action by the local body of government before a public highway could be deemed “accepted.” E.g., Tucson Consol. Copper Co. v. Reese, 100 P. 777, 778 (Ariz. Terr. 1909); Barnard Realty Co. v. City of Butte, 136 P. 1064, 1067 (Mont. 1913) (legislature amended state law in 1895 to prohibit establishment of a public road by use, unless accompanied by an action on the part of public authorities). In such states, the appropriation of public funds for repair was generally deemed sufficient to manifest acceptance by the public body. Angell & Durfee on Highways, supra, at 181-82. In most of the western states, where R.S. 2477 was most significant, acceptance required no governmental act, but could be manifested by continuous public use over a specified period of time. 22 This was the common law rule. “The common law mode of indicating an 22 E.g., Hamerly v. Denton, 359 P.2d 121, 123 (Alaska 1961) (“[B]efore a highway may be created, there must be either some positive act on the part of the appropriate public authorities of the state . . . or there must be public user for such a period of time and under such conditions as to prove that the grant has been accepted.”); Wilson v. Williams, 87 P.2d 683, 685 (N.M. 1939) (“There is no particular method required or recognized as the proper one for the establishment of highways under this grant. Generally the construction of a highway or establishment thereof by public user is sufficient.”); Lindsay Land & Live Stock Co. v. Churnos, 285 P. 646, 648 (Utah 1929) (“It has been held by numerous courts that the grant may be accepted by public use without formal action by public authorities . . . .”) (citing cases); Hatch Bros. Co. v. Black, 165 P. 518, 519 (Wyo. 1917) (“The continued use of the road by the public for such a length of (continued...) 72 acceptance by the public of a dedication is by a user of sufficient length to evince such acceptance . . . .” Thompson on Highways, supra, at 54. 23 In some states, the required period was the same as that for easements by prescription, 24 in some states it was some other specified period, often five to ten years, 25 and in some states it was simply a period long enough to indicate intention to accept. 26 See generally Harry R. Bader, Potential Legal Standards for Resolving the R.S. 2477 22 (...continued) time and under such circumstances as to clearly indicate an intention on the part of the public to accept the grant has generally been held sufficient” to constitute acceptance of an R.S. 2477 right of way.), superseded by statute as noted in Yeager v. Forbes, 78 P.3d 241, 255 (Wyo. 2003); Van Wanning v. Deeter, 110 N.W. 703, 704 (Neb. 1907) (“[T]he acceptance of the congressional grant could be shown, not only by acts of the public authorities, but by the acts of the public itself. In the case at bar . . . there is evidence of user, general and long continued. . . . This, we think, is amply sufficient to show an acceptance by the public of the congressional grant . . . .”), rev’d on other grounds, 112 N.W. 902 (Neb. 1907). 23 “User” is the “enjoyment of a right of use: a right to use resulting from long-continued use.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2524 (1976); see Black’s Law Dictionary 1542 (7th ed. 1999) (defining “user” as “[t]he exercise or employment of a right or property”). We will use the terms “user” and “continuous public use” interchangeably. See, e.g., Vogler v. Anderson, 89 P. 551, 552 (Wash. 1907); City of Butte 24 v. Mikosowitz, 102 P. 593, 595 (Mont. 1909). 25 See Powell, supra, at n.107; Okanogan County v. Cheetham, 80 P. 262, 264 (Wash. 1905) (holding that seven years of public use is sufficient to constitute acceptance of an R.S. 2477 right of way, as opposed to the ten years required for an easement by prescription, on the ground that “[i]t is not a matter of prescription, but of acceptance of a grant”). See Powell, supra, at n.105; Hatch Bros. Co. v. Black, 165 P. 518, 519 26 (Wyo. 1917). 73 Right of Way Crisis, 11 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 485, 491-94 (1994). In the leading Utah decision interpreting R.S. 2477, the state Supreme Court explained: It has been held by numerous courts that the grant may be accepted by public use without formal action by public authorities, and that continued use of the road by the public for such length of time and under such circumstances as to clearly indicate an intention on the part of the public to accept the grant is sufficient. Montgomery v. Somers, 50 Or. 259, 90 P. 674; Murray v. City of Butte, 7 Mont. 61, 14 P. 656; Hatch Bros. v. Black, 25 Wyo. 109, 165 P. 518; Sprague v. Stead, 56 Colo. 538, 139 P. 544. Other decisions are to the effect that an acceptance is shown by evidence of user for such a length of time and under such conditions as would establish a road by prescription, if the land over which it passed had been the subject of private ownership[,] Okanogan Co. v. Cheetham, 37 Wash. 682, 80 P. 262, 70 L. R. A. 1027; City of Butte v. Mikosowitz, 39 Mont. 350, 102 P. 593, or of public user for such time as is prescribed in state statutes upon which highways are deemed public highways. McRose v. Bottyer, 81 Cal. 122, 22 P. 393; Schwerdtle v. Placer County, 108 Cal. 589, 41 P. 448; Walcott Tp. v. Skauge, 6 N. D. 382, 71 N. W. 544; Great N. R. Co. v. Viborg, 17 S. D. 374, 97 N. W. 6. See, also, annotation on necessity and sufficiency of acceptance, L. R. A. 1917A, 355. Lindsay Land & Live Stock Co. v. Churnos, 285 P. 646, 648 (Utah 1929), cited in Hodel, 848 F.2d at 1082 n.13. Looking to the Utah statutes in force at the time the right of way was claimed to have been accepted, the Court held that the period of user necessary for acceptance of an R.S. 2477 right of way was ten years. Id., citing Laws of Utah 1886, ch. 12, § 2 (“A highway shall be deemed and taken as dedicated and abandoned to the use of the Public when it has been continuously 74 and uninterruptedly used as a Public thoroughfare for a period of ten years.”). Acceptance of an R.S. 2477 right of way in Utah thus requires continuous public use for a period of ten years. The question then becomes how continuous and intensive the public use must be. The decisions make clear that occasional or desultory use is not sufficient. In the decision just quoted, the Utah Supreme Court stated: “While it is difficult to fix a standard by which to measure what is a public use or a public thoroughfare, it can be said here that the road was used by many and different persons for a variety of purposes; that it was open to all who desired to use it; that the use made of it was as general and extensive as the situation and surroundings would permit, had the road been formally laid out as a public highway by public authority.” Lindsay Land & Live Stock, 285 P. at 648. The requirements for establishing acceptance of a right of way by user cannot, we think, be captured by verbal formulas alone. It is necessary to set forth the factual circumstances of the decided cases, both those recognizing and those not recognizing the validity of R.S. 2477 claims. On remand, the district court will have the difficult task of determining whether the Counties have met their burden of demonstrating acceptance under these precedents. 27 In Lindsay Land & Live Stock, the Utah Supreme Court described the 27 On remand, the parties and the district court are not limited to precedents discussed in this opinion. 75 evidence bearing on usage of the claimed road in great detail: The road extends across the lands in a general easterly and westerly direction following a part of its distance through a narrow canyon or pass called Davenport canyon. At the eastern terminus of the road is a large area of mountain land valuable for grazing animals in the summer season, a portion of which is now the Cache National Forest, and a portion in private ownership. This area has been extensively used for summer grazing for many years, by owners of sheep who trailed them over the route in question from the settled portions of the country lying to west, to the summer range in the spring of the year and back again in the fall. In 1876 a sawmill was constructed in Davenport canyon and the road in question was first definitely located and commenced to be used. People generally from the cities and villages in Box Elder and Cache counties approaching from the West traveled the road for the purpose of hauling lumber from the sawmill, and others from Ogden City and Ogden Valley, who had access to the eastern terminus of the road in question, used it for similar purposes. Other sawmills were set up at different places along the road during the years before 1890, and the road was generally traveled by many persons who had occasion to do so for the purpose of hauling logs to the sawmills and hauling lumber and slabs therefrom, and going to and from the sawmills for other purposes. In about the year 1885 a mining excitement in the locality resulted in the establishment of a mining camp called La Plata near the road in question. Houses were built, a post office established, and several hundred people resided in the camp for five or more years. During this period the road in question was traveled extensively by the general public in going to and from the mining camp. During all of the time from 1876 until shortly before the commencement of this action the road was used by numerous owners of sheep who had occasion to go that way for the purpose of trailing their herds to and from the summer range, and for the purpose of moving their camps and supplies to their herds. The use of the road for this purpose was general and extensive. One witness stated that “there must have been a hundred herds that went up there,” another that he had “seen as high as seven herds a day” going over the road. The mining business ceased in about the year 1890 and a few years later the saw mills disappeared. From since about the year 1900 the use of the road has been confined to stockmen driving their herds and hauling their 76 supplies and camp outfits over it, and to a less frequent use by hunters, fishermen, and others who had occasion to travel over it. At times bridges were built and short dugways constructed by persons directly interested, but it does not appear that any public money was ever expended to maintain or repair the road. During the last four or five years the road in places has become impassable to ordinary vehicles, and has been used only for driving animals, pack outfits, etc., over it. Before the year 1894 the lands traversed by the road were unappropriated public lands of the United States. During the period of 1894 to 1904 the title to the lands passed from the federal government to the plaintiff or its grantors. The use of the road as above described was not interrupted by the change in the title or ownership of the lands, but continued thereafter as before stated. There was evidence that the travel over the road did not always follow an identical or uniform line, but at times and in a few places varied somewhat therefrom, and that sheep when trailing across would sometimes depart from the line of the road. There was ample positive evidence, however, that the road as described by the findings and decree was substantially the line and course of the road as it had been traveled and used for more than fifty years. Id. at 647. Notwithstanding this extensive evidence of public use, the owner of the lands over which the route was located contended “that the use of the road, as proved, was not such as amounted to a continuous and uninterrupted use as a public thoroughfare.” Id. at 648. The court responded: If the claim rested alone upon the use of the road for sawmill purposes, or for mining purposes, or for the trailing of sheep, the question would be more difficult. But here the road connected two points between which there was occasion for considerable public travel. The road was a public convenience. When sawmills were established on or near the road, it was used, not only by those conducting the sawmills, but by many others who went to the sawmills to get lumber, etc. During the period when the mining camp existed in the vicinity, the road was unquestionably used very extensively by the general public for general purposes. And all the 77 time it was used as a general way for the driving or trailing of sheep. This latter use was not by a few persons, but by many persons, and it involved more than the mere driving of animals on the road. Camp outfits and supplies accompanied the herds and were moved over the road in camp wagons and on pack horses. Id. The court thus concluded that the trial court “was justified in finding that the road had been continuously and uninterruptedly used as a public thoroughfare for more than ten years.” Id. at 648-49. We think it significant that the Utah Supreme Court stated that if the claim rested “alone upon the use of the road for sawmill purposes, or for mining purposes, or for the trailing of sheep, the question would be more difficult.” Id. at 648. But where the “road was unquestionably used very extensively by the general public for general purposes,” the court concluded an R.S. 2477 right of way had been established. Id. At the opposite extreme, in Cassity v. Castagno, 347 P.2d 834, 835 (Utah 1959), the Utah Supreme Court declined to recognize an R.S. 2477 right of way where one cattleman had a practice of herding his cattle across the lands of another to get to and from winter grazing land. 28 28 In Deseret Livestock Co. v. Sharp, 259 P.2d 607, 609 (Utah 1953), which involved a claim for a prescriptive easement under state law, the Court found that the public had acquired a 100-foot wide easement across private land because the route had been “traveled by various groups for a variety of private and commercial uses” over a period of 50 years, but rejected a claim that a 3,000-foot wide right of way had been established on the same route by the twice-annual trailing of sheep. 78 Jeremy v. Bertagnole, 116 P.2d 420 (Utah 1941), is similarly instructive. In that case, the owner of the servient estate conceded that a right of way had been established by prescription, and the litigation concerned the width of that right of way. Id. at 421. Nonetheless, the court discussed at length the evidence in support of that legal conclusion. While technically relevant only to scope, this discussion provides guidance regarding the quality and quantity of evidence the Utah courts expect for proof of historical use. According to the Utah Supreme Court, “some thirteen witnesses testified to the use of the road for vehicular and other traffic between 1877 and 1900, and an equal number as to its use since the latter date.” Id. at 423. The testimony covered the period from the 1870s until the time of trial, around 1940. Id. at 424. The court noted, “True, such testimony does not reveal that any witness used the road at weekly, monthly, or even yearly intervals over a period of ten years.” Id. But the court described the “inference” as “clearly a reasonable one” that the route had been used “for a number of years in excess of that required,” and that the evidence was sufficient to prove “the existence for many years of this roadway, openly used as the public might desire for vehicular, pedestrian, and equestrian traffic.” Id. In Leo M. Bertagnole, Inc. v. Pine Meadow Ranches, 639 P.2d 211, 213 (Utah 1981), the Utah Supreme Court upheld a finding of a public road by prescription where there was “evidence of the use of the road by large flocks of 79 sheep, sheep camps, trucks, jeeps, heavy equipment, hunters, fishermen, picnickers, campers, and sightseers” over a ten year period. In Boyer v. Clark, 326 P.2d 107 (Utah 1958), the Supreme Court of Utah reversed a lower court judgment which had concluded that a “wagon trail” near Coalville, Utah, was not an R.S. 2477 right of way. The land over which the road crossed had passed into private hands in 1902, and the road had never been maintained at public expense. The evidence recited by the court suggests that the public use was less extensive than that in the previously discussed cases. The principal witness, who was 84 years old at the time of trial, testified that he “had used the road for over 50 years when hauling coal, crossing the open range, driving cattle, sheep and courting the girl he later married,” and that “anyone who wanted to” used the road for similar purposes. Id. at 108. An unspecified number of “other witnesses” testified that the use of the road was not changed when the property became private and that “anyone who wanted to use it to go deer hunting or visiting with people living in the vicinity or to dances which were held in Grass Creek did so.” Id. Apparently, “[t]he use of the road was not great because comparatively few people had need to travel over it, but those of the public who had such need, did so.” Id. The Supreme Court held: The uncontradicted evidence in the instant case disclosed that for a period exceeding 50 years, the public, even though not consisting of a great many persons, made a continuous and uninterrupted use of 80 Middle Canyon Road in traveling by wagon and other vehicles and by horse from Upton to Grass Creek and other points as often as they found it convenient or necessary. They trailed cattle, and sheep, hauled coal, and used this trail for other purposes in traveling from Grass Creek and various other points to and from Highway 133. This evidence was sufficient as a matter of law to establish a highway by dedication and the court erred in finding otherwise. Id. at 109. In other jurisdictions we find decisions of a similar nature. In Wallowa County v. Wade, 72 P. 793 (Or. 1903), an early decision involving a claimed route across land homesteaded around the turn of the century, the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed a decree recognizing a public road and enjoining the defendant landowner from maintaining a fence across it. The evidence showed that “the road was used continuously by the public as a highway for more than 10 years prior to the construction of the fence.” Id. at 793. Witnesses testified that “all this time it has been a plain, open, well-beaten track, and has been traveled by all the people that live in that section of the county; that it is the only road used by them in going to and returning from the county seat.” Id. In Dillingham Commercial Co., Inc. v. City of Dillingham, 705 P.2d 410, 414 (Alaska 1985), the Alaska Supreme Court recognized an R.S. 2477 right of way on the basis of the uncontradicted testimony of two witnesses that the route had been used by the public for beach access and for hauling freight into town. In Ball v. Stephens, 158 P.2d 207, 211 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 1945), the California District Court of 81 Appeal recognized an R.S. 2477 claim along a route used originally by horse and wagon and later “almost daily” by motor vehicles. The court summed up the evidence as follows: The travel over the road prior to 1928 was irregular but that was due to the nature of the country and to the fact that only a limited number of people had occasion to go that way. However, many people used the road for different purposes. The use of the route by hunters, vacationists, miners and oil operators which brought the road into existence was a public use. Travel was not merely occasional; it was in our opinion substantial and sufficient to prove acceptance of the offer of the government of the right of way and to constitute it a highway by dedication under the state laws. Id. By contrast, in Luchetti v. Bandler, 777 P.2d 1326 (N.M. Ct. App. 1989), the New Mexico Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court decision rejecting an R.S. 2477 claim for a right of way, despite testimony by at least four witnesses that they and other members of the public used the road for picnics, hiking, hunting, and access to a spring. 29 The court concluded: “we cannot say that use to reach a single private residence, hike, picnic, or gather wood, or to reach a watering hole, was sufficient to require a finding of acceptance of the government’s offer to dedicate the road as a public highway.” Id. at 1328. Similarly, in Moulton v. 29 Based on evidence that the road had become impassable and was closed by wire shortly after the relevant time period, the Court of Appeals suggested that the trial court “could have doubted that the road was used as extensively as testified to by defendant’s witnesses.” Id. at 1328-29. 82 Irish, 218 P. 1053 (Mont. 1923), the Montana Supreme Court reversed, as “not supported by the evidence,” a trial court ruling that an R.S. 2477 highway existed, where two witnesses testified to use of a “road or trail along the creek,” which they used “perhaps ‘once a year, twice a year, three times; not over that; maybe some years not at all.’” Id. at 1055, 1054. See also Hamerly v. Denton, 359 P.2d 121, 125 (Alaska 1961) (acceptance not established by infrequent and sporadic use, by sightseers, hunters, and trappers, of a dead-end road running into wild, unenclosed, and uncultivated land); State ex rel. Dansie v. Nolan, 191 P. 150, 152 (Mont. 1920) (“It is inconceivable that it was the intention of Congress and of the Legislature to say that two or more persons crossing at random on each of a dozen trails . . . could constitute an acceptance of the government grant as to each of such trails . . . .”); Town of Rolling v. Emrich, 99 N.W. 464, 465 (Wis. 1904) (rejecting R.S. 2477 claim on the basis of “a few months’ desultory use by a few persons of a logging road or trail through the woods, with no acts by the public authorities of any kind”).
The BLM and SUWA argue that mere public use cannot suffice to establish an R.S. 2477 right of way. Instead, following the BLM administrative determinations in this case, they contend that R.S. 2477 requires that “[s]ome form of mechanical construction must have occurred to construct or improve the 83 highway.” BLM R.S. 2477 Administrative Determination(s) – San Juan County Claims at 5, Aplt. App. Vol. 1 at 249 (“San Juan Admin. Det.”); Garfield Admin. Det. at 4, Aplt. App. Vol. 2 at 307; see also Kane Admin. Det. at 5, Aplt. App. Vol. 2 at 371. “A highway right-of-way cannot be established by haphazard, unintentional, or incomplete actions. For example, the mere passage of vehicles across the land, in the absence of any other evidence, is not sufficient to meet the construction criteria of R.S. 2477 and to establish that a highway right-of-way was granted.” “Evidence of actual construction may include such things as road construction or maintenance records, aerial photography depicting characteristics of physical construction, physical evidence of construction, testimony or affidavits affirming that construction occurred, official United States Government maps with legends showing types of roads, as well as other kinds of information.” Id. The BLM and SUWA cite no pre-1976 authority for this interpretation of R.S. 2477, and we are aware of none. No judicial or administrative interpretation of the statute, prior to its repeal, ever treated “mechanical construction” as a prerequisite to acceptance of the grant of an R.S. 2477 right of way. The standard has no support in the common law, which, as we have noted, 30 formed the statutory backdrop for R.S. 2477. In no state was mechanical construction of a 30 See pages 54-60 above. 84 highway deemed necessary for acceptance of a public right of way. Even the BLM took the opposite position not long ago. See BLM Manual 2801, Rel. 2-263, 2801.48B1b (March 8, 1989), reprinted in 1993 D.O.I. Report to Congress, App. II, Exh. M (“passage of vehicles by users over time may equal construction”). The Utah Supreme Court has recognized the validity of an R.S. 2477 claim despite the fact that the road in question “has never been maintained at public expense,” and without any mention of evidence of construction. Boyer v. Clark, 326 P.2d 107, 108 (Utah 1958). In other cases recognizing R.S. 2477 rights of way, the Utah Supreme Court noted construction that had been done on the roads, but only as evidence contributing to the general conclusion of sufficient public use, and without treating the issue of construction as legally significant. Lindsay Land & Live Stock Co. v. Churnos, 285 P. 646, 647 (Utah 1929) (“At times bridges were built and short dugways constructed by persons directly interested, but it does not appear that any public money was ever expended to maintain or repair the road.”); Jeremy v. Bertagnole, 116 P.2d 420, 421 (Utah 1941) (calling the road “well traveled, worked, and defined”). Similarly, in Hughes v. Veal, 114 P. 1081, 1083 (Kan. 1911), the court noted that “work has been done on the road by those in charge of the highways in that locality,” but in determining that the right of way had been accepted by the public, the court “rest[ed] the decision” on 85 “the concurring acceptance of the officers and the public itself at and shortly after the location of the road.” The few decisions in which a construction standard is discussed rejected it. In Nicolas v. Grassle, 267 P. 196, 197 (Colo. 1928), the Colorado Supreme Court held: The district court . . . thought the word ‘construction’ in the congressional grant required that, to constitute an acceptance, work must be done on the road. We do not think so. The purpose of the act was to give every settler, however unable to build a road, lawful access to whatever land he chose to enter. If access is feasible without work with pick and shovel no such work is necessary, and it would be a mistake to hold that action by any governmental authority is required. In Wilkenson v. Dep’t of Interior, 634 F. Supp. 1265, 1272 (D. Colo. 1986), the federal district court stated: The defendants cite the rule of statutory construction that all words in a statute must be given effect, and argue that for the grant to be accepted, this rule requires that there be actual ‘construction,’ meaning ‘more than mere use’ of a highway. However, in Colorado, mere use is sufficient. [T]he statute is an express dedication of a right of way for roads over unappropriated government lands, acceptance of which by the public results from ‘use by those for whom it was necessary or convenient.’ It is not required that ‘work’ shall be done on such a road, or that public authorities shall take action in the premises. User is the requisite element, and it may be by any who have occasion to travel over public lands, and if the use be by only one, still it suffices. 86 (quoting Leach v. Manhart, 77 P.2d 652, 653 (Colo. 1938)); accord, Barker v. County of La Plata, 49 F.Supp.2d 1203, 1214 (D. Colo. 1999). See also Wallowa County v. Wade, 72 P. 793, 794 (Or. 1903) (affirming R.S. 2477 claim despite the servient landowner’s showing that “the road over the land inclosed by him had never been worked or improved by the county authorities, or under their direction”); Fitzgerald v. Puddicombe, 918 P.2d 1017, 1020 (Alaska 1996) (“[n]or does the route need to be significantly developed to qualify as a ‘highway’ for RS 2477 purposes”); Ball v. Stephens, 158 P.2d 207, 209 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 1945) (recognizing R.S. 2477 right of way even though “it was never improved or maintained by the county”). Consistent with our conclusion that acceptance of the grant of R.S. 2477 rights of way is governed by long-standing principles of state law and common law, we cannot accept the argument that mechanical construction is necessary to an R.S. 2477 claim. Adoption of the “mechanical construction” criterion would alter over a century of judicial and administrative interpretation. This is not to say that evidence of construction is irrelevant. Construction or repair at public expense has sometimes been treated as a substitute for public use, 31 as shortening 31 Memmott v. Anderson, 642 P.2d 750, 753 (Utah 1982); see Streeter v. Stalnaker, 85 N.W. 47, 48 (Neb. 1901) (“In this case there was not only evidence of user, general and long continued, but also proof that the public authorities had assumed control over the road, and had worked and improved a portion of it. (continued...) 87 the period of public use necessary for establishing acceptance, 32 or as evidence of public use or lack thereof. 33 Thus, although there are no Utah cases directly on point, we hold that evidence of actual construction (appropriate to the historical period in question), or lack thereof, can be taken into consideration as evidence of the required extent of public use, though it is not a necessary or sufficient 31 (...continued) Both facts were competent evidence tending to show an acceptance of a dedication.”); Moulton v. Irish, 218 P. 1053, 1055 (Mont. 1923) (finding no evidence “to establish the construction of a road or its continuous use by the public over a definite and fixed course”) (emphasis added); Wilson v. Williams, 87 P.2d 683, 685 (N.M. 1939) (“Generally the construction of a highway or establishment thereof by public user is sufficient.”); Town of Rolling v. Emrich, 99 N.W. 464, 465 (Wis. 1904) (acceptance of R.S. 2477 right of way could be “by county authorities by surveying, platting, and marking out a road,” or by 20 years’ use by the public); Roberts v. Swim, 784 P.2d 339, 342-43, 346 (Idaho Ct. App. 1989) (right of way could be established under state law by prescriptive easement on the basis of “open, notorious, continuous, uninterrupted use” for five years, or as a public highway by public maintenance and use for five years). 32 In Washington, the period of public use necessary for acceptance of an R.S. 2477 right of way was seven years where the road was “worked and kept up at the expense of the public,” and ten years otherwise. Stofferan v. Okanogan County, 136 P. 484, 487 (Wash. 1913). 33 In the course of rejecting an R.S. 2477 claim, the Wisconsin Supreme Court noted that “there was no proof of any expenditure of public funds thereon, or of any working of the same by highway officials.” Town of Rolling v. Emrich, 99 N.W. 464, 465 (Wis. 1904). See also Simon v. Pettit, 687 P.2d 1299, 1303 (Colo. 1984) (“evidence that the city had maintained the footpaths or included them on a map of the city’s street system would be a strong indication that the paths had acquired a status as public highways”); Hatch Bros. Co. v. Black, 165 P. 518, 520 (Wyo. 1917) (noting that “those using the road had done considerable work thereon by making dugways, constructing bridges, etc.; one witness testifying that he had spent about $500 on it about 1891”) superseded by statute as noted in Yeager v. Forbes, 78 P.3d 241, 255 (Wyo. 2003). 88 element. This case does not raise the question, and we do not decide, whether a road officially laid out or erected for public use by state or local governmental authority, prior to repeal of R.S. 2477, would qualify as a highway without proof of ten years’ continuous public use. See Utah Code Ann. Sec. 72-1-102(7) (West 2004). The BLM and SUWA defend their proposed “mechanical construction” standard primarily as dictated by the “plain meaning” of R.S. 2477, which grants the rights of way for the “construction” of highways. The BLM quotes the definition of “construction” from an 1860 edition of Webster’s Dictionary as “[t]he act of building, or of devising and forming, fabrication.” BLM Br. 48. SUWA quotes a similar definition from an 1865 edition of Webster’s as: 1. The act of construction; the act of building, or of devising and forming; fabrication; composition. 2. The manner of putting together the parts of any thing so as to give to the whole its peculiar form; structure; conformation. SUWA Br. 21. That same dictionary supplies these synonyms: to “build; erect; form; make; originate; invent; fabricate.” Id. We are not persuaded. First, it would take more semantic chutzpah than we can muster to assert that a word used by Congress in 1866 has a “plain meaning” that went undiscerned by courts and executive officers for over 100 years. But even confining ourselves to the quoted dictionary definitions of “construction,” 89 we are left with a wide range of meanings, including “build,” “form,” and “make.” If nineteenth-century pioneers made a road across the wilderness by repeated use—the so-called “beaten path”—this would fall squarely within the scope of the quoted definition. Such a road would be “formed” and “made” even if no mechanical means were employed. See Cent. Pac. Ry. Co. v. Alameda County, 284 U.S. 463, 467 (1932) (referring to R.S. 2477 roads originally “formed by the passage of wagons, etc., over the natural soil”) (emphasis added); Wallowa County v. Wade, 72 P. 793 (Or. 1903) (“all this time [the road] has been a plain, open, well-beaten track”). Moreover, we must not forget that R.S. 2477 was enacted against a backdrop of a well-developed common law of highways. Early interpreters naturally assumed that its terms should be read in light of the common law concepts of dedication and acceptance. Thus, courts would speak of a highway being “definitely established and constructed in some one of the ways authorized by the laws of the state in which the land is situated,” including having been “used or traveled by the people generally for the period named in the statutes of limitation.” State ex rel. Dansie v. Nolan, 191 P. 150, 152, 153 (Mont. 1920) (emphasis added and citation and quotations omitted). In addition to their “plain language” argument, the BLM and SUWA seek support in Bear Lake & River Waterworks & Irrigation Co. v. Garland, 164 U.S. 1, (1896), which addressed the meaning of the term “construction” in a different 90 section of the same statute that contained R.S. 2477. That section dealt with grants of rights of way for “the construction . . . of ditches.” Id. at 17 (quoting Act of July 26, 1866, Ch. 262, § 9, 14 Stat. 251, 253 (later codified as R.S. 2339)). In Bear Lake, the Court held that no right of way vests against the government “from the mere fact of such possession, unaccompanied by the performance of any labor thereon. . . . It is the doing of the work, the completion of the well, or the digging of the ditch . . . that gives the right to use the water in the well, or the right of way for the ditches of the canal upon or through the public land.” 164 U.S. at 18-19. The BLM and SUWA argue that the same word, “construction,” must be given the same meaning in two sections of what was originally the same statute. Again, we are unpersuaded. The dispute in Bear Lake was over which of two creditors had priority with respect to a canal owned by the debtor: the canal construction company, which had a lien on the product of its labors, or the mortgage company, which held a lien on the debtor’s real property. The outcome turned on whether the debtor acquired title to the canal property when it began the project (in which case the mortgage company would prevail), or upon completion of the canal (in which case the construction company enjoyed a priority). The Court held that title did not vest until the canal had been dug, just as an R.S. 2477 right of way does not vest until the road is formed, by user or otherwise. The type 91 or degree of work expended on the ditch was immaterial to the decision. It so happens that canals, unlike roads, cannot be created by mere use, so the question with which we are concerned could not arise in Bear Lake. 34 SUWA also points to a number of instances in which the Utah legislature appropriated funds for the construction of roads, specifying work that included surveying, cleaning, grading, ditching, macadamizing, and so forth. But that some roads were built to a higher level of engineering specifications does not mean that other roads, formed by repeated use, were not “constructed.” 35 SUWA supplements its argument that “construction” must refer to “resource-intensive construction,” SUWA Br. 28, by reference to the probable intention of Congress in granting rights of way for highways. According to SUWA, Congress enacted R.S. 2477 “to spur investment in and development of internal improvements” by “grant[ing] a permanent right-of-way in exchange for the ‘construction’ of highways.” Id. at 33. “Like other land-grant statutes, R.S. 34 The same is true of the construction of railroads. See Jamestown & N. R.R. Co. v. Jones, 177 U.S. 125, 132 (1900) (holding that railroad right of way under the Act of March 3, 1875, ch. 152, 18 Stat. 482, vested upon “actual construction” of the road). 35 SUWA quotes this Court’s Hodel decision to the effect that “‘[c]onstruction’ indisputably does not include the beaten path.” SUWA Br. 24 (quoting Hodel, 848 F.2d at 1080). SUWA neglects to note that the quotation is from the Hodel court’s summary of the position of the Sierra Club in the case, a position which was not adopted by the Court. 92 2477 provided an incentive and reward for the expenditure required to construct a highway.” Id. at 28. The trouble with this theory is that those who made the investment in the road did not receive any rights to it; R.S. 2477 rights of way are owned by the public and not by the individuals who “constructed” the highways. A more probable intention of Congress was to ensure that widely used routes would remain open to the public even after homesteaders or other land claimants obtained title to the land over which the public traveled. That explanation of congressional intent is more consistent with the common law interpretation than with the Appellees’ proposed substitute. We must not project twenty-first (or twentieth) century notions of “mechanical construction” onto an 1866 statute. Historical records of early southern Utah road “construction” indicate that work was performed as economically as possible: if wagons could be conveyed across the land without altering the topography, there was no need for more extensive construction work. Typically, little more was done than move boulders, clear underbrush or trees, or dig the occasional crude dugway. See Jay M. Haymond, A Survey of the History of the Road Construction Industry in Utah 2 (1967) (unpublished M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University) (on file with the University of Utah Marriott Library) (“road building in the early days consisted only of removing rocks and stumps and filling in holes”). This is one reason an early court rejected the argument that 93 “work must be done on the road” to constitute acceptance of an R.S. 2477 grant. Nicolas v. Grassle, 267 P. 196, 197 (Colo. 1928). “If access is feasible without work with pick and shovel no such work is necessary, and it would be a mistake to hold that action by any governmental authority is required.” Id. See also Ball v. Stephens, 158 P.2d 207, 210 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 1945) (the disputed route “came to be a road by means of being used as a road and in the same fashion that many other mountain roads have come into existence”); id. at 211 (the land “is somewhat flat and vehicles could be and were driven across it without the necessity of road construction”). Surely Congress did not require mechanical construction where no construction was needed. The necessary extent of “construction” would be the construction necessary to enable the general public to use the route for its intended purposes. For this reason, we are skeptical that there is much difference, in practice, between a “construction” standard (if applied in light of contemporary conditions) and the traditional legal standard of continuous public use. If a particular route sustained substantial use by the general public over the necessary period of time, one of two things must be true: either no mechanical construction was necessary, or any necessary construction must have taken place. It is hard to imagine how a road sufficient to meet the user standard could fail to satisfy a realistic standard of construction. Thus, we do not necessarily disagree with the BLM’s statement 94 that: A highway right-of-way cannot be established by haphazard, unintentional, or incomplete actions. For example, the mere passage of vehicles across the land, in the absence of any other evidence, is not sufficient to meet the construction criteria of R.S. 2477 and to establish that a highway right-of-way was granted. Aplt. App. Vol. 1 at 249; Aplt. App. Vol. 2 at 307, 452. The standard for acceptance of an R.S. 2477 right of way in Utah is “continued use of the road by the public for such length of time and under such circumstances as to clearly indicate an intention on the part of the public to accept the grant.” Lindsay Land & Live Stock Co. v. Churnos, 285 P. 646, 648 (Utah 1929). As the precedents in Utah and other states demonstrate, a road may be created intentionally, by continued public use, without record evidence of what the BLM defines as “mechanical construction.” Such action is not haphazard, unintentional, or incomplete, though it might lack centralized direction; and the legal standard is not satisfied “merely” by evidence that vehicles may have passed over the land at some time in the past. That is a caricature of the common law standard. Indeed, contrary to the apparent assumptions of the parties, it is quite possible for R.S. 2477 claims to pass the BLM’s “mechanical construction” standard but to fail the common law test of continuous public use. See Town of Rolling v. Emrich, 99 N.W. 464, 464 (Wis. 1904) (rejecting R.S. 2477 claim despite evidence that two men “cut out a road . . . through the 80 acres in question 95 to haul logs upon”); Roediger v. Cullen, 175 P.2d 669, 674, 677 (Wash. 1946) (rejecting R.S. 2477 claim despite evidence of construction and repair by members of the community). For example, according to the BLM administrative decision, San Juan County route 507, in the Hart’s Point area, shows signs of mechanical construction: bulldozer grouser marks, berms, pushed trees and debris, and cut banks, San Juan Admin. Det. at 11-12, Aplt. App. Vol. 1 at 255-56; and a witness testified that the road was constructed by mining companies in the 1950s, using bulldozers, for the purpose of accessing seismic lines. Id. at 11, 16. Yet the BLM found that “the use of this route by the public has been at most sporadic and infrequent.” Id. 18. 36 The record indicates that the same may be true of others of the contested routes. Large parts of southern Utah are crisscrossed by old mining and logging roads constructed for a particular purpose and used for a limited period of time, but not by the general public. Thus, we cannot agree with Appellees’ argument that a “mechanical construction” standard is necessary to avoid recognition of “a multitude of property claims far beyond the scope of Congress’s express grant in R.S. 2477.” SUWA Br. 39. The common law standard of user, which takes evidence of construction into consideration along with other evidence of use by the general public, seems better calculated to 36 We make these observations regarding route 507 for purposes of illustration only, and without prejudice to the district court’s factfinding on remand. 96 distinguish between rights of way genuinely accepted through continual public use over a lengthy period of time, and routes which, though mechanically constructed (at least in part), served limited purposes for limited periods of time, and never formed part of the public transportation system. We therefore see no persuasive reason not to follow the established common law and state law interpretation of the establishment of R.S. 2477 rights of way.
R.S. 2477 grants “the right of way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses.” At common law the term “highway” was a broad term encompassing all sorts of rights of way for public travel. In his magisterial Commentaries on American Law, Chancellor James Kent wrote that “Every thoroughfare which is used by the public, and is, in the language of the English books, ‘common to all the king’s subjects,’ is a highway, whether it be a carriage-way, a horse-way, a foot-way, or a navigable river.” James Kent, 3 Commentaries on American Law 572-73,  (10th ed. 1860). Accord, Isaac Grant Thompson, A Practical Treatise on the Law of Highways 1 (1868) (“A highway is a way over which the public at large have a right of passage, whether it be a carriage way, a horse way, a foot way, or a navigable river”); Joseph K. Angell & Thomas Durfee, A Treatise on the Law of Highways 3-4 (2d ed. 1868) 97 (“Highways are of various kinds, according to the state of civilization and wealth of the country through which they are constructed, and according to the nature and extent of the traffic to be carried on upon them, – from the rude paths of the aboriginal people, carried in direct lines over the natural surface of the country, passable only by passengers or pack-horses, to the comparatively perfect modern thoroughfare.”). The Department of the Interior expressly adopted this interpretation in a decision in 1902: The grant of right of way by Section 2477, R. S., is not restricted to those which permit passage of broad, or of wheeled, vehicles, or yet to highways made, owned, or maintained by the public. Highways are the means of communication and of commerce. The more difficult and rugged is the country, the greater is their necessity and the more reason exists to encourage and aid their construction. The Pasadena and Mt. Wilson Toll Road Co. v. Schneider, 31 Pub. Lands Dec. 405, 407-408 (1902). Under traditional interpretations, therefore, the term “highway” is congruent with and does not restrict the “continuous public use” standard: any route that satisfies the user requirement is, by definition, a “highway.” The BLM and SUWA urge us to adopt a more restrictive definition. In its administrative determinations in this case, the BLM offered the following definition of the statutory term “highways”: A highway is a thoroughfare used by the public for the passage of 98 vehicles carrying people and goods from place to place (BLM Instruction Memorandum No. UT 98-56). The claimed highway right-of-way must be public in nature and must have served as a highway when the underlying public lands were available for R.S. 2477 purposes. It is unlikely that a route used by a single entity or used only a few times would qualify as a highway, since the route must have an open public nature and uses. Similarly, a highway connects the public with identifiable destinations or places. The route should lead vehicles somewhere, but it is not required that the route connect to cities. For example, a highway can allow public access to a scenic area, a trail head, a business, or other place used by and open to the public. Routes that do not lead to an identifiable destination are unlikely to qualify. San Juan Admin. Det. at 5, Aplt. App. Vol. 1 at 249; see also Garfield Admin. Det. at 5, Aplt. App. Vol. 2 at 308; Kane Admin. Det. at 5, Aplt. App. Vol. 2 at 371. The district court found this interpretation by the BLM “to be both reasonable and persuasive” and concluded that “BLM did not err in its interpretation of the term ‘highways’ in R.S. 2477.” 147 F.Supp.2d at 1143-44. For purposes of this case, we need not consider the broader implications of the common law definition, because this case involves exclusively claims for roads appropriate to vehicular use. 37 Moreover, there is no disagreement regarding the BLM’s holding that “[t]he claimed highway right-of-way must be public in nature” and that “[i]t is unlikely that a route used by a single entity or used only a few times would qualify as a highway, since the route must have an 37 The Counties stated at oral argument that they were limiting their claims to routes appropriate for vehicles. 99 open public nature and uses.” That is simply a restatement of the “continuous public use” requirement of Utah law. The parties disagree, however, over whether R.S. 2477 routes are limited to roads that lead to “identifiable destinations or places.” Cases interpreting R.S. 2477, and analogous cases involving claims to public easements across private land under state law, occasionally refer to a lack of identifiable destinations as one factor bearing on the ultimate question of continuous public use. For example, in finding a valid R.S. 2477 right of way in Lindsay Land & Live Stock Co., the Utah Supreme Court noted that the “road connected two points between which there was occasion for considerable public travel,” 285 P. at 648, while in Moulton v. Irish, 218 P. at 1055, the Montana Supreme Court noted as one reason to reject an R.S. 2477 claim the fact that the road “did not lead to any town, settlement, post office, or home.” See also Dillingham Commercial Co., 705 P.2d at 414 (“a right of way created by public user pursuant to 43 U.S.C. § 932 connotes definite termini”). It is far from clear that this factor has much practical significance. None of the contested rights of way were rejected by the BLM solely on the basis of a lack of identifiable destinations. It is hard to imagine a road satisfying the “continuous public use” requirement that did not “lead anywhere.” Moreover, given the BLM’s concession that “a highway can allow public access to a scenic 100 area, a trail head, a business, or other place used by and open to the public,” it is hard to imagine much of a road that would not satisfy the standard. We therefore hold that, on remand, the district court should consider evidence regarding identifiable destinations as part of its overall determination of whether a contested route satisfies the requirements under state law for recognition as a valid R.S. 2477 claim.
R.S. 2477 rights of way may be established only over lands that are “not reserved for public uses.” The BLM determined that a 1910 coal withdrawal “reserved for public use” over 5.8 million acres of land in Utah, including land over which Garfield County claimed three rights of way. Garfield Admin. Det. at 9, 19, 32, and 38, Aplt. App. Vol. 2 at 312, 322, 335, and 341. It therefore invalidated those rights of way on the ground that they were not established “at a time when the lands were open for establishment of a claim under R.S. 2477.” Id. at 32. The district court affirmed. We must decide whether the coal withdrawal constitutes a “reserv[ation] for public use” under R.S. 2477. The text of the coal withdrawal states: “[S]ubject to all of the provisions, limitations, exceptions, and conditions contained in [the Pickett Act and the Coal Lands Act], there is hereby withdrawn from settlement, location, sale or entry, and reserved for classification and appraisement with respect to coal values all of those certain lands of the United States . . . described as 101 follows: [describing over 5.8 million acres of land in Utah].” a. Why the 1910 Coal Withdrawal was not a “reservation” It is important to note at the outset that “withdrawal” and “reservation” are not synonymous terms. Although Congress and the Supreme Court have occasionally used the terms interchangeably, see 1 American Law of Mining § 14.01 n.1 (2d ed. 2004), that does not eliminate their distinct meaning. A withdrawal makes land unavailable for certain kinds of private appropriation under the public land laws. Charles F. Wheatley, Jr., II Study of Withdrawals and Reservations of Public Domain Lands A-1 (1969) (report to Public Land Law Review Commission). Just as Congress, pursuant to its authority under the Property Clause, can pass laws opening the public lands to private settlement, so also it can remove the public lands from the operation of those same laws. That is what a withdrawal does. It temporarily suspends the operation of some or all of the public land laws, preserving the status quo while Congress or the executive decides on the ultimate disposition of the subject lands. Id. A reservation, on the other hand, goes a step further: it not only withdraws the land from the operation of the public land laws, but also dedicates the land to a particular public use. As the first edition of Black’s Law Dictionary defines it: “In public land laws of the United States, a reservation is a tract of land, more or 102 less considerable in extent, which is by public authority withdrawn from sale or settlement, and appropriated to specific public uses; such as parks, military posts, Indian lands, etc.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1031 (1st ed. 1891). Thus, a reservation necessarily includes a withdrawal; but it also goes a step further, effecting a dedication of the land “to specific public uses.” See also 63C Am. Jur. 2d Public Lands § 31 (2005) (“Public land is withdrawn when the government withholds an area of federal land from settlement, sale, location, or entry under some or all of the general land laws in order to limit activities. . . . ‘Reserved’ lands have been expressly withdrawn from the public domain by statute, executive order, or treaty and dedicated as a park, military post, or Native American land or for some other specific federal use.”) (footnotes omitted). The text of R.S. 2477 reinforces this point by requiring not merely that the land be “reserved,” but that it be reserved “for public uses.” The text of the Coal Lands Act of 1910, subject to which President Taft issued the 1910 coal withdrawal, adheres to this distinction. The Act applied to all “[u]nreserved public lands . . . which have been withdrawn or classified as coal lands.” 30 U.S.C. § 83. The use of the phrase, “unreserved public lands which have been withdrawn,” indicates that lands could be “withdrawn” or classified as coal lands under the 1910 act and yet remain “unreserved.” Turning to the text of the withdrawal, we read that the subject lands were 103 “withdrawn from settlement, location, sale or entry, and reserved for classification and appraisement with respect to coal values.” On its face, “withdrawn . . . and reserved” sounds like a reservation. But just because a withdrawal uses the term “reserved” does not mean that it reserves land “for public uses.” We must decide whether “reserved for classification and appraisement with respect to coal values” is equivalent to “reserved for public uses.” We conclude that it is not. As noted above, land is “reserved” when it is dedicated to a specific public purpose. This is not what the coal withdrawal did. Instead, the coal withdrawal narrowly, and temporarily, removed potential coal lands from certain kinds of private appropriation. This is evident from its historical context. In the early 1900s, the nation confronted a coal shortage which coincided with the discovery of “widespread fraud in the administration of federal coal lands.” Amoco Prod. Co. v. S. Ute Indian Tribe, 526 U.S. 865, 868 (1999). Unscrupulous characters would obtain land under other pretenses, only to use the land for coal mining without having to pay for the real value. Due to a lack of funding, the Department of the Interior had to rely on affidavits of entrymen to determine whether lands were valuable for coal or not. This allowed railroads and other coal interests to obtain vast tracts of coal lands under railroad and agricultural grants for a nominal price. President Roosevelt “responded to the 104 perceived crisis by withdrawing 64 million acres of public land thought to contain coal from disposition under the public land laws.” Id. at 869. This gave the United States an opportunity “to reexamine and reclassify lands which it thought might have exceptional value, thus preventing them from being disposed of at a price which took no account of that value.” Confederated Bands of Ute Indians v. United States, 1948 WL 5025,  (Ct. Cl. 1948) (unpublished). President Roosevelt’s order did not, however, reserve the withdrawn lands for a public use. As a 1924 Department of the Interior decision explained: “Temporary withdrawals made prior to . . . classification or reservation merely for the purpose of withholding the land from further disposition under the public land laws until further investigation has been made and a decision arrived at as to the character of the land and its chief value, have no effect as raising any presumption as to the character of the land, nor do they dedicate it to any special purpose or reserve it for any special form of disposal.” George G. Frandsen, 50 Pub. Lands Dec. 516, 520 (1924). President Roosevelt’s broad withdrawal outraged homesteaders and other western interests, as even those homesteaders who had made a valid entry lost the opportunity to obtain a patent unless they could prove that the land was not valuable for coal. Amoco Prod., 526 U.S. at 869. Congress thus crafted a compromise with the Coal Lands Acts of 1909 and 1910. The 1909 Act protected 105 the rights of homesteaders who had entered coal lands prior to President Roosevelt’s 1906 withdrawal. It authorized the federal government to issue patents for those lands, subject to “a reservation to the United States of all coal in said lands.” 30 U.S.C. § 81. The 1910 Act opened the remaining coal lands to entry under the homestead laws, subject to the same reservation of coal to the United States. See 30 U.S.C. § 83; Amoco Prod., 526 U.S. at 870. Taken together, these acts achieved “a narrow reservation of the [coal] resource that would address the exigencies of the crisis at hand without unduly burdening the rights of homesteaders or impeding the settlement of the West.” Amoco Prod., 526 U.S. at 875. Thus, not only were the lands subject to the coal withdrawal not “reserved” for any particular “public use”; they remained open to settlement, sale, and entry under several important public land laws, including the homestead laws, the desert-land law, and certain mining laws. See Act of June 22, 1910, ch. 318, 36 Stat. 583 (providing that “unreserved public lands . . . which have been withdrawn or classified as coal lands . . . shall be subject to appropriate entry under the homestead laws . . . [and] the desert-land law, to selection under . . . the Carey Act, and to withdrawal under . . . the Reclamation Act”). 38 Because the 38 President Taft issued the 1910 coal withdrawal “subject to all of the provisions, limitations, exceptions, and conditions contained in [the Pickett Act (continued...) 106 lands subject to the coal withdrawal were “public lands, not reserved for public uses,” they were available for establishment of rights of way under R.S. 2477. Indeed, because R.S. 2477 provided one of the most important means of establishing access to homestead, desert-land, and mining claims, it would make little sense for Congress to open public lands to private claims but forbid settlers to construct highways to access those claims. As the BLM argued in prior litigation, in response to the argument that withdrawals under the Taylor Act in the 1930s precluded the establishment of R.S. 2477 rights of way: R.S. 2477 was essentially the only authority by which highways could be established across public lands by state and local governments. . . . The Congress and the Department of the Interior in the 1930’s were well aware of the distinction between opening lands to possible disposition through patent as opposed to the mere creation of an easement in state and local governments. Common sense also tells us that Congress would not have intended to leave no legal means for state and local governments to acquire highways across vast areas of the west. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, IBLA 90-375, Answer of the Bureau of Land 38 (...continued) and the Coal Lands Act].” The Pickett Act limited the effect of withdrawals on certain of the mining laws, providing that withdrawals would not limit “exploration, discovery, occupation, and purchase under the mining laws of the United States, so far as the same apply to metalliferous minerals.” Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 421, 36 Stat. 847, as amended, Act of August 24, 1912, ch. 369, 37 Stat. 497. In other words, lands withdrawn under the Pickett Act remained subject to the mining laws insofar as they applied to metalliferous minerals, such as aluminum, copper, gold, iron, lead, nickel, silver, and zinc. 107 Management to Additional Statement of Reasons of Appellants, at 6 (1990). Common sense also tells us in this case that the narrow 1910 coal withdrawal, which permitted widespread settlement under the homestead, desert-land, and mining laws, was not meant to cut off the right to establish access to those claims. b. Humboldt County v. United States The BLM seeks support for its position from the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Humboldt County v. United States, 684 F.2d 1276 (9th Cir. 1982). In that case, Humboldt County asserted an R.S. 2477 right of way over land withdrawn under Executive Order No. 6910, issued in 1934, which withdrew “from settlement, location, sale or entry, and reserved for classification” all of the vacant, unreserved, and unappropriated public land in twelve western states, including Nevada (in which Humboldt County lies) and Utah. See Executive Withdrawal Order, 55 I.D. 205, 207 (1935). The Ninth Circuit focused its attention on what it saw as the “crucial language” in R.S. 2477: the phrase “public lands.” 684 F.2d at 1281. It then reasoned syllogistically: (1) “public lands” are lands “subject to sale or other disposal under general laws”; (2) lands subject to Executive Order No. 6910 were “not subject to sale or disposition”; (3) therefore, lands subject to Executive Order 6910 were “not ‘public lands.’” Id. We find this argument based on Humboldt unpersuasive for several reasons. First, neither the BLM nor SUWA has argued that the lands subject to the 1910 108 coal withdrawal were not “public lands” for purposes of R.S. 2477. Instead, they have argued that the coal withdrawal “reserved [the lands] for public uses.” Humboldt says nothing about whether withdrawals “reserve” land for public use; it therefore provides little, if any, support for the Appellees’ position. Moreover, even if the analysis underlying Humboldt were applied to lands subject to the coal withdrawal, it would not lead to the same conclusion. For, according to Humboldt, lands are “public” if they are “subject to sale or other disposal under general laws.” Id. And lands covered by the coal withdrawal remained subject to sale and disposition under the homestead and desert-land laws, as well as under the metalliferous mining laws. Thus, on Humboldt’s own terms, lands subject to the coal withdrawal are “public lands” available for establishment of rights of way under R.S. 2477. 39 39 Because the 1910 coal withdrawal, unlike Executive Order No. 6910, left the affected lands open to settlement, the Ninth Circuit’s Humboldt decision is distinguishable on its own terms. But there is a further complication. The Ninth Circuit appears not to have noticed that President Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6910 “subject to the conditions . . . expressed [in the Pickett Act].” Executive Withdrawal Order, 55 I.D. at 207. One of those conditions is that “all lands withdrawn under the provisions of this Act shall at all times be open to exploration, discovery, occupation, and purchase, under the mining laws of the United States, so far as the same apply to metalliferous minerals.” Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 421, 36 Stat. 847, as amended, Act of August 24, 1912, ch. 369, 37 Stat. 497. In other words, lands withdrawn under Executive Order No. 6910 remained open to sale and disposition under the mining laws insofar as those laws applied to metalliferous minerals (minerals such as aluminum, copper, gold, iron, lead, nickel, silver, and zinc). See also 1 American Law of Mining § (continued...) 109 Finally, it is worth pointing out that in prior litigation the BLM itself has rejected Humboldt. In a 1990 appeal before the Interior Board of Land Appeals, the BLM denounced the “convoluted argument that the public lands in the west were withdrawn from the operation of R.S. 2477 by Executive Order No. 6910.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, IBLA 90-375, Answer of the Bureau of Land Management to Additional Statement of Reasons of Appellants, at 3 (1990). It concluded that “Executive Order 6910 was in no way intended to withdraw the public lands from the operation of R.S. 2477.” Id. at 6; see also BLM Manual 2801 – Rights of Way Management (stating that “Executive Order[] 6910 . . . [is] not considered to have removed public lands from unreserved status.”). The BLM argued that “[t]he Department has operated in a manner inconsistent with [this] interpretation [of Executive Order No. 6910] for more than 50 years,” and that such a “legalistic” interpretation of the Order “should not be adopted at this late date.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, IBLA 90-375, Answer of the Bureau of Land Management to Additional Statement of Reasons of Appellants, at 5 (1990). If our already strong reasons for rejecting Humboldt were not enough, we 39 (...continued) 14.02[1][a][iv] (2d ed. 2004) (“Since the Order [No. 6910] was based on the Pickett Act, the withdrawn lands were open to location . . . of metalliferous minerals and to mineral leasing.”). Because the Ninth Circuit did not address this aspect of Executive Order No. 6910, we do not know how it squares with that Court’s legal analysis of what constitutes “public lands.” 110 would be loath to overturn 50 years of BLM interpretation by accepting its novel argument here. In sum, we conclude that the 1910 coal withdrawal was not a “reservation” for purposes of R.S. 2477. The withdrawal did not dedicate the subject lands to a specific “public use,” but instead left the land open to private appropriation, while withholding it from appropriation as a coal resource.