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290,000 acres in Harding and San Miguel
Counties
RINGING THE BELL
Here's a spread with a lot of history; it's even been the subject
of several books. In 1824
Don Pablo Montoya, a former captain in the
Spanish army with excellent political connections,
petitioned the
Mexican government for a grant of land. In the remarkably short
period of 12 days, the authorities gave him the first of what would
be two land grants totaling a gigantic 800,000-plus acres in eastern
New Mexico northwest of present-day
Tucumcari. The Bell Ranch--named
for a similarly shaped and named
mountain in the middle of the
ranch--has been a working cattle spread for more than 170 years. The
Conchas Lake Dam covers a portion of the old ranch with waters from
the Canadian River.
Over the decades it was the usual New Mexico story -- good
years and bad times, financial bounty and economic distress. By 1867
the Montoya ownership was completely extinguished: Montoya's lawyer
had taken it over! The ranch went through several reorganizations
and in 1947 was divided up into six large parcels and sold to the
highest bidder.
In 1970 ownership of the largest-single chunk--so large it has
its own Zip Code, 88441--was acquired by
William N. Lane II of
Chicago, chairman and CEO of publicly traded
General Binding Corp.,
a maker of office supplies and equipment. Further purchases have
fleshed out the holding to its present size. Lane himself died in a
1978 car accident on the ranch.
The ranch is now owned by a trust for Bill Lane's five children. A
non-family member manages the ranch, and
one son,
Jeff, raised his family on the Bell. ``You can't beat the
lifestyle,'' he said. Jeff Lane was killed in a
plane crash in 2007.
"The Ranch is in
country that Conquistadors, Kiowa, Comanche and Apache toured years
before New Mexico became a State. There are mule deer,
pronghorn,
black bear,
bobcat, and mountain lion where Folsom and Clovis man
once hunted.
Here were seasons that cowboys, horses and cattle have cycled
through since 1824 when Pablo Montoya
first laid claim to the
655,000 acres of vegas, mesas and canyons.
Vistas include landmarks such as Bell Mountain, Montoya Point, the
Huerfano and Gavilan mesas and La Cinta creek:
- Bell
Mountain - What was once an ocean island is now 600 feet of
rock, inspiring the brand registered in 1875, and Wilson
Waddingham's use of the title "Bell Ranch" in 1889.
- Montoya Point - is where Don
Pablo Montoya stood and claimed the Pablo Montoya Land Grant to
include everything he could see.
- Gavilan Mesa - Charles Goodnight
searched for it as a landmark to how far his herd was from
watering at La Cinta Creek on the Second Goodnight Loving trail.
Bell Ranch has cedar canyons and
grama prairies, with names like Mosquero, Conchas and Mesteno, herds
of yearlings or cows and calves, the smell of pinon and sage, sounds
of the "kachink" of spurs from the ghost of the camps and from doves
and hawks or the wind and the prairie." -
Art Pike, New
Mexico Wanderings
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