Dozens of people from Mancos and the surrounding area headed into the forest Thursday afternoon to remove a fence recently put up by a group called the Free Land Holder Committee.
The fence is on disputed land between the group and the U.S. Forest Service. The Free Land Holder Committee erected it to claim it as their own.
In a matter of a few days, they constructed 4.5 miles of the intended 6.6 miles of fencing, with the end goal of blocking off 1,460 acres near Chicken Creek and claim it as theirs.
https://youtube.com/shorts/37gsy2rnE7w?feature=sharedThey left openings in the fence for thru traffic and made it clear the public still had access, according to proclamations they posted around town.
The Chicken Creek area is a popular recreation area in the San Juan National Forest.
Public access or not, outspoken members of the community made it clear they were outraged by the fence, and they decided to take it down.
“They kicked a hornets nest in our community,” said Tim Hunter, a resident of Mancos and a member of the district Board of Education, who helped remove fencing.
No members of the Free Land group or officials from the San Juan National Forest Service were present.
“The Sheriff does not want to see bloodshed, the Sheriff does not want to see any conflict,” said Bryan-Hammon, a Free Land Holder. “If we went there to defend it, it would escalate it and even worse, someone would get seriously or fatally hurt.”
“So we agreed we will not go up there. We would rather repair a fence down the road than repair all these relationships,” Hammon said.
The Montezuma County Sheriff’s Department was there for some of it, until Sheriff Steve Nowlin left to go to a scheduled community event in Boyle Park at 2 p.m. to answer residents’ questions.
“It’s not illegal to remove it,” said Nowlin. “I can’t do anything about it. I’m here to try and keep the peace and that’s all we’re going to do.”
“I can’t stop anything,” he said.
And though it wasn’t exactly a green light, it wasn’t a red one either, so people started removing the fence.
“This fence is coming down,” said County Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer, who helped remove fence that that cuts across his cattle grazing permit.
Koppenhafer said that land is where they run their cows, and a calf got separated from its mother because of the fence. When that calf loses weight, it costs him money, he said.
“It’s nothin’ but a bunch of garbage,” Koppenhafer said.
“No respectable cattlemen have ever used wire like that,” one of the people said of the barbed wire connecting the posts.
Folks removing the fence were unsure where to put it.
“It’s barbed wire, we can’t just leave it. It’s just as dangerous down as it is up,” said another.
A few residents were there on a whim.
“Fifteen minutes ago, my neighbor pulled up and says, ‘Want to go?’” said Bill Vaughn.
He said, like many, he wasn’t sure whether he should come armed, or whether removing some of the fence would land him in jail.
Others turned out in the name of defending access for recreation because they frequent the area to hike, bike or ride horses.
Several female horseback riders who had ridden up there for some time, and often solo, said they don’t feel safe doing so anymore.
They also said the wider trails with tire tracks on them were not there just a few days before. And if it is Forest Service land, the group that made the trails are subject to fines or imprisonment.
“Why are we not being arrested? Why are we not being kicked off the land?” asked Hammon, a Free Land Holder. “They haven’t arrested us, and they need to be the ones to explain why.”
Hammon told The Journal Thursday in a meeting at Boyle Park in Mancos that the group started building the fence last week, and the Forest Service met them up there with men, guns and a truck that read, “Law Enforcement.”
“Our question is, why are you not arresting us? You got a gun, you’re law enforcement, you’re authorized. So why are you not arresting us? And why are you walking off our claimed lands when we tell you to, and you obey? Isn’t that telling?” he said.
Hammon said there are people in the group from the Stubbs family, and back in 1899, the Stubbs’ homesteaded that land.
After five years of living on it, the president had to sign a land patent title. Signed in 1906, that title gave the Stubbs family right to that land forever, as its “superior land holders,” he said.
“That’s part of why we can build a fence. And that’s why the Forest Service can’t arrest us, cause that land was homesteaded in 1906 signed off by the President of the United States. They can’t supersede that authority,” Hammon said.
Nowlin said it’s a civil dispute between the Free Land Holders and the Forest Service.
“I used to work for the Forest Service. Where the hell are they,” said Ryan Borchers, a resident of the area for 27 years, as he gathered barbed wire. “It’s our land they’re supposed to be protecting.”
“This is why people are so annoyed with government ... in an actual situation, they don’t show up,” said Borchers. “I’m not sure if they’re weak-spined or so caught up in bureaucratic ways they can’t do anything valuable.”
The fence removal at Chicken Creek was nonviolent. The sheriff said there will not be any law enforcement presence there moving forward because of how shorthanded the department is.
The gathering in Boyle Park at 2 p.m. was largely informative and a chance for the public to ask Sheriff Nowlin direct questions about what was going on.
Pam Duncan, a resident who organized the Boyle Park gathering, emphasized it was to show support for public lands, and said, “we’d like everyone who enjoys public lands to come,” at a meeting at Fenceline Cider on Wednesday evening.
For a little over five years now, The Free Land Holders have lived up there. Nowlin has done certified VIN inspections for them, so he’s known the group for some time now.
Hammon said they had been planning and perfecting claims on that land for about five years, but took time doing research along the way.
“We had to prepare ourselves before we took action because we knew there was going to be backlash. We didn’t know it was going to come from the community. That was a surprise to us, truly,” Hammon said.
He also said the group is not anti-government or sovereign.
“We are absolutely not anti-government, we do not declare ourselves sovereign,” said Hammon. “We are living men, living men, in The United States of America on free, patented lands.”
Hammon said the Free Land Holder Committee is acting in accordance with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American war in 1848.
They also reiterated that the group is not affiliated with Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, though some members are related to FLDS members by blood. They do not practice that religion or associate with FLDS.
They also said there are Native people who are part of the Free Land Holder Committee.
