What value does it provide to ranchers in Utah to give them free access to the Smithsonean buildings 2500 miles away?<p>Your point is specious.  Governments control arbitrary boundaries.  You want &quot;state&quot; control over lands where it suits you, but the point could work in reverse too: why not county control?   Someone&#x27;s got to own it, and in this particular case that was land managed by the federal government <i>before Nevada was a state</i>, and in fact before &quot;Nevadans&quot; even existed as a meaningful population.