Nature Conservancy acquires New Mexico ranch once the site of historic coal town

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.

Nick Pappas is a former city editor at the Albuquerque Journal. His book, “Crosses of Iron: The Tragic Story of Dawson, New Mexico, and Its Twin Mining Disasters,” was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2023.