What Is This Land Worth?
By editor
Decker, Big Horn County
Now, folks have always been a peculiar lot when it comes to dirt. They’ll fight over it, scheme for it, and even die for it, all the while calling it ‘land’ as if it were some grand, abstract notion. But down in Decker, Big Horn County, Montana, they’ve been wrestling with a question as old as time itself, and as fresh as the morning dew: What, precisely, is this land worth? And the answer, as it often is with such things, depends entirely on who you ask and what they aim to dig out of it.
For generations untold, before any of us pale-faced adventurers ever set foot here, this ground held a value beyond mere dollars and cents. It was home, hunting ground, and a sacred ledger of history for the Indian families who knew its every whisper. They understood its worth in buffalo herds, in the clear waters of the Rosebud, and in the quiet dignity of their ancestors’ resting places. But then, as is the way of the world, others came along with different notions of value. They saw not a homeland, but a resource. Not a sacred space, but a commodity waiting to be exploited.
It’s a story as American as apple pie and just as likely to give you indigestion. The United States government, in its infinite wisdom and with a pen mightier than any sword, once made a solemn promise. In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, they declared, and I quote, "The United States now solemnly agrees that no persons... shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article..." A clear statement, you might think. As clear as a Montana sky on a summer day. But as anyone who’s ever read a government document knows, there’s always a loophole, or at least a convenient memory lapse, when profit starts to beckon.
And beckon it did. The land, you see, was rich. Rich in history, yes, but also rich in something far more tangible to the industrious sort: coal. And where there’s coal, there’s money, and where there’s money, there’s trouble. Soon enough, the rumblings began. The earth, which had once been a silent partner to the tribes, was now eyed as a noisy servant to industry. The Rosebud Battlefield, a place where Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho allies had once fought with fierce intensity to defend their homeland against encroachment, found itself once again under siege. As an educational document from the Rosebud Battlefield State Park so eloquently puts it, these tribes rallied "to put an end to the constant encroachment and intrusion by American settlers — which they viewed as a violation of the treaties and a failure on the part of the U.S. government to abide by its terms."
It seems some folks have a peculiar habit of signing agreements with one hand and digging for gold (or coal) with the other. The very ground that bore witness to such a crucial defense of sovereignty was now threatened by the very forces it had once repelled. Concerned citizens, a motley crew of landowners, state officials, heritage groups, and conservationists, all with their own particular axes to grind, saw the writing on the wall. They understood that if the coal barons had their way, the battlefield would be nothing more than a scarred memory, a footnote in the ledger of progress.
So, in a rare moment of collective good sense, they appealed to the Montana state legislature. And lo and behold, in 1978, using funds from the Montana Coal Tax, a substantial chunk of the battlefield—3,052 acres, to be precise—was purchased and declared a state park. A victory, you might say, for preservation over profit. A moment where the spirit of the land, and the history it held, seemed to win a round against the relentless march of industry.
But don't you go thinking that was the end of the story. Oh no, my friends, for the tale of land and lucre is never truly finished. Today, the ghost of resource extraction still hovers over the Rosebud. Coal bed methane extraction, a fancy term for digging up more of what’s under the ground, remains a persistent threat. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks may own the surface, but the subsurface mineral rights are a tangled mess of private interests and other government agencies, each with their own agenda, often quite different from preserving a historical site. The proponents of preservation, bless their earnest hearts, fear that mining and drilling will not only destroy priceless archaeological objects but will also obliterate the very splendor of the landscape. It’s a classic American conundrum: how much is a view worth when there’s a fortune to be made beneath it? And how long can a solemn promise stand against the relentless pickaxe of progress? The answer, it seems, is still being written in the dust and the coal seams of Decker, Big Horn County.
