Revised statute 2477
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Revised Statute 2477 (popularly known as "RS 2477") was adopted by the United States Congress in 1866 to encourage the settlement of the Western United States by the development of a system of highways. It is a very short law, and its entire text is stated in one sentence: "the right of way for the construction of highways across public lands not otherwise reserved for public purposes is hereby granted." It was repealed in 1976 under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). The repeal was subject to "valid existing rights", but the vagueness in the language of original statute has created ongoing controversy. Land owners, environmental organizations, government organizations and recreational-use advocates have all come to widely varying interpretations of the law. These conflicts came to a head when Bill Clinton declared the Grand Staircase-Escalante, in Southern Utah, to be a National Monument. Several Utah counties have been fighting in court to maintain their original claims to roads that cross federal and private property (see SUWA v BLM).
Much of the federal land across which Revised Statute 2477 applied was eventually homesteaded or otherwise patented, becoming private property. For that reason, Revised Statute 2477 has created significant controversy and conflict between property rights advocates on one hand, and access advocates on the other. As western lands become developed into residential subdivisions, recreationists and sportsmen are claiming access rights across private land and gated communities that have no formally recorded rights of way. At one extreme, private property activists claim that nobody has access rights without a recorded easement. At the other extreme, access activists claim that virtually all private land that used to be public can legally be traversed by the public. Because of the difference in interpretation, many lawsuits are currently being fought across the west, and it has fallen to courts to determine which routes are public and which are not. Recent examples of failed attempts at using RS 2477 to take private property for public use are Galli v. Idaho County (Case Number CV 36692, Second Judicial District of Idaho, 2006) and Ramey v. Boslough (Case Number 02-CV-582, Boulder County District Court, 20th Judicial District of Colorado, 2007).
