If I remember correctly (questionable to say the least) when Nevada was up for statehood, one of the conditions for admission was that the feds would get huge amounts of the state to control. Ended up being about 85% of the state. A little much to my way of thinking but here we are. Lots of room for forts and ammo storage depots on that much land. Probably less than 1% being used for that.
For most of the western states, especially Nevada, the public land not sold off before statehood was public for a good reason. Nobody wanted to buy it. It wasn’t good for anything except running a few cows or sheep. And prior to statehood it wasn’t even any good for that, as there was no market for them.
The state did not want title, because that would require them to control the land, which did not come anywhere close to bringing in the money from grazing fees and such to pay for it. The population of NV at statehood was probably under 20,000 and the taxpayers were perfectly happy to leave responsibility for this immense stretch of land with the federal government.
The situation had been different in states farther east, where land generally went into private ownership because there were buyers.