SHERIDAN (AP) - The state will likely make another run at preserving 1,350 acres surrounding the 1866 Fetterman Battlefield and Fort Phil Kearny sites, a state lawmaker says.

ChevronTexaco Corp. currently owns the acreage, but in January rejected a land swap with the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investment on the grounds it could hurt the company's chances of selling its surrounding ranch.

A second offer will likely be brokered, but its success will largely depend on ChevronTexaco, officials said.

"I believe (ChevronTexaco) would just as soon see history paved over," Sen. John Schiffer, R-Kaycee, said. "I believe all they're doing now is stalling, hoping to sell the property and shift the burden to someone else."

Details of the second offer - as with the first - were confidential.

ChevronTexaco's 26,000-acre Bar 6 Bar Ranch, which encompasses the acreage, is on the market for $36.5 million and has already been shown to several prospective buyers.

The state wants the land to protect several sites connected to Fort Phil Kearny and the Fetterman Battlefield and open them to public access. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has also intervened in the matter.

The acreage includes two cemeteries, a hay corral, the quartermaster's corral, two sawmill sits and the fort's brickyard, as well as walking access to Pilot Knob, Sheridan resident Mary Ellen McWilliams said.

"Today we can gaze out from Fort Phil Kearny and see pretty much what the military, Indians and civilians there saw in 1866," she said. "Fort Phil Kearny is the only military-built stockaded fort left in America where one can experience this."

In an interview Wednesday night, Schiffer said the land would be considered prime for subdivision development and believed ChevronTexaco was using that as a selling point.

Schiffer has asked that the company be given 10 days to respond to the state's second offer.

"They just diddle-daddled on the (first) offer," he said.

Established in 1866, Fort Phil Kearny was the site of the Fetterman battle between soldiers and the Cheyenne and Sioux Indian tribes. It was named for a popular Civil War general.