Holliday said that before the LDS Church bought the Tom Sun Ranch from the Sun family in 1996, few people visited the cove. The church built the visitor center on the site of the old Sun Ranch, which was renamed the Mormon Handcart Ranch.

In 1997, the first year of operation, an estimated 70,000 pilgrims visited the ranch, according to a lawsuit filed this year. As a result, the BLM and the LDS Church entered into an agreement to allow visitors into the cove and to Devil's Gate, a nearby split in the mountains.

Before signing the lease with the LDS Church, the BLM did an environmental assessment and found no adverse effects on the land or the public from church management.

The BLM signed a 25-year lease with church officials last year, giving the church management control of 933 acres in exchange for annual payments of $16,000.

In November, the Alliance for Historic Wyoming and Americans United for Separation of Church and State appealed the decision, saying in part the valuation of the Martin's Cove site was "arbitrary, capricious, as well as an abuse of discretion." And the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the lease in federal court, arguing that it was improper for the government to give the church "complete and unfettered control over both an important federally owned historic site and the message that visitors to the site receive."

In the meantime, Holliday said he and his colleagues will try to make Martin's Cove as interesting and informative as possible, while trying to appeal to two different types of visitors: those who seek a strong, religious experience, and those who don't.