Politician Buys 1M-Acre Wyoming Ranch Four Times Bigger Than NYC for $79.5M

Summit County Council member Chris Robinson and his company, Ensign, which he operates alongside his two siblings, Alexander Robinson and Victoria Robinson, have acquired a vast ranch in Wyoming.

The Pathfinder ranches, often compared to the one featured in the TV series Yellowstone, span nearly a million acres across the Rocky Mountains. It is four times larger than New York City and ranks as one of the largest working ranches in Wyoming, constituting approximately 1% of the state's landmass.

However, parts of the 1,431-square-mile scenic landscape had been divided into multiple ownerships following various sales since 1975, including an 86,000-acre property known as Stone Ranch at the centre. Robinson told KPCW that Ensign already owned the Stone Ranch.

Specifically, the Pathfinder ranches cover 916,000 acres across four counties in east-central Wyoming. According to Swan Land Company, the broker handling the sale, it is nearly the size of Delaware.

'The family from whom we bought the Stone Ranch used to own the heart of the Pathfinder, and they sold it in, say, 1975. And so we're kind of reuniting it. It's now one big landscape,' Robinson explained to the media outlet.

While the property was listed at $79.5 million (£59 million) by a subsidiary of Dallas-based Sammons Enterprises, Robinson did not disclose the actual purchase price. The land will continue to be utilised for extensive cattle grazing. Although the sale was one of the largest in Wyoming, the brokerage declined to reveal the final amount paid. The property is estimated to have a livestock capacity of over 90,000 animals.

'This is what we specialise in – large, complicated transactions. And the beauty of this is that the buyers are excellent ranchers, but they're also conservation-minded operators as well,' said Swan Land Company.

Robinson's Ensign to Focus on Conservation

The land acquisition significantly increases Ensign's grazing capacity by 50%, making it one of the 25 largest landowners in the United States. Robinson considers this likely the company's largest single expansion.

For him, the deal represents a balance between business interests and conservation efforts. 'We love land and water. We think it's a good long-term investment, and we like the opportunities it affords us to be stewards over a piece of God's creation,' he said.

Caring for this cattle country will be a top priority under the stewardship of the new owners, as Ensign plans to operate a large-scale cattle enterprise while also safeguarding multiple protected species.

Pathfinder Ranches is home to the country's first 'sage-grouse conservation bank,' and Ensign has committed to keeping it operational. 'It's a statewide bank that, if there's any damage to, disturbance to, core habitat for greater sage-grouse, one option for mitigation would be to buy credits from the Pathfinder. [The property has] got a lot of sage grouse on it, a lot of antelope, pronghorn, deer, and elk. It's teeming with life,' Robinson added.

Currently, Ensign manages nearly 2.5 million acres across Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, with most of the land being public, secured through leases and grazing permits. Robinson emphasised that maintaining sustainable practices will be central to their ongoing operations, aiming to balance economic benefits with environmental responsibility.