A rebellious county larger than many states lost its bid to wrest control of millions of acres of public land from the federal government.
The federal judge's ruling Thursday was a major blow to the reborn Sagebrush Rebellion movement sweeping the West.U.S. District Judge Lloyd George said the federal government owns and has the power and authority to manage the land, which accounts for 93 percent of Nye County.
The county's lawyer, Roger Marzulla, said there were no plans to appeal the ruling, which came after a yearlong court battle.
"The federal government was brought to the point of recognizing that the wishes of the people who live with their decisions on a day-to-day basis can't be ignored," Marzulla said.
Nye County sprawls over 18,064 square miles and is the nation's third biggest county, making it larger than Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island combined. It has about one person per square mile.
The Nevada Legislature sparked the original uprising in 1979 when it passed laws purporting to return all public lands to state control. The laws were never enforced, but it was then that the battle got the name Sagebrush Rebellion.
At least 36 counties across the West are fighting the U.S. Forest Service or the federal Bureau of Land Management over range management, logging, mining permits and water rights in the latest rebellion, which began in 1993 when the Nye County Commission passed resolutions rejecting federal control.
Tensions escalated in July 1994 when county Commissioner Dick Carver bulldozed a closed Forest Service road. The move landed Nye County in court and Carver on the cover of Time, making him the unofficial leader of the movement.