I'm gonna respond to you as an ex-Westener, liberal, and conservationist.

1. Our lands came from Mexico. Spanish colony had practically nothing to do places outside of the California missions and cities of what is now New Mexico. While M coco wasn't much more involved in these lands, they were 'given' to the US after the Mexican-American war. However, around that time, there were some of white people living there, largely French and Anglo-saxon fur trappers.

2. 40 acres is fine and dandy in Nebraska or Kansas, where the Homestead Act passed in the 1860s was first applied to on a large scale. 40 acres ain't shit in most of Colorado. Commerce has tended to rely more on movement than on the Great Plains. No one claimed the land not because it was useless, but because that wasn't how the economy was working there. Mines would run out, timber plots would run out, game would run out, even grazing would run out. Trying to sustain yourself on just 40 acres would have been impossible.

3. So, instead of homesteading, systems developed for shared use through much of the West, like National Forests today. (Interestingly, it is in the 1860s that we see the first beginings of preservationism and National Parks with the Yosemite Grant, alongside conservationism and homesteading). National Forests are vital for Western economy. I think commuter trains on the East Coast would be a viable analogy. Imagine suddenly, there were new rule about who could use the trains. A lot of people's livelihoods would be destroyed, and even more would face new difficulties in earning a living, because this shared resource is no longer shared.

4. The West has become corrupted. I think you're saying by big business, a lot of Westerners would say by the federal government, I say by both. It isn't (just) big business that's upset with government regulations. It's my friends with 40 acres they can't ranch on because it wouldn't sustain a herd by itself. It's towns drying up because the mines are bare and the rights are gone. It's my grandfathers best friend holding onto his couple, bare square miles because all he has is the land and nothing to put on it or take from it.

5. You know what else is the difference between a wildlife refuge and a ranch? The refuge isn't sustaining a family (often an extended family). The refuge isn't putting the grass-fed beef on your plate. The refuge isn't actively poltically protecting the area against the encroachment of big mining, ranching, and lumber. These aren't just "privileged white rednecks" whose complaints and desires can just be brushed off as backwards. They're the people on the front lines for conservationism and against fraking, pollution and resource depletion. They're not liberal or conservatives, but Americans, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet while providing food for the cities and yahoos.