For all the evils created by vast disparities in wealth, one of the trade offs is that what people do with that wealth results in things that would otherwise not come to pass. Given enough time and distance, they achieve a unique status. The Hudson River Valley is loaded with survivors of the Gilded Age, the country estates of Robber Barons and others of great wealth. Some are open to the public, like Lyndhurst, the Mills Mansion, Hyde Park, Olana. Out in California, San Simeon is just one among many monuments to personal wealth.
And then there's Waggoner Ranch in Texas. More below the Orange Omnilepticon.
A standard trope in movies about the American "Wild West" is that of the the Cattle Baron. Historic figure Daniel Waggoner certainly qualifies.
...Although he had no formal education, Waggoner was a shrewd businessman whose investments included not only land and livestock, but also five banks, three cottonseed oil mills, and a coal company. As the Waggoner holdings increased, W. T. [His son by his first marriage] moved the ranch headquarters to the Zacaweista Ranch south of the Red River near Vernon; Daniel, however, remained in Decatur. When he died of kidney disease in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on September 5, 1902, Daniel Waggoner owned approximately 80,000 cattle, 525,000 acres of land, and leases on more than 100,000 acres in Indian Territory. The 500,000-acre Waggoner Ranch, administered by Daniel's great-great-grandchildren in 1986, was the largest family-owned block of land in Texas.
Nothing lasts forever, though.
The family has been fighting over what to do with the ranch. Waggoner's granddaughter Electra Waggoner Biggs filed a lawsuit to liquidate the ranch in 1991. Her death in 2001 further complicated matters, and the ranch is now up for sale. Emily Schmall in the Star-Telegram
describes the ranch today.
The estate includes a 510,000-acre ranch spread over six North Texas counties, with two main compounds, hundreds of homes, about 20 cowboy camps, hundreds of quarter-horses, thousands of heads of cattle, 1,200 oil wells and 30,000 acres of cultivated land, according to Dallas-based broker Bernie Uechtritz, who is handling the sale along with broker Sam Middleton of Lubbock.
Heirs and stakeholders occupy two of the three principal houses and much of the estate has not yet been explored for oil and other mineral reserves.
Uechtritz says the estate falls within a “super asset class,” akin to selling the “Statue of Liberty” of cowboy culture.
The Waggoner ranch is the largest contiguous ranch in the United States. It covers the southern half of Wilbarger County, the northern third of Baylor County and portions of Wichita, Archer, Knox and Foard counties just before the Panhandle juts north from the Red River.
Putting aside the historic, cultural, and political aspects of the sale for the moment, there's the environmental impact to be considered. That's a vast amount of land that's essentially been under one ownership for over a hundred years. There's a phrase "stewardship of the land" which this
1980 manifesto from Catholic Rural Life spells out nicely. While rooted in theology, it aligns well with social and sustainability principles, as this excerpt shows.
People are God’s stewards on the land.
Stewardship means caring for God’s creation. It implies that civil title to a portion of the earth does not confer absolute ownership of it. That belongs to God alone. Civil title does confer responsibility for the land: for the use to which it is put and the care with which it is treated.
The land’s benefits are for everyone.
The land is given by God for all people, not just for those who hold civil title to it. The land is God’s gift for present and future generations of humanity. As the earth’s finite resources are used, provision must be made for people’s future needs.
The consumption patterns of the present generation must be adjusted so that future generations might also partake of the land’s bounty.
While the Waggoner heirs might disagree, there's an inescapable public interest in what happens to the ranch. If this is simply about cashing out and seeking maximum return, then Daniel Waggoner's legacy will have been sold for a mess of pottage and a huge opportunity will have been lost forever.