Issue 15 of Western Confluence will explore the unique history and modern-day implications of the checkerboard pattern of public and private landownership in the West. Stories will be released online throughout 2025 and in print January 2026.
To promote westward expansion in the nineteenth century, the federal government granted the railroads land for the rail corridor as well as every other section on either side of the track. This created a checkerboard pattern of public and private lands throughout large swaths of the West. The next issue of Western Confluence delves into the implications of the checkerboard for natural resource management, large landscape conservation, land use planning, access to public lands, and more. The issue will ask:
- What is the checkerboard, where is it, and how did it come to be?
- What unique institutions and land management strategies have arisen around the checkerboard? How has the checkerboard impacted the development of the West?
- What challenges does the checkerboard present today? What innovative, collaborative, or novel approaches to conservation are people and organizations trying?
- Besides the railroad checkerboard, where else do interspersed patterns of land ownership lead to unique land management regimes? What can we learn about transboundary management by comparing these areas?
