100 e Land Report Sixes Ranch 266,255 ACRES 48 / Four 47 / Bill Gates 268,984 ACRES Last winter’s cover story on “Farmer Bill” identified the cofounder of Microsoft as the largest farmland owner in the nation. In March, while promoting How to Avoid a Climate Disaster , Gates was participating in an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit when a user asked the $64,000 Question: “Hey Bill! Why are you buying so much farmland?” Gates’s response? “My investment group chose to do this. It is not connected to climate,” he wrote. This big story in 2021 wasn’t about what Gates bought; it was what he didn’t buy: EASTERDAY FARMS and EASTERDAY RANCHES . In April, Washington rancher Cody Easterday pleaded guilty to defrauding Tyson Foods and others of $249 million for buying and feeding hundreds of thousands of nonexistent cattle, aka, ghost cattle. Easterday’s extensive agricultural assets were subsequently auctioned off by a US bankruptcy court. The winning bid? $209 million, which was submitted by Farmland Reserve, an entity affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The runner-up? A $208 million bid from an investment company owned by Gates. At press time, the fabled Four Sixes was under contract, according to listing broker Sam Middleton of Lubbock’s Chas. S. Middleton and Son. The $341 million price tag includes the 142,372-acre FOUR SIXES RANCH Headquarters and Horse Division in King County ($192,202,200); the 114,455-acre Four Sixes Dixon Creek Division ($137,346,000); and the Four Sixes Frisco Creek Division, a state-of-the-art cattle operation located two miles south of the Oklahoma state line that includes 9,427 acres ($12,209,260). owned by former Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Commissioner Errol Galt. Other Galt ranches can be found in Broadwater County, east of Helena along the Missouri River, and Rosebud County to the east of Billings. 50 / D.K. Boyd 261,937 ACRES Family 49 / Galt 262,000 ACRES In 1881, Henry Sanborn and Joseph Glidden bought 95 sections in the Texas Panhandle. Their original brand was supposed to mimic the shape of the Panhandle. But when one of the ranch’s cowboys said it looked more like a frying pan, the name stuck. Today, D.K. Boyd owns the FRYING PAN RANCH as well as the LE RANCH in New Mexico. A rancher, oilman, and property rights advocate, Boyd was a founding officer of the Texas Land & Mineral Owners Association. Wellington Rankin (1884–1966) served as Montana’s attorney general and was reportedly the state’s largest private landowner. His descendants operate several of the state’s premier properties, including the 71 RANCH , which is 156 e LandReport | WINTER 2021 LANDREPORT.COM
The Land Report 2021.4: Page 156
