One guy in America now owns 2.2 million acres, making him the largest private landowner in the United States.
Picture running the air-seeder, or riding the range, over that chunk of land.
John Malone of Denver, chair of Liberty Media, took over top spot this year from another media mogul, Ted Turner, who owns more than two million acres himself, according to The Land Report, a U.S. publication.
Turner has held top spot since the 1990s and was only recently ousted from No. 1, The Land Report said.
The two men are business partners and Malone got the land purchase bug while on a helicopter ride over some of Turner’s expansive ranch property, according to the report.
Now Malone owns land in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Main and New Hampshire. And he also has his eye on Canadian land for future acquisition.
Like Turner, Malone is an ardent conservationist. And that’s a lot of land to conserve.
There are some fences, however. One ranch employee told the story of Turner’s desire to make any needed fences unobtrusive, so green fiberglass posts were installed. They weren’t easily visible — by man or beast. Bison and wildlife wrecked so many fences that they had to revert back to traditional wood and wire.
You can access The Land Report’s top 100 U.S. landowners by clicking here. You’ll see a few recognizable names like Irving, King, Hunt, Ford and Hearst, to name just a few.
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