The Land Report

Spring 2017

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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S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 | The LandReport 83 LANDREPORT.COM Sir Sidney Kidman (1857–1935) was neither a knight nor a cattleman when he left his Adelaide home and struck out on his own. He was a plucky 13-year-old astride a one- eyed horse with five shillings to his name. Sixty-five years later, Sir Sidney was borne into the next life at the head of a mile-long cortege. Odds are there weren't any one-eyed horses pulling his bier. An estimated 200 wreaths crowned his grave. And his pastoral empire totaled approximately three percent of all Australia, including more than 100 stations, 176,000 head of cattle, and 215,000 sheep. In sheer size alone, S. Kidman & Co dwarfed many countries. OPENING SPREAD: A stockman musters cattle at a remote station in the northernmost region of Western Australia. A South Australian by birth, Sidney Kidman's pastoral empire encompassed three percent of Australia at the time of his death, including the far reaches of the Kimberley. SHUTTERSTOCK T he ability of a bold soul to take on a larger-than-life challenge and somehow emerge victorious is a central tenet of great landowning traditions. (Just ask Horatio Alger.) Richard King was an 11-year-old stowaway when he was hoisted from the hold of the Desdemona. Two decades later, King Ranch was born in the Wild Horse Desert. In his early twenties, George Hearst quit Missouri to become a Forty-Niner. By the time he bought San Simeon in 1865, he owned interests in the Comstock Lode and the Ophir Mine. Next up were Montana's Anaconda Mine and South Dakota's Homestake Mine.

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