Origin Stories: Bureau of Land Management
Vast deserts, mountain ranges, open plains — nearly one in every ten acres of the U.S. is overseen not by states, but by a little-known federal agency: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Created in 1946 from the merger of the U.S. Grazing Service and the General Land Office, the BLM was born to bring order to chaos. For more than a century, America’s public lands had been a battleground — settlers, ranchers, miners, loggers, and conservationists all fighting for access. The agency was tasked with managing 245 million acres of land(mostly in the West) and balancing a mission that often seems impossible: protect the land, while also allowing it to be used.
Over time, the BLM became both a steward and a flashpoint. It regulates grazing rights, oversees energy leases, manages wild horse herds, and protects cultural heritage sites. But it’s also at the center of some of the fiercest clashes in modern U.S. history — from ranchers resisting federal authority to debates over oil drilling, renewable energy, and Indigenous land rights.
Why it matters today:
The BLM controls not just land, but also mineral rights and renewable energy projects that will shape the future of America’s climate strategy.
Conflicts over grazing, oil, and water rights highlight deeper questions of who owns the American West — and who gets to decide its future.
For Indigenous nations, the BLM’s history is inseparable from dispossession, but also from ongoing fights for sovereignty and environmental justice.
Nearly 80 years later, the Bureau of Land Management still walks a tightrope between use and preservation. Its story is the story of America’s relationship with the land itself — a legacy of expansion, conflict, and an ongoing search for balance.
