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From the San Luis Courier:
High Court opens up Taylor Ranch access
Jun 25 2002 12:00AM By By SYLVIA LOBATO

By SYLVIA LOBATO
SAN LUIS - Although many of its original participants didn't live to see it, the latest round in the decades-old battle over access to the Taylor Ranch has been decided in their favor.

The Colorado Supreme Court, in a split decision Monday, said landowners have rights of access for grazing, firewood and timber, but not for fishing, hunting or recreation.

The long-running lawsuit was filed on behalf of the herederos - local residents who are the sixth- and seventh-generation descendants of the Mexican settlers of Beaubien's land grant.

History of this property rights controversy began before Colorado's statehood, at a time when southern Colorado was part of Mexico; at a time when all of the parties' lands were part of the one million acre Sangre de Cristo grant, an 1844 Mexican land grant.

In the latest chapter - a 40-year-old feud over the land - the state Supreme Court reversed an Appeals Court ruling Monday and said landowners have some access to the "Mountain Tract," now owned by former Houston Enron executive Lou Pai.

In 1999, Pai bought the ranch, also called the Culebra Ranch and the Jaroso Creek Ranch, for $23 million between 1997 and 2000 as he was cashing out $353.7 million in Enron stock.

Pai's chief contribution to the conflict has been to beef up security. He fenced out the locals far more effectively than the previous landowners ever could.

His people have diligently pursued trespassing complaints, and confrontations with neighboring landowners have led to claims and counterclaims of assault and harassment.

While Pai has been applauded by some for his willingness to hire local help and his commitment to restore areas of the ranch that were damaged by intensive logging during the latter years of the Taylor regime, others decry his efforts to cut off access to the mountain and to buy up neighboring properties and water rights.

When New Bern, N.C. Lumberman Jack T. Taylor bought the land for $500,000 from some Denver businessmen in 1960, he was aware that the sellers had tolerated a little trespassing and poaching; in fact, his deed contained a caution that his title was possibly "subject to claims of the local people...to the right to pasturage, wood, and lumber and so-called settlements."

At less than $7 an acre, it's been speculated that Taylor figured he could handle any trouble that went with it.

Ten years ago, a state commission spearheaded by Ken Salazar - then a lawyer in private practice, now Colorado's attorney general - tried to purchase the Taylor Ranch, with the aim of transforming the property into a state park.

In a formal statement as attorney general, Salazar said he has long been interested in bringing about a permanent and final resolution to the "decades-old dispute" concerning the ranch.

However, he said that, because the litigation has gone on for so long and has been so contentious, he doesn't believe the Court's ruling necessarily means an end to the litigation.

"It is possible that a motion for reconsideration will be filed with the (Supreme Court. It is also possible that a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court will be filed, resulting in additional months, even years, of ongoing litigation," Salazar warned.

"Nonetheless, as a result of today's ruling, there lay perhaps over the next several years be a way of crafting a solution that is satisfactory to all the interests involved, instead of continued litigation," he added.

"This case has been around for 21 years," notes Denver attorney Jeff Goldstein, who represents the plaintiffs. "It's been before a large number of judges. A lot of our clients have died."

"How can you use something for a hundred years and not have a right to it?" Goldstein asks.

Landowners who are the successors in title to the original settlers on the Sangre de Cristo grant, an 1844 Mexican land grant, claim access and use rights to property commonly known as the Taylor Ranch or The Mountain Tract.

The landowners claim that rights to graze livestock, gather firewood and timber, hunt, fish and recreate, derive from Mexican law, prescription and express or implied grant.

Both the trial court and the court of appeals held that the landowners have no legally enforceable rights.

An opinion written by Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey said that evidence of traditional settlement practices, repeated references to settlement rights in documents associated with the Sangre de Cristo grant including Taylor's own deed, the 100- year history of the landowners' use of the Taylor Ranch, and other evidence of necessity, reliance and intention support a finding of implied rights in the Taylor Ranch.

Specifically, the landowners have several easements from prior use to access and use the Taylor Ranch for grazing, firewood, and timber.

The high court also retains jurisdiction to determine which landowners may exercise these rights.

The plaintiffs were the successors to the original settlers on the Sangre de Cristo grant, an 1844 Mexican land grant, who claimed access and use rights to graze livestock, gather firewood and timber, hunt, fish and recreate.

The mountain tract is considered the lifeblood of the communities that exist in its watershed, including San Luis, the state's oldest incorporated town.

For more than a century, locals used "la sierra" (the mountain) communally, as summer pasture for their cattle and as a source of game, recreation and firewood - activities based on "historic use rights" awarded by Mexican custom and confirmed by treaty, but never formally recognized in an American courtroom.

In 1844, the governor of New Mexico granted two Mexican nationals a one million-acre land grant, located mainly in present-day southern Colorado (Sangre de Cristo grant), for the purpose of settlement.

The original grantees died during the war between the United States and Mexico. The land was not settled in earnest until after the cessation of the war, and Charles (Carlos) Beaubien then owned the grant.

After Beaubien died, his heirs sold his interest in the Sangre de Cristo grant to William Gilpin, Colorado's first territorial governor.

The sales agreement (Gilpin agreement) stated that Gilpin agreed to provide vara (strip) deeds to settlers who had not yet received them. The agreement further stated that Gilpin took the land on condition that certain "settlement rights before then conceded... to the residents of the settlements ... shall be confirmed by said William Gilpin as made by him."

Unfortunately, those rights weren't spelled out with regard to la sierra.

Since then, the land has been at the center of bitter court battles and boundary disputes that have occasionally erupted in violence.

The feud began when Taylor bought the ranch, began fencing it and denied access. After his father's death in the 1980s, Zachary Taylor permitted various groups to use the land for picnics, wood-gathering and religious celebrations. But the limited access did little to aid the county's traditional agrarian economy.

Before the Taylor purchase the people had depended on the mountain tract for summer pastures, wood for heat and building, even meat and fish for the dinner table.

Losing the pastures forced many local ranchers to drastically reduce their herds or go out of business.

Costilla is among the state's poorest and has little or no public lands.

The Supreme Court said Taylor had no right to bar his neighbors from his land.

''We find that evidence of traditional settlement practices... and other evidence of necessity, reliance, and intention support a finding of implied rights in this case,'' the Supreme Court said.