Free Land Holders have started fencing off an estimated 1,460 acres near Chicken Creek outside Mancos that they say belongs to them, not the U.S. Forest Service.
Wednesday afternoon during a meeting with Montezuma County Sheriff Steven Nowlin, they agreed to stop fence construction until the matter is settled in light of community concern.
Sometime last week, they began putting up a fence around the area to claim it as theirs as Free Land Holders and members of the Republic under treaties and agreements dating to the late 1800s.
Patrick-Leroy:Pipkin, an ambassador and Free Land Holder, said his great-grandfather is William Hyde.
“I’m not a new person here in this county,” said Patrick-Leroy:Pipkin. “We started Mancos.”
To alert the public of what they were doing, they posted notices around Mancos and at the Cortez Post Office.
“No existing easements, preexisting mining claims, rights of way, walking paths, bicycle and horse trails, snowmobile trails, waterways, ditches, ditch water easements, ponds or any other surface water rights, shall be blocked, disabled, or otherwise obstructed,” the notice says.
Simply put, what’s going on is a private property rights dispute between members of the group and a U.S. Forest Service boundary line.
Nick Mustoe, the District Ranger in the San Juan National Forest, said they are working through what options they have right now.
To clear the air, Patrick-Leroy Pipkin and 14 other Free Land Holders met with Nowlin, Patrol Lt. Allen Phelps and Undersheriff Tyson Cox at 1 p.m. on Wednesday at the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office.
“Public land is important, just as important as it is for private landowners,” said Nowlin. “I want to see the public has access to the area until this is resolved.”
They have not restricted public access to the area, and said they don’t plan to, either.
“We come in peace,” said Patrick-Leroy:Pipkin, an ambassador and Free Land Holder. “We are here to be in equity and honor.”
“Public perception of the past has sounded some alarms,” said Cox. “We’re trying to put those fires out.”
On social media, there have been several posts expressing concern about the fence and the people putting it up because of stigma of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from the past and the recreation in the area.
“It’s not you – you are not those people,” said Nowlin. “People need to stop.”
To be clear, the group is not associated with FLDS or the Mormon Church.
Nowlin said the group is not dangerous or violent, and they have been cooperative with him and his officers when they went to see what they were doing.
He said people can still recreate in the area as there will be no restricted access to trails or water on that land. To be sure, it’s not at all dangerous to go up there.
“I had someone say to me point-blank, ‘We’re concerned you guys might shoot us,’” said Bryan-Hammon, Free Land Holder.
He said they talked for over an hour and ended the conversation with a handshake.
“We want to build friendship with all our neighbors here,” Hammon said.
They went on to say that they are more than willing to meet with the community and answer any questions they may have about the Free Land Holders Committee.
Kelleen Koppenhafter-Ramsey made a post on Facebook about a plan to “remove fencing tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon at 1 p.m.” with “large equipment and hopefully lots of volunteers.”
The Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office will be there and Nowlin said, “I just hope it doesn’t happen” and said people out to leave it up to the two property owners in dispute.
Community members met to talk about what’s going on at Fenceline Cider in Mancos Wednesday at 7 p.m. to try and get on the same page about the issue.
Undersheriff Tyson Cox and District Ranger Nick Mustoe attended and answered questions from concerned citizens.
People asked how the group was able to put up the fence in the first place, and why the Forest Service or other officials had not forced them to take it down.
The community agreed that their concerns would largely be put to rest if the group was forced to remove the fence until a decision was made in court about who owns the property and what the boundary line truly is.
“Like you, I want this to be resolved,” said Mustoe. “There’s a right way to settle this.”
Mustoe said the Forest Service has to be the ones to file suit over this dispute on what they believe to be National Forest Service land. He also said they’re unable to remove the fence because if their claims are valid, they have legal claim to the land.
“The group that previously owned that property is not the group that’s up there now,” Cox emphasized.
At any rate, the community is, as they put it, “outraged.”
“As the American public, we are owners of this land,” one person said.
“There’s been real damage done and people have been hurt by these actions,” said another.
“I don’t like people stealing our property … that’s theft,” another person said. “It’s our public land.”
In the fencing they put up, the group did leave openings where trails and rights of way were so people could still access it. But the community emphasized that on that land, they didn’t always stay on trail.
One person said they ride horses up there, and had to walk to the length of the fence to find an opening to pass through.
“Now we can’t walk wherever we want, there’s wire.”
Another brought up the issue of wildlife, specifically elk grazing in the area.
They said taking down the fence would be a good message to send if the group intends to be good neighbors, at least until issues are settled in court or otherwise.
“We’ll be good neighbors and help them take it down.”
This article was updated Wednesday to identity leaders of the group as Free Land Holders.
