Much of the land in the Crazy Mountains left public ownership when it was granted to the railroad companies as payment for building the transcontinental railroad. With that change in ownership came easements, both deeded and prescriptive, allowing the public to access these lands. Easements like these cannot be treated as irrelevant by politicians and policy makers or wished away by private landowners who choose to disregard the stipulations that came with the property they purchased.
Below is an example of one of the railroad grant deeds on sections 15 and 23 on the west side of the Crazy Mountains, which states "the land hereby conveyed, being subject, to an easement in the public for any public roads heretofore laid out or established, and now existing over and across any part of the premises."
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