This Explains It

I looked up Nevada over the weekend and copied the following from Wikipedia:

"Over 80% of the state's area is owned by the federal government. The primary reason for this is that homesteads were not permitted in large enough sizes to be viable in the arid conditions that prevail throughout desert Nevada. Instead, early settlers would homestead land surrounding a water source, and then graze livestock on the adjacent public land, which is useless for agriculture without access to water (this pattern of ranching still prevails)."

I think this is also probably why so much land in the other Western states is federally owned. Nothing conspiratorial here.......Pity!