Turner's Land Holdings Keep Increasing
By James E. Ducey and North Platte Bulletin staff
July 16, 2007
The 100-year tenure of the McMurtrey Family at a pioneer ranch in Cherry County ended June 26 with a public referee auction at Valentine.
R.E. "Ted" Turner purchased the property by offering the highest bid. Turner bought the 26,332 deeded acres for nearly $10 million. The exact amount was $9,584,848, or $364 dollars per acre.
The opening bid was $290 per acre.
It was the largest ranch land auction ever held in Cherry County, according to Eric Scott, Cherry county attorney.
The auction was ordered by the Cherry County District Court.
Bidders included a neighbor and the lessee, a distant family relative, and a phone-in bidder from California. There were about 15 registered bidders, according to realtor representative. About 125 people, including owners of adjacent ranches, were pressed into the auction room at the local hotel.
Several members of the McMurtrey family were seated in reserved rows of chairs.
The call of the auctioneer started about 10:23 a.m. The offered price quickly jumped by $5 per bid to $340.
The first bid break was after five minutes.
Once underway, the buy cost jumped to $350 per acre. There was another pause when bids were lacking. Then the price increased $1 by $1 until there were no further offers.
After a legal consultation, the ranch was announced sold. The auction lasted for one hour, 20 minutes. Statutory requirements required the sale had to last an hour.
"The McMurtrey Ranch was well taken care of by the owners and lessee," said Russ Miller, general manager of Turner Enterprises, Inc. "It has good flowing water."
The ranch is adjacent to the north boundary of the Spikebox Division of the Sandhill Ranch Properties. It is located 70 miles southwest of Valentine, in the heart of Cherry County, south beyond the McKelvie Forest.
History
Erba "Hub" McMurtrey built his ranch starting with Kinkaid homesteads with three McMurtrey Brothers in 1908. Ranch acreage increased with multiple buys from settlers and neighboring ranchers.
"My father was a pioneer of the country," said Mary Alice McMurtrey Williams, during a visit at her town home just after the auction. Some of the big hills on the north range were bought for “$2 per acre."
The ranch headquarters was moved to the present site along the meadows of Boardman Creek in 1925, when McMurtrey Williams was three years old.
Trips around the ranch with her father were a special recollection. Her older brother is Dr. George McMurtrey, a principal in the family trust.
After "Hub's" death in 1977, the ranch was placed in a trust, then leased in 1978 to A.W. Moursund, a cattleman from Texas.
In 1997 the J.H. Kime & Sons Cattle Co. leased the ranch.
The Kimes had moved to a different ranch two miles south on Gordon Creek in 1943. The Kime history in Cherry County dates to the open range days of 1884 when brothers claimed creek land to the east, near the historic Kennedy community.
The current ranch lease expires in mid-November. Cattle and personal property will need to be removed when the new owner takes possession.
The fate of the languid barn cats is not known.
The sale was scheduled to be finalized July 6, when the court could accept the final bid offer, according to Scott, the legal referee selected by the parties involved in the auction.
The 26,332 deeded acres of the McMurtrey Ranch will be added to the 199,011 acres already owned by Turner in Cherry County.
These 225,342 acres will comprise the largest percent of land under one owner within the county, exceeding the 216,813 federal acres owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service together.
Turner already owns 398,888 acres in the Sandhills region, including some on the southern fringe of South Dakota.
School land too?
Three parcels of 1,920 acres owned by Educational Lands and Funds are being leased as part of the ranch operation, and can be offered for purchase, said a representative of the real estate agency at the referee auction.
The lease on two of the parcels ends this year. Any sales are always at public auction.
These parcels might be purchased and added to acres bought by Turner.
It "depends on prices," said Miller.
In 2006, Turner purchased about 9,600 acres of educational land leases that had been managed as part of the Spikebox and Deer Creek divisions of Sandhill Ranch Properties.
Trades
Land may be traded too, to square up ranch boundaries.
"We always talk to owners about fences and trades, depending on the topography of the land," Miller said.
A land trade was previously made with the Kime cattle company after Turner's purchase of the George Younkin ranch in spring 2004. The Kimes got Betsy Creek meadow hayland in exchange for upland hills.
Lower price
The price per acre paid for the McMurtrey ranch was notably less than that paid recently for two ranches in Cherry County.
In November 2006, Wolfe Ranch land sold for $425 for each of the 3,880.8 acres to Andy and Carol Muller of Kutztown, Penn.
In January 2007, Tom and Lezlie Galloway of Lake Forest, Calif. bought the Heelan Ranch - dating to pioneer days of 1884 - for $5.28 million, or about $407 for each of the 14,292 acres.
They had already bought 3,604.71 acres at a cost of $1,242,690, or about $345 per acre, in June 2006. The parcels abut.
Turner personally owned nearly 2 million acres of land. Bison are raised on his various ranch divisions.
Turner originally came to the Nebraska Sandhills because of good grass, good people and good water, according to Miller.
Turner largest landowner
Media mogul Ted Turner is the largest individual landowner in North America.
Turner, the founder of CNN, now owns more than 2 million acres and 16 ranches in seven states – Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota and Oklahoma.
Combined, the acreage Turner owns is an area bigger than Delaware.
Turner, the owner of Ted’s Montana Grill which features bison meat, raises bison on 14 of his ranches. The Turner bison herd is approximately 45,000 head, which is the largest private herd in the world.
Turner owns a number of Nebraska ranches. He paid $17.78 million to buy a 58,000-acre ranch in the Sandhills in 2005 and bought a 45,000-acre ranch in Sheridan County in 1998.
According to his website, Turner purchased his first bison in 1976 and his first ranch, the Bar None in Montana, in 1987.
Turner says his commitment to the environment is consistent with the management philosophy of his ranches and properties. He says his philosophy is to allow natural processes to take precedence on his land but says he still recognizes the “hands of man.”
Turner says he strives for management that is both ecologically sensitive and commercially sustainable.
Turner properties are used for bison ranching, commercial fishing and hunting and, in a few cases, limited and sustainable timber harvesting, his website says. There are also many ongoing projects to save endangered species on Turner properties.
Turner said he originally envisioned bison roaming the plains
OTHER TURNER HOLDINGS
1987: Bar None Ranch, Montana, 23,000 acres.
1989: Flying D Ranch, Montana, 113,000 acres.
1992: Ladder Ranch, New Mexico, 155,000 acres.
1993: Snowcrest Ranch, Montana, 13,000 acres.
1994: Armendaris Ranch, New Mexico, 360,000 acres.
1995: Spikebox Ranch, Nebraska, 52,000 acres.
1996: Vermejo Park Ranch, New Mexico, 580,000 acres; Red Rock Ranch,
Montana, 5,000 acres.
1997: Deer Creek Ranch, Nebraska, 48,000 acres.
1999: Bad River Ranches, South Dakota, 140,000 acres; McGinley Ranch,
Nebraska, 67,000 acres; Z Bar Ranch, Kansas, 35,300 acres.
2000: Double H Ranch, Kansas, 2,900 acres; Blue Creek Ranch, Nebraska,
64,600 acres.
Land and cattle: Nebraska has plenty of both.
The LDS Church has become one of Nebraska's largest landowners with the purchase of 88,000 acres in the western part of the statethat it will use to raise cattle.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints paid $17.6 million last month for the land south of Alliance, about 60 miles from the Nebraska-Wyoming border.
Through its investment arm, Farmland Reserve Inc., the church began buying land in Nebraska in the early 1990s and held more than 140,000 acres before its most recent purchase, said Robert Lamoreaux, vice president of livestock for Farmland Management Co., which manages the church's land holdings.
"We're in business for profit, and of course the profits go to the church," Lamoreaux said.
Even with its new total of 228,000 acres in Nebraska, the church has a way to go before outpacing billionaire Ted Turner, who with 290,000 acres is the largest landowner in the state of nearly 50 million acres.
Still, the Mormon church — which is exempt from a state ban on corporate farms and ranches because of its nonprofit status — is now a major player among Nebraska landowners.
Church President Gordon B. Hinckley sees farm land as a safe investment that carries the potential of feeding people in a time of need, Lamoreaux said.
John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said deep-pocket out-of-state interests put smaller landowners — who need to borrow money to buy land — at a disadvantage.
Smaller ranches are not able to make as much of a profit while paying off debt. That leads to some ranches being consolidated and ultimately the disappearance of rural communities, Hansen said.
Lamoreaux said ranches owned by the church aim to have a high quality product produced under environmentally sensitive conditions.
"Anybody can be big," Lamoreaux said. "We try and be good."
Do you have any feelings about Turner's holdings in Nebraska?
Post your feedback on this topic here
