With repeated instances of ignoring indigenous presence and claims to territory, the area now considered federal public lands in Utah is part of a large multi-state area that was Mexican territory until the 1848 Mexican Cession. Brigham Young and the group of LDS church members traveling with him to settle in the area arrived shortly before this land became part of the U.S. public domain. Whereas the Mormon immigrants to the area had originally sought to build a separate society from the mainstream U.S., church leaders ultimately pushed for statehood, viewing such legal status as potentially useful because state governemnt could provide a degree of autonomy. In early attempts to achieve statehood, the church set up an interim government--when that appeal for statehood was denied, that government somewhat continued despite not being formally/legally recognized by the U.S. Eventually in 1896, Utah was declared a state, shortly after a representative of the LDS church renounced the church's previous encouragement of plural marriage.
The state government that then formed and continues into the present is understood to be tightly entwined with the LDS church, with non-Mormon residents speaking cynically of the ways that their voices are ignored because they aren't LDS. Despites a strong sense of states' rights, 66.5% of land in Utah is federally-owned, thus federal agencies have a significant presence in the area. The overall high percentages of federally-owned land in the West (47% of western states) is a result of the geographic and climatic conditions that made many areas difficult to travel to and unsuitable for significant agricultural development, meaning many areas were not transferred out of federal hands through homestead policies or land grants. The areas remaining in federal ownership were, for many decades, used by ranchers rather freely until the formalization of bureaucratic procedures for permitting use of these spaces in the mid 20th century. While ownership has not shifted out of federal hands since mid-19th century acquisition, such changes as the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act and various changes to land status through legislative wilderness designation (as laied out by the 1964 Wilderness Act) and executive action (as enabled by the 1906 Antiquities Act) have resulted in changes to use and the permits required for such economic uses as cattle grazing in ways that are described as "federal land grabs," as a removal or taking away of land from locals and from the state.
The federal public lands under contention in southern Utah are adjacent to communities that hold significant anti-federal sentiment, in what appear to be two primary forms. One is a stance of anti-federal patriotism/nationalism, in which people view the federal government as tyrannical but cast the government as explicitly in opposition to the ideals of America. This perspective is seen in the militia movements that exist across western states and has been exhibited more publicly in instances such as the 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada or the 2016 Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation. Another perspective present in communities near these federal lands is one of a refusal to recognize the federal governmant as a legitimate governing institution and the recognition of the church as the legitimate formation of government. This perpsective is primarily circumscribed to fundamentalist LDS communities, a number of which exist adjacent to federal public lands in southern Utah. In both of these perspectives there is a general disregard for the notion of the federal government as a legitimate owner of these lands and, by extension, as a legitimate manager and adjudicator of use.
