Seems to me he'll soon be all Nebraskans neighbor Ted

[CattleArmy]

Monday, June. 25, 2007


Ted Turner now Nebraska's biggest landowner
Owns more than 350,000 acres in state


Billionaire Ted Turner recently added more land to his vast holdings in Nebraska.
NewsNetNebraska
June 09, 2006


Ted Turner is now Nebraska's largest private landowner. He also recently became the largest landowner in Cherry County after purchasing more than 8,000 acres at a public auction May 1.

With the purchase of 18 parcels of land – 8,834.82 acres in all – from the Board of Educational Lands and Funds, Turner owns more land than anyone else in Cherry County.

According to the North Platte Bulletin, Turner purchased the land for $2.79 million at the BELF auction at the Cherry County courthouse May 1. The overall average cost per acre was $317, with a range from $240 to $480 per acre.

With these purchases, Turner now owns about 196,994 acres in Cherry County.

Turner representatives were also interested in purchasing an additional 1,904.53 acres in Sheridan County May 2.


Ted Turner owns one in every 112 acres in Nebraska.
Turner's five ranches would then comprise at lease 357,719 acres in the Nebraska Sandhills, where his first purchase was the Spike Box ranch – 32,000 acres sold to Turner for $4.75 million in 1995. To put it another way, Turner owns one in every 112 acres in Nebraska.

Turner is the largest individual landowner in the country with 1.8 million acres. Besides Nebraska, Turner owns acreage in Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

The Turner empire is bigger than Delaware. It is enough mountain and valley and river and prairie that it could rank as the 48th-largest state.

Turner also owns 128,000 acres of ranchland in Patagonia.

Brochures for Turner Enterprises proclaim that his dream is to manage vast lands in economically sustainable and an ecologically sensitive manner while conserving native species.

His net worth, estimated at $4.8 billion last year, puts Turner 25th on Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans.

Turner's main business is still bison. He owns more than 8 percent of the country's population of bison, 27,000 head. Once married to Jane Fonda, Turner is a frequent visitor to North Platte and his home in the Nebraska Sandhills.

 

[Anonymous]

Yep and how much you want to bet its all set up to go to some buffalo hugger conservation outfit down the line...All fits perfectly into the greenie groups around here that are buying up places so " the deer and antelope can play, and the buffalo roam"....

Can you say BIG OPEN :???:

 

[Jinglebob]

Yep and how much you want to bet its all set up to go to some buffalo hugger conservation outfit down the line...All fits perfectly into the greenie groups around here that are buying up places so " the deer and antelope can play, and the buffalo roam"....

Can you say BIG OPEN :???:

Guess we'll just have to sneak in and set up house keeping then, won't we OT? :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Yep and how much you want to bet its all set up to go to some buffalo hugger conservation outfit down the line...All fits perfectly into the greenie groups around here that are buying up places so " the deer and antelope can play, and the buffalo roam"....

Can you say BIG OPEN :???:

Guess we'll just have to sneak in and set up house keeping then, won't we OT? :wink:

I always wanted to be a buffalo hunter :lol:

 

[Soapweed]

As of today, June 26, 2007, Mr. Turner owns even more of Nebraska. At a land auction this morning he bought the McMurtrey Ranch in Cherry County, consisting of 26,332 deeded acres plus 1920 acres of Nebraska school land lease. He paid $364 per acre for a total purchase price of $9,584,848.00. He happens to own some of the very best ranching properties in the whole wide world.

 

[CattleArmy]

Goodbye neighbors hello buffalo. My dad figured that would take about 1500 head of cattle out of circulation in the area with the ranchers who had the place leased having to give it up to Turner. Does that sound right to you Soapweed?

 

[Miss N. The-Hills]

Yep and how much you want to bet its all set up to go to some buffalo hugger conservation outfit down the line...All fits perfectly into the greenie groups around here that are buying up places so " the deer and antelope can play, and the buffalo roam"....

Can you say BIG OPEN :???:

A while back, my family wandered into a "Ted's" restaurant, quite by accident, not knowing who the "Ted" on the sign was. The main thing on the menu? Buffalo!!

So much for their roaming...
:wink:

 

[Soapweed]

Goodbye neighbors hello buffalo. My dad figured that would take about 1500 head of cattle out of circulation in the area with the ranchers who had the place leased having to give it up to Turner. Does that sound right to you Soapweed?

That estimate should be pretty close.

 

[Soapweed]

Here are a couple photos taken at the land auction in Valentine today.

A big crowd was on hand

At the land auction

 

[cutterone]

I had the privilege of participating in a branding back some years ago around the Arthur area and met some really nice folks and the "Turner thing" was going on then and it upset me then. Can't say how I would handle all of that if I lived there. I just had a nightmarish thought when reading your posts - What if that SOB bought out Tysen, Cargil, and what used to be Swift as well as much of the grasing land in the western states??
He could control all aspects of the beef industry!! :???:

 

[Clarencen]

cuterone:
That may not be Turners plan, but a plan like that is tucked away somewhere in someone's file. When Turner dies, do you really think all that land will go to some conservation group?

 

[cutterone]

I also saw something on the weather channel the other night about the animal/tree huggers & the global warming issue about purchasing a lot of land from Mexico to Alaska via the Rockies to create a "animal interstate" access for wildlife to migrate to the northern areas as the warming trend continues. He's not part of that is he?

 

[efb]

It's not just Nebraska and Ted Turner. The mega wealthy Bass family from Ft. Worth are now probably the largest land owner in the Flint hills.
Where do you think this will end ?

 

[CattleArmy]

In dealing with being around a Turner ranch it has become blatently clear to me that it is the management of the said ranch as to how well you think of Turner and how good of neighbors they are. The first manager of Turner that I was exposed to was a great guy. Willing to lease out pasture the buffalo weren't using and to sell hay standing for neighbors to go put up. However, when he left the reason so many can't stand Turner (besides him buying up the land) moved in. Neighbors that had pastured cattle there (with the exception of one I believe) and hay standing deals were off. Seems they'd rather let the grass burn up then let a neighbor lease it or buy it standing. The manager also turned buffalo where there wasn't a fence around someone elses hay from last year and the poor guy was just down two weeks ago trying to rebale what was salviagble.

So I've seen first hand the two sides to the Turner deal and I guess my opinion is how well a neighbor gets along with the buffalo coming to roam is how human the manager is.

 

[Mike]

The locals in any area could buy this land if they seriously wanted it to stop.

All they would have to do is form a Co-op and buy shares of whatever denominations they could afford.

 

[CattleArmy]

It's not just Nebraska and Ted Turner. The mega wealthy Bass family from Ft. Worth are now probably the largest land owner in the Flint hills.
Where do you think this will end ?

I don't think it will end here until Turner owns most of Nebraska. He's close to his 50,000 acre ranch and the new ranch he just bought touching. I think about two ranches stand between it. Scary :shock: