Manufacturing the wilderness: The role of local communities, activists, and industry in creating wilderness and public land policy

Following the discussion of place and scale by environmental historians and historical geographers, this thesis uses archival research to discuss the role of local communities, environmental groups, and industries in shaping federally designated wilderness areas. This study explores three cases where each user group had a role in shaping a specific wilderness area within a larger wilderness bill, including Lone Peak near Salt Lake City, Mt. Naomi in far northern Utah, and Box-Death Hollow in southcentral Utah. By documenting the debate from local to national levels of decision-making, this thesis shows the complex factors in wilderness debates and how local entities contributed to the debate. Not only did local groups affect the landscape, but they were influential in directing the course of the national wilderness debate. Examining three places on national forest land in Utah, I show how each area's size and management directions were shaped according to local desires. Boundaries and management were established along political desires of the interested local groups rather than ecological imperatives. Each user group exerted control or power over land use decisions in each debate and that power reflected not only in the entire wilderness bill, but also in the designated landscape.