The intent of Congress when establishing Forest Reserves was to make the commercial timber the property of, and source of revenue for, the local settlers, miners, residents and prospectors of each county where the timber was located. The Act of 1878 had made a legislative grant of the timber on the mineral lands to the local people. The 1891 Forest Reserve Act confirmed it was NOT a crime for a local to cut timber for use within the State.
1891 “Forest Reserve” Act was actually referred to in later Acts as the “General Land Law Revision Act”. That 1891 Act was itself a land disposal Act
April 23, 2020
…...By denying rights granted to “actual settlers” these eastern/foreign-corporate cattle, timber and mining interests believed they had enough political influence to exploit the vast resources of the West. The Johnson County War of Wyoming hit the National newspapers at the same time as a clear example of why there was a need to solidify “actual settler-ranchers” surface property rights over the Eastern/foreign-corporate Wyoming Stock Growers Association. Sheriff Red Angus (actual name) deputized about two hundred citizens (about 70 of which were on the WSGA kill list) to fight the corporate private army of Texas gun-hands brought in by the globalist WSGA. The seemingly unconnected provisions of the General Revision/Forest Act of 1891 was a Congressional affirmation and compilation of the split-estate mineral land disposal policy created by Congress over the previous 47 years beginning with the Survey Act of 1853. The 1891 GR/FA gave bureaucrats 5 or 6 years to challenge title of actual settlers validated by the Act, after which they could never attack the rancher’s title...….