Access to Nature

Texas is often seen as quintessentially “Western.” The big open spaces and the images of cowboys, cattle and horses abound. Certainly many residents of Texas think of the state in that manner; even when they reside in one of the state’s enormous cities. One needs only to look at the recent Houston Live Stock and Rodeo for evidence of that.

And yet Texas lacks one common trait of all western states in this country and that is the presence of large areas of federally held land within the state. As the map below shows, in every western state except for Hawaii, the federal government holds, at a minimum, roughly 30% of that state’s total land area. On the extreme end of the spectrum is Nevada, where federal government holds approximately 85% of all the land in the state. Texas, on the other hand, at roughly 2% more closely resembles Massachusetts.

You may ask, “Why is this important?” Well, as anyone who has visited the Western United States and its many National Parks and National Forests can tell you, federal lands provide recreation areas for the general public including hiking, camping, wildlife viewing and other outdoor activities. Access to such areas increases the quality of life for residents of the state and increases the demand to live in that state. The abundance of federal land in the western states ensures that almost all major metropolitan areas are conveniently located near a major recreation area. For example, the San Francisco Bay Area is approximately four hours from Yosemite National Park. By comparison, a trip from San Antonio to Big Bend National Park (a beautiful place), takes approximately eight hours by car. The same trip from Houston takes approximately eleven hours. And the issue is not simply National Parks. Simply peruse through any online map and you will see the abundance of National Forests, National Recreation Areas and other related federally owned areas in western states. The map below evidences this point.

The Growth Westward

Such stark differences are a consequence of the differing history and geography of the states. Before the Revolutionary War, the original thirteen colonies had competing land claims over vast areas east of the Appalachian Mountains and west of the Mississippi River. These lands were eventually ceded to the new federal government and organized into territories. The land was surveyed, divided into parcels and sold to settlers. Given the limited power of the federal government at that time to raise revenue, this system served as an important mechanism for the federal government to raise funds. As the population of these territories grew, they eventually were admitted into the union as new states. The Preemption Act of 1841 and (more importantly) the Homestead Act of 1862 expanded the lands available for settlement and ultimately the number of settlers. These new settlers continued to push westward, initially claiming the best and most fertile areas for farmland.

At about this time, many began to advocate for the protection of certain lands and for those lands to be held in trust for the enjoyment of all citizens. Influenced by the works of James Fenimore Cooper and Henry David Thoreau, romantic notions of the unspoiled wilderness took hold in the mid – 1800’s. Based on this public pressure, Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park, was created in 1872. Continuing through the late 19th Century, there was an increasing movement to preserve many pristine lands in the Western United States from settlement and development. John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club) and, most famously, President Theodore Roosevelt (a picture of both men is found to the right), did much to convince the country of the need to preserve parts of the west and slow the sale of federal lands. The policy of homesteading was officially terminated with the enactment of the Federal Land Policy Act of 1976. Yet due to increasing restictions, for all intents and purposes, the policy had ended decades earlier.

The Settlement of Texas

The history of the settlement of Texas, as all Texans will tell you, was quite different. The territory that would eventually become Texas was very sparsely populated at the beginning of the 19th Century. In order to encourage immigration and bolster their claim to the area, Spain began to grant large tracks of land to empresarios (Spanish for entrepreneur), who were then responsible for distributing the land to settlers. After the Mexican Revolution of 1821, the area, along with Coahuila, was organized as a state within the United Mexican States. Yet, the new Mexican government kept the empresario system relatively unchanged. As the map below details, much of the land of what would be Texas was ceded to empresarios and ultimately ended up in private hands.

After the Texas Revolution and the establishment of the Republic of Texas, the land grant system continued apace. The Republic of Texas was an independent country for nine years from 1836 to 1845. During that period, there were several failed attempts by both the fledging republic and the United States to admit Texas as a state. Most of these attempts failed due to pre-Civil War politics and the fact that Texas would be admitted into the union as a slave state. Finally, in February of 1845, the United States Congress passed a joint resolution that stated that upon acceptance of the resolution by the Texas Congress, Texas would be admitted as a state. This allowed Texas to bypass the usual temporary status as a territory. Uniquely, the resolution stated that all public lands existing within the Republic of Texas would cede to the new State of Texas, rather than to the federal government. The resolution also famously stated that Texas could split itself into four additional states (five in total). Of note, the resolution did not contain any language granting the new state a right to secede from the United States, despite persistent rumors and the affirmations of our current governor to the contrary. On December 29, 1845, the State of Texas was officially admitted as the twenty-eighth state.

The ultimate consequence of the empressario system and the Congressional resolution in February of 1845 was that there were no federally owned lands within the new State of Texas. All lands currently owned by the US government in Texas, including Big Bend National Park, were subsequently purchased by the federal government from private owners. Therefore, during the naturalist and conservationist movement of the later half of the 1800’s and early 1900’s, there were little to no federal lands to be held in trust for the public. Such a situation is unlikely to be much of a problem in a society where a majority of the population owns tracks of private land. The largely agrarian nature of Texas at the time meant that most people (with the obvious exception of slaves) owned some private land themselves or had the ability to lease land at reasonable prices. Access was not a problem.

Future Access to Natural Land

Yet, with our economy becoming less agriculturally based, undeveloped or less developed land is increasingly being seen for its recreational value. People seek the challenge of hiking, the adventure of camping or the simple peace of the wilderness. At the same time, our society is shifting from a largely rural society to a more urban, metropolitan society. As such, there are increasing numbers of people without access to undeveloped or less developed land.

Urban planners and cities have, of course, implemented parks for the enjoyment of city dwellers. Memorial Park here in Houston was originally purchased by the city after the First World War for the public use by the populace.

The question for places like Texas where there are comparably few publically available recreation areas is, as we grow and become increasing urban, will the public clamor for more access to more undeveloped lands and wilderness? What does the future hold for places where the vast majority of the public no longer own undeveloped land? For possible implications (and possible solutions), I think it is interesting to look at the situation in other countries and how their laws have developed to address such concerns – we’ll cover that topic in Part 2.