Winter 2014

Electra, which was named after his daughter.
Within several years, the oil find made the Waggoner
family one of the wealthiest in the state.
Despite the staggering wealth generated by oil, Tom
stayed true to himself, maintaining his land as a working
cattle operation until the day he died, December 12, 1934.
His obituary made it clear the cattle and the land were his
first loves: “Although oil expanded [his property] into what
was described as the greatest fortune ever amassed by one
man west of the Mississippi River, he remained a cattleman
at heart. He had far greater interest in his cattle than in the
great oil pool which made him many times a millionaire…
He kept his promise to have ‘my land stocked with cows as
long as I live.’”
THE PRESENT
The Waggoner Ranch was approved to be liquidated
August 6, 2014, by Texas 46th District Court Judge Dan
Mike Bird.
The 510,000-acre Waggoner Ranch is an historic empire
that measures slightly smaller than Rhode Island. The
realm covers the southern half of Wilbarger County, the
northern third of Baylor County and portions of Wichita,
Archer, Knox and Foard counties just before the Panhandle
juts north from the Red River.
“The ranch is home to some of the best cattle and bestblooded
horses in the world,” said Bernard Uechtritz, an
international real estate advisor with Briggs Freeman
Sotheby’s International Realty, who was appointed to help
broker the sale. “It produces food and energy and its people
represent the backbone of our society. Their fortitude, values
and ethos exemplify what made America – Texas – great.”
It includes vast, rich oil fields, fertile farmland and endless
miles of rangeland dotted with enormous lakes and populated
by thousands of cattle and hundreds of foundation-bred,
award-winning American quarter horses.
The ranch features two main compounds as well as about
20 cowboy camps. Due to the ongoing drought, the cattle
herd has been cut to approximately 7,500 head, but during
normal conditions the ranch has supported up to 14,000
head. Currently, the ranch is home to about 475 Quarter
Horses bred in the tradition of Poco Bueno, who, in the
1940s, was the first horse of its breed to be insured for
$100,000.
Water is a precious commodity in northwest Texas and
Waggoner Ranch features two large privately owned lakes
built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lake Kemp
covers 16,479 surface acres, while Lake Diversion covers
3,400 surface acres. While the ranch does not own the water
held in the lakes, it owns significant water rights.
The water is also lifeblood for wildlife. A Texas Monthly
reporter on a morning trip to the ranch in 2004 reported
seeing hundreds of deer, wild turkey, feral hogs, javelina and
a bobcat as “big as a mountain lion.” At that time, it was
estimated that 120,000 snow geese were expected to winter
on Santa Rosa Lake, a 1,500-acre lake that was privately
constructed and owned by the ranch.
Oil is the lifeblood of the business operations. Currently,
the ranch has more than 1,000 wells that produce a monthly
gross of 41,000 barrels a month for the entire estate. 41.67
percent of the mineral rights will convey with the ranch.
“To a buyer, there are potentially significant tax benefits
in addition to land appreciation and development,” said Sam
Middleton, owner of Chas. S. Middleton and Son, a real
estate and appraisal firm based in Lubbock, who was also
appointed as a broker. “Given the opportunities for further oil
exploration, green energy, prime farming and grazing land,
existing cattle and horse operations, and with an already
established infrastructure that includes dams and thousands
of miles of fencing and roads, the buyer will potentially get
an incredible tax write-off through accelerated depreciation
of the vast assets included with the land.”
THE FUTURE
“The perfect buyer, we believe, and the family believes, is
someone who understands the big picture of the Waggoner
Ranch, and that its preservation is critical to its continued
prosperity, legacy and value to society,” said Uechtritz. “For
either an individual or a corporate entity, the acquisition of
the ranch offers profitability, diversity and development with
the added opportunity to be a civic giant who will benefit
from immeasurable cultural and community alliance by
preserving an icon.”
Opportunity is the operative word. Currently around one
quarter of the acreage is under exploration for oil. Incredibly,
three quarters of the ranch acreage have not been explored
or developed for oil.
While wildlife is abundant, the ranch has never been
hunted commercially. There is the potential to derive
considerable income from a hunting enterprise.
“This ranch has not been commercially hunted except for
very limited quail hunting in 165 years of its ownership,”
said Middleton. “There are outstanding Boone and Crockett
24 LandsofTexasMagazine.com