Page 1 of 2
Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 11 2024 1:49 pm
by Pivo
Meanwhile in Colorado.
Fencing was erected earlier this week by members of the so-called Free Land Holders.
Patrick Leroy Pipkin, a survivor of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, leads the group. Warren Jeffs, the President of FLDS who is currently serving life in prison for sexually assaulting minors, used to own a 60-acre parcel of land north of Mancos. That plot changed ownership, and Pipkin has co-owned it since 2020.
https://www.ksut.org/news/2024-10-10/a- ... -land-grab
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 14 2024 6:03 am
by Pivo
On Friday, Oct. 11, five members from the Free Land Holder Committee went out to where locals were dismantling their fence in Chicken Creek.
Members of the group were unarmed, bringing with them only documents that they call “evidence” that proves their ownership of the land “under treaty law and land patent law,” they said in an email to The Journal.
https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/ ... icleButton
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 6:24 am
by Pivo
MANCOS — Stacks of historic documents and copies of nearly 100-year-old deeds blanketed a pingpong table in what Patrick Pipkin described as the Free Land Holder Committee’s meeting hall on his ranch in southwestern Colorado, near where the group recently claimed 1,460 acres of the San Juan National Forest by running barbed-wire fence around the land.
https://www.denverpost.com/2024/10/20/f ... -colorado/
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 9:54 am
by chumley
The Free Land Holders’ argument essentially comes down to whether or not the word “the” is capitalized when preceding “United States” on various historic documents. Pipkin believes the Founding Fathers established the country as “The United States of America” when they wrote the Articles of Confederation in 1777, which created a republic that he now belongs to.
But somewhere along the way, he said, the king of England tricked the new country into signing documents as “the United States of America” — lowercase T — creating a separate entity from the original republic.
“It’s not the same name,” Pipkin said during an interview on his property last week. “Totally different. That’s why the sheriff has no jurisdiction. That’s why the Forest Service has no jurisdiction. They work for the small ‘t,’ which is the king today. King Charles.”
This is stupider than talking about Arnold Palmer's dong.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 10:15 am
by big_load
My guess is that any rights they had through homesteading were lost to abandonment generations ago, and I doubt they've paid any property taxes in the last 100 years. They seem just another bunch of greedy, self-entitled charlatans with an overblown sense of their heritage.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 10:50 am
by ShatteredArm
@chumley
Clearly they got their legal educations from the Charlie Kelly School of Bird Law.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 11:37 am
by xsproutx
I'd really like to know why these sovereign citizen types think this stuff actually works. I know I've heard, anecdotally, that cops will sometimes ignore them on the road because they just don't want to be troubled but not pulling someone over for an unregistered vehicle is a wee bit different than getting away with stealing 1,400 acres...
These guys have to have a success story they can point to right?
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 11:56 am
by Alston_Neal
It was interesting that as I read it I started to think about Bundy cattle and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge events and seeing the Forest Service, BLM etc. back away from any conflict of any kind. Then I understood the whole Salt River Horse situation we have here. The difference is the people of Mancos don't want this and here the SRH have their own FB page with loving followers and complete control over the land and to some degree the unbridled contamination of our water supply. So public support is crucial, Mancos area land, no, Salt River horses, oh by all means yes, feral hogs along the Colorado River, ooh bad for the environment, public support, nill. But hey we can still talk about Arnold Palmer and pet eating people.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 11:59 am
by big_load
xsproutx wrote: ↑Oct 22 2024 11:37 am
I'd really like to know why these sovereign citizen types think this stuff actually works. I know I've heard, anecdotally, that cops will sometimes ignore them on the road because they just don't want to be troubled but not pulling someone over for an unregistered vehicle is a wee bit different than getting away with stealing 1,400 acres...
These guys have to have a success story they can point to right?
I'm sure there are lots of places where they've appropriated public land without being caught (yet). It's not happening just in the West. I probably mentioned this before, but I'll repeat. Years ago, I was embarking on a major trail in Shenandoah National Park. A neighborhood of McMansions had recently been built on adjoining private land, and someone associated with that community had erected dozens of signs in the TH parking lot and the first couple miles of the trail declaring it all to to be private property and warning of dire consequences to trespassers. Users of the National Park were spoiling their perfect view, which existed only because the park is there.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 12:44 pm
by ShatteredArm
@big_load
Many states do have laws where land can be legally acquired via adverse possession, and it's possible that's what they're trying to do. If they were to fence off the land and the FS made no attempt to enforce their claim to the land for a certain period of time, they might actually acquire legal ownership of the land.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 22 2024 12:53 pm
by xsproutx
big_load wrote:e first couple miles of the trail declaring it all to to be private property
Yeh, I've lived a lot on the East/West coast before getting here and that type of crap is incredibly common along waterways which, generally speaking in most places, aren't private. I have had a gun pulled on me two separate times in Virginia for fishing in spots (that I used a boat to get to) that people said they "owned". You see it tons in California where people buy/build on the coast and try and block access to the beach even though the law says it's fair game up to the high tide line and that traditional access points can't be blocked/impeded/whatever.
Just general idiots doing the classic, "I got mines, screw you"
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Oct 23 2024 5:05 am
by RedRoxx44
One of my favorite old books, James Conways' Kingdom in the Country published 1987, discusses a lot of things and one thing he covers even then are the pot growers on the edges of national forests and the "settlers" on BLM land and the views of both parties in dealing with it. Also ranchers cattle numbers on plots other than what they have leased and the hippies building shacks on the back side of some ranchers' property. Hurricane Helene aside you can bet there are more than a few of the mountain folks that don't own or have any kind of lease on their land in Appalachia; and it has been that way for generations.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Nov 20 2024 6:46 am
by Pivo
Residents band together, seek action if group tries to seize land northeast of Mancos.
https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/ ... of-mancos/
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Nov 27 2024 8:57 am
by Pivo
Feds sue group that put up fence, claimed ownership over 1,400 acres of Colorado forest.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/11/26/free ... rado-sued/
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Nov 28 2024 7:31 am
by Jim
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Nov 28 2024 10:51 am
by Pivo
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Nov 28 2024 11:50 am
by Alston_Neal
Nothing like going out and commiting an act that ends up having the Federal Government sue you. Seems this was not fully thought through and they also spent all that money and time on fencing. Which probably meant that they could use that as a tax write off.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Nov 28 2024 12:13 pm
by Pivo
@Alston_Neal
It may very well be a ‘test case’ and they could possibly have funding from an outside source.
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Nov 28 2024 12:17 pm
by big_load
Pivo wrote: ↑Nov 28 2024 12:13 pm
@Alston_Neal
It may very well be a ‘test case’ and they could possibly have funding from an outside source.
That's possible. Even if they lacked outside funding beforehand, they might get some help now. Once they're done restoring the area, maybe they can do a few summers of roadside garbage detail
Re: Group puts up fence, claims ownership over 1,400 acres of southwest CO forest, sparking outrage
Posted: Nov 28 2024 5:18 pm
by chumley
@Alston_Neal
I don’t think they’re taxpayers. That’s not really a thing they believe in.