The oldest state agency in Texas has purchased two sprawling ranches in the state in separate real estate transactions with plans to build a border wall on one of them.
The Texas General Land Office announced the acquisitions last week that include the largest privately owned ranch on the market in Texas: the 353,785-acre Brewster Ranch in West Texas near Big Bend National Park that was listed for about $245 million. The state also bought a 1,402-acre ranch in Starr County along the Rio Grande River in South Texas. Terms of the purchases were not disclosed.
The deals add about 355,000 acres to the state agency's more than 13 million acres across Texas that it leases out for commercial uses, with all the proceeds going toward the state’s public school system.
Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who oversees the state land holdings, said by securing Brewster Ranch, the land office is "not only blocking foreign adversaries from purchasing this land but also ensuring this mineral-rich property will be generating revenue for the school children of Texas."
Information on other potential bids for Brewster Ranch was not immediately available. The sale of Brewster Ranch closed on Oct. 24. The seller was billionaire Brad Kelley, a Kentucky native who was once the largest private landowner in Texas. The Texas General Land Office did not reveal the closing date on the Starr County ranch but said it is planning to build a 1.5-mile wall along the state's border with Mexico.
Last year, the Texas General Land Office declared a 170-acre island in Starr County called Fronton Island as state land. With the recent deal, the state agency now owns two properties on the border in Starr County totaling more than 4,000 acres.
Meanwhile, the Brewster Ranch in the Big Bend region in far West Texas is an assemblage of 28 historic ranches parceled together by Kelley with Texas Mountain Holdings over two decades.
The brokers representing Kelley said they wore out two trucks touring potential buyers on the 552-square-mile ranch when they first listed it in 2019 for a reported $320 million. Brewster Ranch includes desert, river and mountains along the southern extension of the Rockies.
The deal is "one of the most significant public purchases of land in the history of Texas," said James King, a ranch broker with King Land & Water who represented Kelley, in a statement.
The state did not disclose its plans for Brewster Ranch.
For the record
James King and Harrison King of King Land & Water in Fort Davis, Texas, represented Texas Mountain Holdings. Eric DeJernett of CBRE's Austin office and Sam Middleton of Chas. S. Middleton and Son in Lubbock, Texas, represented the Texas General Land Office in the Brewster Ranch deal.