julieturkewitzVerified account

Backstory: In my five years covering the intermountain West for The Times, I’ve spent a lot of time writing about the intersection of land and power.

The region is a patchwork of public and private forests, deserts, mountains and canyons, and what happens to those acres can make or break entire communities.

In my travels in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and other states, I have come to appreciate the way a connection to the land molds people’s identities.

Then, last year, on a visit to New York, editor @julesm_b approached me with a query: Who owns the West?

Good question, I thought. The federal govt, of course, owns a lot of the region — half of its acreage — giving it enormous influence.

But who else controls this region?

This is when I began to think about large private landowners.