The Land Report

Fall 2016

The Magazine of the American Landowner is an essential guide for investors, landowners, and those interested in buying or selling land. The award-winning quarterly is known for its annual survey of America's largest landowners, The Land Report 100.

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60 The LandReport | FA L L 2 0 1 6 LANDREPORT.COM R emember the Forty-Niners? Those intrepid souls journeyed thousands of miles on foot and by ox-drawn wagons in search of a better life. And they did so on the first superhighway to cross the American West. It was called the California Trail, and its many routes were perilous at best. Is there a more haunting chapter in the history of the Old West than the fate of the Donner Party? That was the California Trail at its worst. Compare that with the northeast corner of Nevada where the California Trail muddies the waters of Thousand Springs Creek. That may well be the California Trail at its best. Imagine what it must have been like to spend weeks crisscrossing deserts and choking down dust only to arrive at a camp with hot springs and cold springs. No pampered spa goer at a four-star resort could equal the delight of those pioneers as they soaked their weary bones. Thousand Springs Valley had long been a favorite hunting ground of the Shoshone and early mountain men. By the mid-1800s, this closed basin became the headquarters of a nascent ranching empire. A series of enterprising cattlemen, including future Nevada governor John Sparks, sized up the possibilities in the Thousand Springs Valley and set out to secure water rights however and wherever possible. There was a method to this madness, and it had to do with the enormous amount of public land in Elko County. Grazing cattle on public land can be lucrative. But there's a catch: Although the land may be public, the water rights can be privately owned. A favorite strategy of early ranchers was to have one of his cowboys file a homestead claim on a strategic tract. Maybe it had a spring or a seep, but as soon as the cowboy took title, he turned around and sold the property to his employer. Over the last 150 years, operators of all ilks ran cattle in the broad valleys and sheep on the hillsides that ring this watertight basin. No precipitation leaves its boundaries. Some, such as a Scot named David Eccles, who purchased the ranch in 1908, were men of vision, true empire builders. An original backer of the Utah Construction Company, the Eccles company won immense contracts to build the Hoover Dam (1931) and the Alaskan Highway (1942). The bonding requirements on both federal projects were so steep that Utah Construction was forced to pledge its Elko County ranch holdings as collateral. At the time, they totaled an almost unimaginable 3 million acres. But in the decades that followed, there came a series of owners that Salt Lake City broker C. Patrick Bates describes as "light- weights, speculators, and short-term players." The land suffered and so did the storied reputation of the Winecup Gamble. DON WELLER

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