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Home Town
Competitiveness Meeting Community
Building in Roy on
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
at 5:00 pm.
Hosted by the "Natural Resources, Clean
Energy Development, and Water Availability/Quality" Team.
Please join us in helping to encourage our communities to THRIVE,
not just survive! We need your help!
For more information, contact:
Tuda Crews at 673-2267 (email:
tuda@utecreekcattlecompany.com)
Mary Libby Campbell at 673-2326 (email:
libcamp@aol.com)
Barbara Shaw at 673-2927 (email:
hardingcocomm@plateautel.net)
Coming Soon -
Essay
Contest for All Ages with Cash Prizes for each age level (Adult,
High School, Middle School, Elementary School). What do you
have to do to win? Just write an essay about "Why I Love My
Community" and submit it before the deadline with your name,
address, and phone number listed on the essay. Contest rules
and guidelines will be announced at the HTC meeting on April 10,
2007 at 5:00 pm at the Community Building in Roy.
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A piece of Old West history— a very big piece— is
for sale.
The
Bell Ranch, one of the last
big working ranches in New Mexico and a backdrop for the TV
western "Rawhide," just put out a "for
sale" sign with an asking price of $115 million.
Included in the price are 250,000 deeded acres of red
rock mesas and grassy plains, miles of the
Canadian River, a
10,000-square-foot hacienda, a 5,700-square-foot home, an
airport and 3,000 mother cows.
"It's like having your own national forest," said Gail
Swanson, a publicist for Orvis/Cushman & Wakefield, the Colorado
firm handling the sale. "It has its own ZIP code."
Indeed, the ranch is so big that postal code 88431
belongs to the property— although the ranch lost its post office
about 10 years ago when its population shrank to about a dozen
cowboys and a handful of managers and caretakers.
The ranch, stretching from Tucumcari to
Roy, lies mostly
in San Miguel County.
It has operated as a cattle ranch since being deeded to
Pablo Montoya in 1824 and, over the centuries, has developed a
reputation for tough cowboys who carry on the Old West
traditions of riding and roping.
The ranch is named after a
bell-shaped mountain on the
property, and its bell-shaped brand has been marking cattle
since 1857.
In addition to providing dramatic scenery for "Rawhide"
episodes, the ranch has been in movies and hosted old-time movie
stars, most notably Clark Gable, Roy Rogers and Shirley Temple.
The trend in the West in ranch sales is toward big
ranches being carved into trophy ranchettes, but Orvis/Cushman
broker Rye Austin said that is nothing to worry about on the
Bell.
The Lane family of Illinois, which has owned the iconic
ranch since 1970, wants to find a buyer that will continue its
storied
history as a working cattle ranch, Austin said.
"There's a long list of potential buyers," Austin said.
"But what the Lane family is hoping to find is someone who's
going to
continue the operation."
Why are the Lanes selling?
"All I can tell you is I can't go into their
motivations," Austin said. "And I don't think they care to."
Austin said cowboys and ranch manager Bert Ancell would
like to stay on to continue working the unique "Redbell"
cattle— a combination of Hereford, Red Angus, Gelbvieh and Red
Brangus— developed on the ranch.
While it's big, the Bell Ranch isn't close to the
acreage of CNN founder Ted Turner's biggest ranches here. His
Vermejo Park Ranch is 578,000 acres and his Armendaris Ranch is
350,000 acres.
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