As many of us who live in Grand County remember, Rocky Mountain National Park commemorated its 100th anniversary in 2015. As an attorney living in Grand Lake, that yearlong celebration got me thinking about the law and history behind the creation of the park.

A little legal research uncovered a fascinating story and revealed that the 100th anniversary just might have been over a decade early. In a community that loves an excuse for fireworks and a parade, the idea keeps recurring to me: We need to start planning now for the park’s real centennial party in 2029.

To understand why, let’s go back to 1915.

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On Jan. 25, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed federal legislation that created Rocky Mountain National Park, yet the boundaries of the park were well within the borders of Colorado. So how could the federal government create a national park out of land that was not theirs?

For the early 20th century stakeholders involved, answering this question proved highly controversial and anything but certain. In a drama that casted characters from Grand County residents to a legendary U.S. Supreme Court justice, looking back at these early years can teach us a great deal about the origins and politics of the park.

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Just what did the federal legislation creating the park actually say? The land within the park was officially “withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or disposal … and set apart … for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of the United States.” An exception was made for any land within the park that was “held in private, municipal, or state ownership.”

This carveout is important because the vast majority of the land within the park’s boundaries was owned by the state of Colorado. Until Colorado passed a bill of cession, the land within the park owned by the state would remain owned by the state — or would it?

The jurisdictional controversy kicked off in 1919, when the National Park Service issued an exclusive permit to only one company for offering rides to customers through the park — a monopoly, in other words.

This move infuriated locals, and they took the position that the Park Service did not have the authority to prohibit anyone from using roads that were not ultimately on Park Service land. Records made clear that Fall River Road, then the main artery through the park, was owned by the state. Eventually, the state agreed to join the fight with locals, and they went on to sue the Park Service in federal court.

Colorado argued that until it ceded or sold the land (or the feds won a condemnation suit) neither federal statute nor the U.S. Constitution gave the Park Service authority to exclude anyone from using the roadways on Colorado’s state-owned land.

The U.S. District Court in Denver initially dismissed the case on a technicality, but Colorado appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in a move that drew attention to our little corner of the universe from one of the most accomplished intellectual figures in American history.

None other than Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., authored an opinion on the controversy that overruled the District Court and remanded the case for a trial on the merits. “There is no attempt to give exclusive jurisdiction to the United States,” wrote Holmes, “but on the contrary the rights of the state over the roads are left unaffected in terms.”

The year was 1925, 10 years after Wilson signed the park into existence, and the controversy appeared to be anything but over.

Before the case went back to Denver for trial, the Park Service presented Colorado with a settlement proposal. Money allocated to the park for building and maintaining roads, trails and visitor accommodations had largely been coming from the feds, not the state. And so a deal was struck in which Colorado agreed to drop its lawsuit in return for continued and increased federal money for the park.

Although a settlement was reached this time over the specific issue of control of roads in the park, all parties knew that the underlying dispute about who truly retained general jurisdiction over the land still lingered, and in order to avoid its acrimonious recurrence, a more permanent solution was needed.

Political leaders in Denver and Washington, D.C., soon began talks on the transfer of land ownership. The push for Colorado to officially cede its land within the park sparked heated debate. Opponents feared losing control, while supporters saw benefits in federal funding and management.

Eventually, compromises were reached. Colorado retained rights to tax individuals and property in the park and preserved certain existing property and water rights. These concessions helped sway state legislators. On Feb. 19, 1929, Colorado officially ceded jurisdiction of its land within the park to the federal government, and I suppose our story here ends eleven days later on March 2, 1929, when President Calvin Coolidge signed the federal act of acceptance.

Although we date the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park to 1915, there was not all that much national about it until 1929. Only from then on can we trace the jurisdictional settlement that led to the 100th anniversary celebration and beyond.

Brian Blumenfeld is a business and real estate attorney in Grand Lake. Contact him at brian@rzalegal.com.