SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Ten years ago today, the country watched as a group of armed, anti-government militants took over a federal wildlife refuge in rural Oregon. The standoff lasted 41 days. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Conrad Wilson went back to where it happened.
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CONRAD WILSON, BYLINE: The sagebrush flickers in the fading winter light over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a vast, high desert, a sea of greens and browns that stretch for miles. This is where the armed group led by Ammon Bundy and his brother tried to ignite a movement.
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AMMON BUNDY: We stand in defense, and when the time is right, we will begin to defend the people of Harney County in using the land and the resources.
WILSON: They claimed they came to support a local ranching family being prosecuted by the federal government. Law enforcement and media descended on Harney County. Today, many people in this deep red corner of Oregon remember the occupation as an exploitation, something that happened here, but not something of here.
JEFF ROSE: They represented some opinions. I think they were opportunistic.
WILSON: Jeff Rose has lived in Burns, the county seat, for nearly 40 years. During the standoff, he worked for the Bureau of Land Management. The federal agency leases public land to ranchers for cattle grazing and was targeted by the Bundys.
ROSE: I don't feel they represented the overall community whatsoever.
WILSON: Harney County is roughly as big as Massachusetts, but only about 7,000 people live here. The closest cities are hours away. That isolation, Rose says, means the community has to cooperate.
ROSE: We can talk together. We can get things working together, and we know each other, and we're able to move through some of those barriers.
WILSON: Because you have to.
ROSE: Because we have to. I mean, there's no choice.
WILSON: Across Harney County, some were open to the Bundys' message that the federal government does more harm than good. But their overall ideology that the government has no right to dictate what happens on public lands, it didn't fully stick.
BRENDA SMITH: We were moving on, even when it was happening.
WILSON: Brenda Smith leads a coalition that includes ranchers, conservation groups, federal land managers and others. Her nonprofit, High Desert Partnership, has focused on finding common ground since long before the Bundys showed up. The conversations can be challenging. But most of the 10 or so people I spoke to said the partnership is a big reason the attempt to launch a larger rebellion didn't work here and limited the damage from the occupation.
SMITH: Somebody didn't sort of do their homework about, you know, the work we'd been doing for a long time to try to repair some hard relationships that had been happening, specifically around public and private land management.
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WILSON: Scott and Nellie Franklin feed about 140 heifers in Harney County, just down the road from the wildlife refuge.
SCOTT FRANKLIN: So it's nice green hay. They kind of like it.
WILSON: Nellie Franklin was Harney County's elected treasurer during the occupation. Even though many people here want to put the event behind them, she has noticed some of the ideas stuck.
NELLIE FRANKLIN: I don't know. It did kind of start a movement, maybe, but...
WILSON: How so?
N FRANKLIN: Well, I think more people spoke out about - and I hate this term - the government overreach.
WILSON: The occupation pit neighbors against each other. Nellie says Oregonians here have tried to put any divisions over the occupation firmly in the past.
N FRANKLIN: There's some people that were just really gung ho, but we're still friends with them, and a lot of us have been friends for a long time. And that just kind of comes through as you pick up your relationships and go on.
WILSON: Folks here say they rarely talk about the occupation and that it offers little in the way of larger takeaways, but there may be one - the importance of working through disagreements with neighbors and friends.
For NPR News, I'm Conrad Wilson in Harney County, Oregon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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