It may sound too simple, but trying to argue that you have any rights on “public land” is an automatic losing argument. By definition any land to which ranchers claims or grazing rights attached (after the 1853 Survey Act) ceased to be “public land” as of the date the claim attached to the land (see Atherton v Fowler 1877, Hosmer v Wallace 1878, Griffith v Godey 1885, Cameron v United States 1893). This includes range or grazing rights established prior to reservation of Forest Reserves or National Parks (Curtin v Benson 1911). The 1853 Survey Act created the split estate land system on the “mineral lands” of the West and Congress built on this by a series of mineral land laws between 1864 to 1890. The 1872 mining Act specifically separated “surface” rights from “mineral deposits” in the land. Words have meaning in the law and a “grazing allotment” is NOT “public land”. Only some one trying to undermine ranchers property rights would go along with the assertion that an “allotment” is “public land “.
...Congress officially adopted a split-estate land disposal policy for the West when it enacted the Survey Act of 1853. This Act granted to residents of settlements on or near mineral lands the “right of occupation and cultivation only”. Prior to the 1853 Act it was unlawful to settle on the “mineral lands” or to claim more than 320 acres of land under the agricultural land laws (Oregon Donation Act 1850, Desert Land Act 1877, Forest Reserve Act 1891). These policies changed with the acquisition of the Western territories (1845 Texas, 1846 Pacific Northwest, 1848 Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1853 Gadsden treaty) see Rector v Gibbons 1884....
"possessory rights of property" under State/territorial law (1865)
"water rights" Right of Ways for ditches, canals and roads (1866)
Right of Ways for water reservoirs, pipelines, etc (1870)
April 18, 2020
<a name = "Whitney v Morrow 1885" ></a> ..Each stockwater site was a “location” under the mineral land laws. Under Section 13 of the Mineral Land Act of 1870, 5 years of occupation and development earned the locator “the right to a patent”. The right to a patent once earned is equivalent to a patent issued and no officer of the land department can take that right away (Ballinger v Frost 1910).. “The legislative grant was the highest muniment of title” and was more powerful than a patent (Whitney v Morrow 1885)...
State/territory recognized split estate surface/subsurface occupancy rights (1872)
February 10, 2020
...The plain language of Section 1 of the 1872 Mineral Land Act and subsequent reference to the “surface” rights as opposed to the “deposits in the land” used throughout the Act plainly manifested the intent of Congress open all the public lands to mineral exploration and development, AND the surface land to separate occupancy and improvement. ...
personal grazing, grass, timber and wood rights (1875)
April 30, 2020
...March 3, 1875 Congress made “grazing” a cultural land practice equivalent to “cultivation” on “agricultural” land and “mining” on “mineral “ land. From that day forward you could acquire title to agricultural land under the Homestead and Preemption laws by “grazing” instead of “cultivation”...
preference right of split-estate surface title acquisition and right of "relation" without acreage limitation (1880),
December 28, 2019
Following the Public Lands Commission Report of 1880, Congress adopted a split-estate land disposal policy disposing of the minerals separately from the surface estate which would be used for grazing,
the right to enclose large areas of land to which a rancher had a deed, claim or title recognized under state/territory range laws (1885)
April 11, 2020
...The 1885 Unlawful Enclosure Act made it legal for stock raising settlers to enclose any number of surface acres to which they asserted a “claim” or color of title. It had already been legal since the 1875 Grazing Act for ranchers to enclose the grazing lands they occupied (Atherton v Fowler 1877, Hosmer v Wallace 1878, Griffith v Godey 1885, Cameron v United States 1893). That’s why Range or grazing “Allotments” are split-estate property. The Allotment Owner has title to the surface...
the "Validation" Act of 1890 that validated and perfected title to all land "occupied, entered and settled" West of the 100th Meridian.
...the individual ranges to be "surveyed", which was directed to be done under the Forest Reserve and Forest Organic Acts of 1891 and 1897.
Ranchers "allotment maps" are official government surveys and title documents as valid as any "patent". Lane v Watts (1914), Ballinger v Frost (1910), Noble v Union River Logging RR (1893), once the survey is completed the title cannot be later challenged
Now you know how ranchers own their grazing allotments. How they can be bought, sold and can pass by inheritance (or adverse possession if abandoned).