Episode 2: The Land

Episode two, "The Land," is the origin story: how the United States came to hold 640 million acres in trust for the public, how concentrated wealth plundered and privatized much of it in the 1800s, and how the nation pulled back from the brink to build a system of parks, forests, and monuments that became the model for the rest of the world. But it's happening again: the richest Americans now command a share of the nation's wealth outstripping even the Gilded Age barons who plundered these lands the first time. For most of the 1800s, the playbook was simple: barter with other countries, or take the land from Native nations who had lived on it for millennia, and then give it away — to settlers, to railroads, to mining companies, to states — to build a nation. But after the Civil War, the wealthy came to dominate the system, privatizing and pillaging more and more of the public estate. Rivers were poisoned, hillsides stripped bare, whole towns buried in the mudslides that followed. This country lost much of its public land before we understood what it was worth. Hosts Bill Hedden and John Leshy trace the constitutional bargain that created public lands in the first place, schemes like the 1872 Mining Law that let fortunes be dug out of common ground for pennies an acre, and the turn, around 1890, when Americans decided to stop giving the land away and start protecting it — above all, for the water and the other natural values it provided. Along the way: Sarah Krakoff on what the Constitution says about public lands; Walt Dabney on the myth that the states were promised the land; Land Tawney and Ryan Callaghan on what it means that these places belong to everyone; and Zuni farmer Jim Enote on the Indigenous idea that land asks us not to be romantic, but responsible. At the center of the conversation, and of the current news cycle, is Bears Ears: the first national monument in the country's history where Indigenous nations were a primary force behind its protection, and, as of July 2026, a monument the administration has cut by ninety percent. The fight over these lands is not new—it runs the length of American history—but nothing before has done this much damage this quickly. *On Common Ground: An American Inheritance* tells the story of the lands that belong to all of us, and of the fight to protect them. All six episodes available in August. Follow now so the next episode lands in your feed automatically. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/on\common\ground\_ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@on.common.ground YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OnCommon\_Ground *On Common Ground: An American Inheritance* is hosted by Bill Hedden and John Leshy. Produced by Sarah Hedden, Dagny Scott, and Del Feltz. Sound engineering by Joe Flood. This series is a production of Eleven Dollar Bill, and a project of the Getches-Wilkinson Center at the University of Colorado Law School.