Characterizes era of land use in southwest Wyoming, northwest Colorado, and northeast Utah over 1850-1990, leading to the contemporary emergence of ‘colonial’ administration: external control of the land and its resources. Conflict began among Indians, trappers, (Mormon) settlers, and miners; featured railroaders and ranchers in the late 19^th century; and in the 20^th century has pit locals (especially land- and water-hungry ranchers and latter-day miners) against progressive conservationists and absolutist environmentalists, the latter two being coastal elites. The locals’ enduring fault has been to settle for get-rich-quick schemes, creating boom-bust cycles. They have also lacked foresight, for example those late 19th-century stockmen who might have bought land for pennies per acre but instead pursued free grazing, partially by ignoring early regulation. The set-asides created by federal legislation in 1891, 1897, 1907, and finally the Taylor Gazing Act of 1934 – Harold Ickes’ ‘magna carta’ of conservation, which claimed 140 million acres plus Indian reservation and much of Alaska for the public domain – solved the tragedy of the commons by establishing Washington’s preeminence, and triggered bureaucratic rivalry: the Bureau of Land Management on behalf outgunned ranchers, the Park Service for John Muir’s environmentalist heirs, and the Forest Service for successors to Gifford Pinchot’s progressives. The blockage of Echo Park dam, a campaign evidencing the influence of Bernard DeVoto and Eastern media, demonstrated the prevalent postwar dynamic. The author acknowledges but ultimately skips past the Reagan-era Sagebrush Rebellion.