Ted Turner buys Nebraska

Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney, DesMoines, and the rest of Nebraska and Iowa

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Coyote
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Ted Turner buys Nebraska

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OWH wrote: Turner buys more Sand Hills ranch land

Ted Turner's bison have a new place to roam.

The media mogul has expanded his ranch holdings in Nebraska's Sand Hills with the purchase of the 58,230-acre Fawn Lake Ranch north of Hyannis for $17.78 million.

The sale closed earlier this month for the ranch in southwest Cherry County off Highway 61. It is in the vicinity of, though not adjacent to, other Turner ranch holdings.

Russ Miller, general manager of Turner Ranches, said the property will continue to operate as ranch land, "except the animals that will be grazing it will be bison."

According to a Web site real-estate listing, the property, which sold for $327 an acre, had about 6,000 acres of sub-irrigated land that generates about 12,000 tons of native prairie grass each year. There also are 100 windmills and 35 artesian-flow wells on the land. The property has 20 small lakes as well.

"This ranch, in particular, is a very high-quality ranch," Miller said. "It's a great piece of property."

The ranch has several wet meadows, which provide water for livestock in times of drought. The Sand Hills area has experienced drought for the past five years.

"The bison do well grazing it," Miller said.

Turner is the largest private landowner in Nebraska, with a reported 380,000 acres of bison ranches, including the Fawn Lake Ranch. Turner also is the largest private owner of bison in the country, with about 37,000 head.

Since 1977, the Fawn Lake Ranch had been owned by the Milligan family, a partnership of two brothers and two sisters who listed the property for sale last summer at a price of $19.5 million.

In 1998, the Milligan family also sold a 44,474-acre ranch in Sheridan County to Turner.

Fawn Lake Ranch is known for two buildings insulated with hay bales, including the main ranch house that was built in the early 1900s. The ranch houses, one of which was occupied by a family member, are frequently referenced on Web sites listing historic hay-bale buildings.

Calls to the Milligans' office and home were not answered.

"I was impressed when I walked into that house, and I anticipate we will continue to operate it the same way our predecessors did," Miller said. "We're not out there to tear things down."

An equipment auction is scheduled next week at the Fawn Lake Ranch with several tractors, farm implements, pickups, trailers and more than 50 horses for sale.
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Brad
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Post by Brad »

He needs to supply all of his Ted's Montana Grills wil Buffalo meat. He should re-name it Ted's Nebraska Grill.
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Post by Coyote »

Ted Turner buys more land in Nebraska Sandhills
Beatrice Daily wrote:Media mogul Ted Turner purchased a 26,000-acre ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills for $9.6 million, adding to the nearly 2 million acres he already owns in seven states. The land sits next to nearly 100,000 acres bought by Turner in 1995, Miller said. Turner owns several ranches in Nebraska and other states and uses them mainly to raise bison. Turner also 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. Turner's restaurant chain, Ted's Montana Grill, features bison meat.
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Brad
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Post by Brad »

So is he buying the Land for the Land or is he buying the Land for the Water?
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Post by Big E »

Yes.

-Big E
Stable genius.
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nebugeater
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Ted Turner Buying Nebraska

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071128/ap_ ... r_s_land_1



I see both sides of this and am not sure where I stand on Ted T. buying up this much land.  On one side he SEEMS to be doing positive things with it, on another he is driving the ranchers from this part of the country out.  It is not jsut Nebraska where he is buying but the story does say that he #1 is the largest individual land owner in the countryy and 2) he  owns at least 425,000 acres in Nebraska  that is about 664 Sq. Miles.



MULLEN, Neb. - Ted Turner's men didn't flinch. As the price climbed past $8 million, $9 million, $9.5 million, they continued bidding at a rapid-fire pace.



When the auction was over, they walked away with what they came for: 26,300 acres of prime ranch land, at a cost of nearly $10 million.

"It hasn't taken long to find out he's serious," said Duane Kime, a rancher and Turner neighbor who was outbid by about $100,000 by the CNN founder.

But what exactly is Turner serious about?

The question gnaws at folks here and in other rural areas of the country where people once thought the billionaire just wanted to play cowboy.

Turner has amassed 2 million acres over the past two decades to become the largest private landowner in the country. He owns land in at least nine states, with most of his holdings in New Mexico, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota, and is restoring buffalo, cutthroat trout, wolves, black-footed ferrets and other flora and fauna that filled the Plains before the West was won.

His front men say their boss doesn't have a secret agenda — he just wants to be a rancher. But each big buy only heightens the anxiety and gives rise to conspiracy theories, the most ominous of which hold that the swashbuckling Atlanta executive is bent on putting Nebraska ranchers and farmers out of business.

"With him it's such a concern," said Cindy Weller, who lives on the family ranch near Mullen. "You don't know what his plan is and what he's going to do."

Among the theories: Turner is trying to corner the land over the Ogallala Aquifer, the world's largest underground water system, to gain power in the water-starved West.

Or: He is scheming, perhaps with the United Nations, to create a vast wildlife refuge and turn it over to the federal government, removing the land from Nebraska's tax rolls. That could hurt Nebraska schools and other services, which are already starved for cash.

"The entire way of life here is threatened, and it's not just Turner, but he's one reason. The whole area is economically depressed," Weller said.

Mike Phillips, executive director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, a Turner offshoot, insisted his boss is just a "doggone serious rancher," though one dedicated to preserving the environment.

But Phillips' very presence is making people wonder. He once worked with The Wildlands Project, an environmental group that wants to create a continent-wide network of nature preserves to save endangered species. The Turner Foundation, the charity arm of Turner's empire, has contributed money to it and gives millions to dozens of other environmental groups.

Turner's organizations also have been in discussions with the World Wildlife Fund and the World Conservation Union about conserving bison. The groups have expressed interest in developing a huge park where bison could once again roam the Great Plains.

Actually, Turner's spokesmen say, the driving force behind Turner's land purchases is the desire to make money. Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico, for example, offers weeklong elk hunting excursions at $12,000 a pop. He has also entered the restaurant business with gusto, opening more than 50 Ted's Montana Grill restaurants across the country that feature bison meat.

Turner declined to be interviewed, only accepting written questions answered by spokesman Phillip Evans.

"Our agenda is not to create a vast wildlife preserve," Evans, vice president of Turner Enterprises, said in an e-mail. However, he said, Turner is concerned about preserving animal habitat while ranching. "We think we can do both."

Ron Arnold, head of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and author of several books critical of the environmental movement, said he has studied Turner's activities and come to his own conclusion.

Turner is amassing land for "his own sense of grandiosity," he said. "If he wants to hunt ducks on it, he hunts ducks on it. If he wanted to raise buffalo, he raised buffalo on it. That's all I could conclude."

Turner owns the largest buffalo herd in the country, 45,000 strong, many of them on the 425,000 acres he owns in Nebraska.

The sturdy bison need less attention than cattle, requiring fewer ranch hands. That adds to people's worries here in Hooker County, where there is about one person for every 721 square miles, just 15 kids graduated from high school last year, and the population dropped 3.4 percent from 2000 to 2006.

Another persistent complaint is that Turner's extraordinary ability to outbid just about anyone is driving up land prices, making it tougher for longtime ranchers to expand and keep their operations afloat.

Over the past decade, ranch land in the Sandhills region of the state where Turner owns all his property has more than doubled in price to over $300 an acre.

Kevin McCully, a Mullen-area land broker, said only a part of the increase can be attributed to Turner. Maybe, said Kime, but he just knows he can't compete: The recent auction was the third time in recent years that he was outbid by Turner, who now borders about three-quarters of Kime's ranch.

Kime now wonders whether someday he might have to sell the ranch that has been in the family for generations.

"Turner might be the only one around that would want to buy it," he said.
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Re: Ted Turner buys Nebraska

Post by the1wags »

I've long thought that it would be cool to make a huge "Buffalo Grassland National Park". Return things to natural prairie with herds of buffalo out running around. It would be cool to pull off of I90 in South Dakota and have a few big lookout towers with big binoculars where you could watch the herds.
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Re: Ted Turner buys Nebraska

Post by nativeomahan »

I guess I don't understand all the paranoia.  A guy/corporation wants to invest big bucks in an area, and people complain???!!  I guess some people just live to complain.  They would complain if manna from heaven fell down and just happened to hit them on the head.  

Ted Turner doesn't seem to be turning his land into junk yards or trash heaps.  Sounds like he is a good steward of the land.  And he has helped raise land values, which helps out the local governments.  Sounds like a Win-Win situation for everyone.

If down the road much of his land was turned over to some national park or conservancy, that would attract hundreds of thousands of visitors (and their money), and lead to development of a tourist industry, and spillover industries, gosh, wouldn't that be awful!  And if he managed to aid in species protection?  Horrors!  People might actually want to move TO, rather than AWAY, from rural Nebraska.  Honey, go grab me the smellin' salts!  I feel a faint comin' on...
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Re: Ted Turner buys Nebraska

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Turner 'almost done' buying up ranchland

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2 ... d=10252506
CNN founder Ted Turner, the largest private landowner in Nebraska and the United States and the nation's largest bison rancher, said Wednesday that he is about done buying new ranches.

He said he would like to reach 2 million acres nationwide before he dies — about 40,000 acres more than he currently owns.

"I'm almost done. I've got enough," said Turner, who was visiting Omaha for the reopening and renaming of one of his 54 bison restaurants, now called Ted's Nebraska Grill.

The 69-year-old billionaire, philanthropist and conservationist said he isn't interested in free-standing ranches anymore, only "reasonably priced" parcels adjacent to his current operations, which include five ranches in Nebraska near Gordon, Oshkosh and Mullen. The ranches cover 425,221 acres, an area larger than Douglas and Sarpy Counties combined.

"You know what 2 million acres is?" Turner asked over a plate of bison miniburgers and transfat-free onion rings. "If my land was all connected, in one long straight line, a mile deep, it would stretch from New York to San Francisco."
In a half-hour interview, Turner answered questions on a broad range of subjects — his political preferences, the profitability of bison, his shrinking fortune and conspiracy theories that he is buying Nebraska land to corral the best chunks of the Ogallala Aquifer.

Turner, known for his efforts to help the environment and endangered species, rolled his eyes when asked if he planned to sell water rights on his Nebraska ranches.

"I've never sold any water rights to anyone and don't intend to," he said.
Turner's name isn't in the headlines as much anymore. His focus has changed from running a media empire to fighting global warming and nuclear weapons and controlling population growth, as well as overseeing his restaurants, known outside Omaha as Ted's Montana Grill.

The Omaha restaurant, near 136th and California Streets, is a test to see if a more diverse menu — one featuring Omaha Steaks as well as bison — will draw more diners. It also will test demand for more locally obtained food.

Every food item that Americans eat is shipped an average of 1,000 miles, Turner said. By buying locally whenever possible, the Omaha restaurant will reduce greenhouse gases, he said.

The name change to Ted's Nebraska Grill might "shake things up" and get more people to try the restaurant, he said.

Omaha once had two Montana Grills. The remaining Turner restaurant sells about 50 percent beef and 50 percent bison — more beef than at any other Turner restaurant.
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Re: Ted Turner buys Nebraska

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Ted Turner plans 'ecoagriculture' institute on Nebraska ranch

https://omaha.com/news/state-and-region ... -top-story
Paul Hammel, OWH wrote:Last week, Turner announced that he was turning over an 80,000-acre ranch north of Gordon to a nonprofit he formed that will conduct research and develop strategies to conserve ecosystems while raising bison and generating income off grazing lands.
Paul Hammel, OWH wrote:“I believe that local property taxes provide essential support for services on which our ranches and communities depend. The Institute will continue to pay its share of taxes to support the local communities,” said the 82-year-old Turner.
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