Texas and Hawaii were independent republics prior to joining the Union, so their story is different.
Into the 1880's, the federal government actively sold or granted most of its lands in the eastern half of the country to the states and to individuals for purposes of yeoman farming. What happened in the 1880's, however, is that settlement was spreading into the desert and mountain west, where land was not suitable for agriculture. Congress found that the little guys had been marginalized and that it was primarily big ranchers and timber and mining barons who were purchasing huge tracts of land for commercial use. This was not in the spirit of pioneering homesteaders, and Congress reconsidered. It shifted to a leasing rather than a purchase model. That worked reasonably well for a long time, as BLM and the Forest Service worked in tandem with western residents for economic development. What has changed in recent decades, however, is that environmentalists have ruptured the historic partnership, and now seek to curtail economic use of federal lands with an eye towards turning the west into a vast theme park for vacationing easterners. Hence the current western land wars.
One can certainly argue that it would have been better had Congress conveyed most federal lands to state ownership at the point of statehood. But that's water under the bridge. That is not what Congress did.
My preference would be to sell off a substantial portion of federal western lands (protecting the National Parks and Monuments, and with appropriate modern environmental safeguards) and use the proceeds for expansion of National Parks in the east, which is relatively overcrowded and underserved in terms of major parks. This should apply to the BRAC process as well. It irritates me that the military closes a base, and we give the land to local civil jurisdiction so that local politicians can play kissy-face politics with local developers. Meanwhile, we scramble for pennies to save (for example) nationally important historic sites that ought to be parks. We should connect the dots. There is a lot of federal property than can and should be sold, with the proceeds used for appropriate park maintenance, improvement, and expansion. YMMV.
Wow, there are plenty of folks herein who regularly chime in with their Federal is above states obfuscations. Territories of the USA and Washington DC are Federal concerns. When a territory decides to become a state it becomes sovereign over it’s land, not DC. That is a _primary_ meaning of a state, the land, all of it’s land, that it is sovereign over.
I know the contrary folks, usually _educated_ by Babylon thought in the modern schools, can’t figure this basic and obvious thing out.