For thousands of years: Ancient indigenous peoples (sometimes called the Anasazi or Ancestral Puebloans), now descended by the Hopi and Puebloan tribes, farm the floodplain now known as King's Bottom. They hunt with chipped stone arrows, build their homes and storage structures on the upper benches, carve art and messages into the cliffs, and bury and honor their dead in soft-dug pits and walled-in alcoves.

The Civilian Conservation Corps blasts and hacks the first developed trail from the Moab valley into the downstream Colorado River canyon to King's Bottom.

Using some of the dynamite also commonly used in the area for uranium mining, descendants of settlers blast out big caves in the lower cliffs along the floodplain. Later, these caverns and the floodplain host the "Egg Ranch," which is exactly what it sounds like. The Kane Creek Road is often locally still called the "Egg Ranch Road."

The Grand County (Moab area) Commission re-zones part of the land along the Kane Creek Road to C3 (now called Highway Commercial). According to a Commissioner's editorial and notes from the time, it is supposed to be a 10-acre campground. However, the person writing the ordinance's map description, it appears mistakenly, writes the zone change to cover around 100 acres mostly on the uphill side of the road. Grand County and the developers have not yet publicized any official government act that changed the floodplain zoning from Range and Grazing, which has a 5 acre minimum lot size and would not allow anything close to this development. It is also uncertain whether the allegedly mistaken map description is legally binding.

This is approximately the last year that any publicly available satellite imagery shows that the property is being irrigated to any visible degree.

Craig Weston, a resident of Highland, Utah (near Salt Lake City) buys the land at King's Bottom (the floodplain area along the river). After purchase, Weston operates a small campground that has 1.5 stars on TripAdvisor, the lowest rated campground in Moab on the site.

Weston, now "Kane Springs LLC," submits a plan to Grand County for approval for a 100 unit "glamping" campground in the floodplain and the mouth of Pritchett Canyon.

Weston gets a letter from FEMA, based on the developer's engineer's findings, saying that if they pile enough dirt onto the floodplain, it will no longer count as floodplain and structures can be built there.

Weston adds two partners, resort developer Tom Gottlieb of San Francisco and Aspen, and Trent Arnold. Around this time the developers, now incorporated as "Kane Creek Preservation and Development," buy the approximately 100 acres of upper bench land adjoining the floodplain from Charles Nelson.

Weston tells the Moab newspaper in late October that he plans to build a "research and innovation hub," "workforce housing," and a "sanctuary" for native plants. He says he envisions 30-50 housing units, but "mostly a center for research and development."

The developers place a sign along the road by the development which reads "Kane Creek Natural Vegetation Restoration Project: Native Species Nursery," with a contact email. No other signage explaining the development has ever been placed at the site.

In January and February, the developers create and submit a revised site plan with a vastly expanded project (both from a 100-unit "glampground" as well as the "30-50 homes" and an "innovation hub"). This proposal includes 582 "dwelling units," 72,000 square feet of commercial space, the same "glampground," several 3-story condos, and an "amenity center" with multiple pools, a restaurant, a climbing wall, and other attractions (it looks like a country club in the plans).

The developers' traffic study notes that the developers expect 90% of the dwellings to be "recreational homes" (which in traffic study language means "vacation homes"), that it is "resort-style," that only "a small portion of the commercial space and amenities is proposed to be open to the public," that it will feature "private luxury stores," and that "it is unlikely the commercial space will draw consumers from Moab City based on the price point of goods and services on-site."

Local luxury realty firm Sotheby's circulates a brochure among agents touting the "Kane Creek...highly amenitized luxury community." The brochure refers to 2-bedroom duplexes "around $1,500,000," "5,000 square foot, custom single family home[s]," and asks "what percentage of [your clients] would *not* be interested in renting their second home?"

Craig Weston's attorney registers a new corporation (LLC) called the "Utah Workforce Housing Alliance." Weston's brother Kael Weston, an activist in the Democratic Party, is the sole person named on the paperwork. 3 months later and less than a month before the election, the "Utah Workforce Housing Alliance" donates $6,000 to the Grand County Republican Party, which makes the corporation the local Party's largest donor. This donation, because of its timing, does not need to be publicly disclosed until after the election. Later, Kael Weston tells the Salt Lake Tribune that he knew nothing about the contribution. The local party spends money to support the campaigns (either through advertising or direct contributions) of 3 County Commission candidates and a County Attorney candidate. Two of the supported Commission candidates and the County Attorney candidate win the election. The previous County Attorney, who had expressed doubts about the project, is ousted.

The Grand County Commission forms the required "Improvement District" to oversee the proposed development's privately owned sewer plant, appointing 3 County Commissioners to the board. Shortly after, the developers' attorney writes a letter to ask the Improvement District to delay meeting so the various alleged "deficiencies" in the the public noticing and other aspects of the District's formation can be addressed.

Craig Weston and Trent Arnold, two of the 3 developers (Tom Gottlieb of Geolo Capital and Aspen is the third) evict approximately 16 (number depending on who you ask) lower-income and mostly older people who had been living on the upper part of the property, mostly in trailers.

At the end of the Utah state legislative session, legislator Curtis Bramble inserts a rider into a House Bill 22 that he said targeted an Improvement District in Grand County. It automatically dissolves any District's board that was created within certain dates but did not meet within 100 days. It provides for the creation of a new District board, which may only consist of property owners in that District, or their agents. The Kane Creek developers quickly form a new sewer plant oversight board consisting only of themselves.

The Grand County Republican Party receives another round of donations either directly from Weston or from LLCs registered to his home or business address. The donations total $4,000.

49 Moab area residents file a protest against the state's permitting of the private sewer plant, but the state grants the permit.

The developers submit an application to Grand County for a Conditional Use Permit to build a sewer plant on the property. Public hearings and votes have not yet been scheduled.

Moab locals and visitors, few of whom were previously aware of the process, now wintess a major earthmoving operation. A County Commission meeting on the 16th, to review the progress of the development, attracts hundreds of attendees and dozens of speakers. The only person to speak in favor of the project is Tom Gottlieb, one of the developers, who delivers a prepared statement via Zoom touting his conservationist credentials and the benefits of the development.

Citizens hold a community meeting at Star Hall, forming a watchdog group with the goal of stopping the development entirely, purchasing the site, rehabilitating the damaged land, and turning it into a public park. They begin an outreach and public education campaign and form teams to collect information about the history, scientific analysis, legal and policy issues, and cultural interest regarding the site and the development. We fundraise with the primary goal of funding a legal campaign and the supporting scientific and outreach work to stop the development and return it to the local community.

• The Conditional Use Permit hearings and vote to build a sewer plant
• A public hearing and protest period on the developers' application to change their water rights
• The process, and County Commission vote on the approval, of the "preliminary plat," site plan and subdivision plan
• The County's formal response and/or plan of action regarding possible zoning errors that would preclude much of the development
• The County's formal response and/or plan of action regarding the issue of "resource extraction" (AKA gravel mining) on the benches in a zone that doesn't allow that use
• The developer's efforts to get enough gravel to fill the site, and the possibility of flooding before they are finished
• The fallout from massively ripping down and reshaping close to 180 acres of ground in an area with a high density of indigenous American archaeological sites
• Watching the developers try to get the funds, permits, rights-of-way and federal law clearance to get about 3 miles of narrow road more than tripled in size—handling onsite issues of: the immediately adjacent and underneath Colorado River; a dozen or more flash waterfall channels that empty directly onto the road; several ancient petroglyph panels; designated critical habitat for multiple endangered species; overhanging cliffs that drop road-blocking stones; two campgrounds and a popular Jeep trailhead that share the narrow bench between river and cliff; uncertain and tangled existing rights-of-way; a patchwork of land owned by the federal government, Nature Conservancy, and several private landowners; the need to move a large regional powerline; and a hostile local population.