'Devil's' postcard prompts request to pause corner-crossing

[mahatmakanejeeves]

‘Devil’s’ postcard prompts request to pause corner-crossing

Alleging threats, ranch owner Eshelman wants the judge who ruled against him to keep corner-crossers at bay while he appeals his case.

By WYOFILE | 1 hour ago



A postcard mailed to Elk Mountain Ranch (WyoFile redacted the box number) and addressed to owner Fred Eshelman. (U.S. District Court for Wyoming)

Angus M. Thuermer Jr., WyoFile

Hateful vitriol, including a postcard from “Satan,” has prompted the owner of Elk Mountain Ranch to ask a federal court to stall the judge’s own decision that corner crossing is not trespassing. ... Attorneys for Fredric Eshelman’s Iron Bar Holdings company filed for a stay Friday, telling Wyoming’s Chief U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl there’s “a risk of harm” if his decision remains in effect. Eshelman wants to temporarily reverse Skavdahl’s June 1 decision while the ranch owner appeals the case.

Eshelman’s lawyers also claim that the corner-crossing ruling will cause irreparable harm to the North Carolina resident’s business at his 22,045-acre Carbon County ranch. Corner crossing is the act of stepping from one piece of public land to another without setting foot on private property. ... Eshelman’s wildlife-rich ranch enmeshes some 6,000 acres of public land in a checkerboard pattern of ownership. By corner crossing, however, hikers and hunters can reach that public land without setting foot on private property.

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Eshelman’s unsuccessful federal civil suit against four hunters argued that passing through the airspace above ranch property at checkerboard corners constitutes a trespass. The Missouri hunters broke with convention when they corner crossed at Elk Mountain in 2020 and 2021, and Eshelman’s motion predicts more people will now come.

“Currently, the ranch is bracing for an influx of people who will attempt to corner-cross through ranch property,” one employee stated in an affidavit. They could bring ill-intent, lawyers say. ... “[T]here are many people who not only dislike — but actually hate — [Eshelman’s Iron Bar Holdings company] and may seek revenge … by imposing property damage … blatantly trespassing … or threatening Plaintiff’s representatives and employees while corner crossing,” the motion states.

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A ranch gate at Elk Mountain. (Mike Vanata/WyoFile)

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This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

[Shipwack]

1. Screw the rancher... He deserves all the hate mail he gets.

He's trying to get use of public lands (at no cost to himself) while making sure no one else can benefit from it.

[cilla4progress]

2. Effing capitalist pig

Eshelman.

Has all the money in the world to throw at this.

Bizarre clearly wrong legal theory.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. I am ashamed that POS is alumnus of UNC-CH, as am I and he's a conservaMOFO who is into

private equity healthcare investments, i.e., greedy GD leeches.

[2naSalit]

4. I thought...

That was rather cordial.

Yeah, fuck that guy. There's a lot of large landholders, like our governor in Montana, who pull that shit out here in the west. Even picayune sized ranchers.

[yonder]

5. I'd like to see more of that creativity.

Many western states have their wealthy assholes buying available property adjacent to public lands, then trying to close off those public areas by any means. In Idaho, the Wilks brothers have been slapped down several times for gating access roads with historic prescriptive rights-of-way in order to enhance their new-found private holdings.

And why does it seem these hoarding types originate from areas other than the West? Does that “I got mine and want more and yours” mentality grow from rarely seeing big, blue sky? Wide open, uninterrupted vistas without congestion? Or is it simply any space without fences, public or private, need to be controlled in order to show the rest of us who has what?

Elk Mountain (the mountain) is a landmark to those regularly traveling I-80 between Rawlins and Cheyenne. Elk Mountain (Frederic's ranch) is just somewhere a rich jerk can hang his hat as if to say to all those travellers: "That mountain you see is mine....got it?"