Nature Conservancy acquires New Mexico ranch once the site of historic coal town – Nick Pappas, Albuquerque Journal
A big-game ranch with an even bigger story to tell is no longer on the market.
The MIRR Ranch Group said last week that the 50,000-acre Dawson Elk Valley Ranch — once home to the historic New Mexico coal town of Dawson and two of the nation’s deadliest mine disasters — has been acquired by The Nature Conservancy for an undisclosed amount. The Colfax County property had been for sale since 2020 at a listing price of $96 million.
“We appreciate the collaborative efforts of the seller and The Nature Conservancy’s team to navigate a complex process to arrive at a mutually beneficial result,” said Jeff Hubbard, who brokered the sale for the Denver-based company, in a statement. “It is extremely gratifying to know this iconic wilderness property will now be protected in perpetuity under the stewardship of The Nature Conservancy.”
The Dec. 15 closing, coming nearly a year after the agreement to purchase the ranch was first announced, will begin a new chapter for the storied property, which had been operating for decades as a private ranch for hunting antelope, bear, deer, elk, mountain lion and turkey.
EARLY DAYS
During the 1900s, the land was home to the company town of Dawson, a model mining community owned by the Phelps Dodge Corp. between 1905 and 1950. It is also where 263 men were killed in the nation’s second-deadliest mine disaster in 1913 and another 120 lost their lives in a second explosion a decade later.
The only public access today is Dawson Cemetery, where identical white iron crosses memorialize the nearly 400 miners killed in the two explosions. The graveyard has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1992.
The cemetery is cared for by the Dawson New Mexico Association, a nonprofit group based in Raton, which for years has organized well-attended reunions on the old townsite every other Labor Day weekend.
'CONSERVED IN PERPETUITY'
The Nature Conservancy, the Washington-based environmental nonprofit dedicated to conserving land and water sources around the world, purchased the ranch from the Colfax Land & Cattle Co. LLC, which bought it from Phelps Dodge in 2002. The company is owned by tobacco billionaire Brad Kelley, one of the country’s largest private landowners.
When contacted last week, The Nature Conservancy confirmed the purchase but declined to provide any further information, other than to say “an outline for the management of the property and details for next steps are still being developed.”
“Most importantly, we want to emphasize that our vision and plans are for this extraordinary property to be conserved in perpetuity,” Brad Cory, the principal project manager for the Dawson acquisition, said in a statement.
George Ducker, prevention and communications manager for the New Mexico State Forestry Division, said last week that the purchase was completed with the understanding the state would buy roughly 32,500 acres of timberland with the $50 million Forest Legacy Program grant it received last year from the U.S. Forest Service. That transaction will take place once all the requirements of the grant have been met.
'OLD WESTERN MOVIE'
Hubbard, who has been selling ranches for 20 years, said few can rival the Dawson site for its rich history.
“I think that makes it special, and the history is extraordinary,” he said in an interview. “I couldn't figure out a way to really accentuate that in our marketing materials … but when people visited the ranch, toured the ranch, prospective buyers, they all thought it was fascinating and really neat.”
During its five years on the market, Hubbard said roughly two-dozen potential buyers visited the property. Most were interested in maintaining it as a ranch, he said, a place for hiking, hunting and other kinds of recreation.
“The prospective buyers were by and large hunters, outdoors people who obviously are very well-heeled, and that place sort of embodies the romance of the West,” he said. “It’s like you’re watching an old Western movie when you’re out there.”
As it turns out, The Nature Conservancy’s acquisition of the old Dawson townsite isn’t the first time it has come face to face with the town’s long history. In 1996, the organization purchased the Carpenter Ranch Preserve, a 906-acre tract on the banks of the Yampa River about 20 miles outside of Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
That ranch was started by John Barkley Dawson, the original settler of the New Mexico property that later would bear his name, who moved his family there after selling his land to coal speculators in the early 1900s.
Albuquerque provides overnight rides to shelters amid cold winter months - Mia Casas, KUNM News
Winters are cold in Albuquerque, with temperatures regularly dropping below freezing overnight. This is an especially dangerous season for folks without a home or shelter. One city initiative is trying to help.
Albuquerque Community Safety provides professional support for behavioral health and quality-of-life crises – the kind of calls that require urgent help, but not a police response.
This can often look like responding to calls for mental health events, welfare checks, and unsheltered individuals who need support.
ACS just started its third year providing the Emergency Overnight Shelter Transportation service. The program ensures that people experiencing homelessness, or anyone without access to safe shelter, has a ride to a warm place to stay during the cold winter months.
This service runs nightly from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m., November 1 through March 31, serving anyone seeking relief from freezing temperatures. If you or someone you know needs help getting to a shelter, call 505-651-5515.
Future drought will likely change large migratory bird patterns to New Mexico - Bryce Dix, KUNM News
If you live in the Rio Grande Valley, you have probably heard heard the strange croaks of the sandhill crane or the honk of the Ross’s goose overhead when out for a walk along the river.
That’s because, in the fall and winter, tens of thousands of large migratory geese, cranes, and other water fowl nesting in Alaska, Canada, and the northern United States fly south to roost and forage for food.
“It just gets cold up there,” said Tucker Davidson, who primarily works with Audubon Southwest on expanding riparian restoration projects with the aim of improving water availability for birds. “They need soft soil that they can probe their bills into to find invertebrates that aren’t totally frozen over.”
Davidson said that migratory birds look for a combination of wetlands or flooded fields with nearby sources of food to tide them over until they ultimately head back north to nest in the spring.
As it happens, Albuquerque lies in the middle of one of the four major migratory bird corridors in the United States. Beginning in North Dakota, the so-called central flyway pushes birds from north to south – utilizing portions of the Rio Grande as a sky highway that naturally funnels birds down to New Mexico.
It’s pathways like these that are much more preferable than the seemingly indistinguishable prairies and grasslands in other parts of the country. By using the Rio Grande, birds can use unique visual clues like the mountains and the river’s winding ribbons as a guide. There are also other benefits that attract birds.
“Everything needs water on their way south,” Davidson said. “Some of these trips are really, really long. Especially for large migratory birds, they are cuing in on the wetlands along the river.”
Currently, New Mexico is experiencing its driest 20-year period in the last 1200 years, often referred to as a “megadrought” by scientists.
Drought has consequential effects that directly impact birds by causing bouts of dehydration or hypothermia, and reducing the availability of insects, vegetation, and fruits that birds rely on for nutrients.
And conditions for the future are not looking any better. Climate modeling estimates that New Mexico will have significantly less snowfall and, therefore, runoff to fill the Rio Grande – one of the main travel corridors for these birds.
Snowpack is a crucial piece of the climate puzzle for understanding how much water will be in the state’s rivers and streams. For example, models run by KUNM show a decline of 67% to 80% in the average amount of water in New Mexico’s January snowpack, depending on future emissions scenarios.
In addition, state of New Mexico reports estimate that flows into the Rio Grande above Elephant Butte Reservoir will decrease by up to 25% in the next 50 years as annual average temperatures increase from anywhere between 3 to 7 degrees. Other models estimate that the climate could warm even more.
While it is true that the state has made significant strides to reduce its water use since historic peaks in municipal/agricultural use in the 1980s and 90s, a disproportionate amount of the state’s water is used for agriculture.
A recent report estimates that New Mexico uses an eye-popping 80% of its fresh water for agricultural uses – including for dairies, alfalfa, pecans, and chile farming. Within those irrigated acres, most are irrigated with sprinkler systems or flooding.
The widespread technique of flooding fields for crops is a big reason why birds continue to visit New Mexico, even during times of extreme drought.
“Attracting the cranes and geese really is a manufactured thing at this point,” Davidson said. “We have to flood up fields, and if we don't provide corn or supplemental food, then they would probably start to find other places to overwinter.”
But in an increasingly arid Southwest, water policy experts are wary of using scarce water resources to flood fields in the face of a drier future. Instead, they’re endorsing more climate-friendly solutions like drip-irrigation to balance the West’s increasing water appetite and the needs of wildlife.
Without water in the Bosque ecosystem, scientific evidence suggests birds might decide to reroute their migratory path elsewhere in the decades to come, maybe avoiding New Mexico entirely.