Ricketts joins the ranks of well-heeled businessmen buying land in Nebraska

Yahoo

14-07-2025

U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, at left, then Nebraska's governor, celebrates his hunt near Chadron in 2022 with State Sen. Myron Dorn of Adams. Ricketts has now bought land in the area. (Courtesy of Nebraska Governor's Office)
CHADRON, Nebraska — U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts has joined the likes of Ted Turner and Bill Gates as a well-heeled businessman buying large plots of land in Nebraska.
Like those purchases, there's concern it might result in higher property taxes for neighbors, though a Dawes County commissioner calls those concerns unfounded.
Ricketts, whose net worth is estimated at $182 million by the investment research website Quiver Qualitative, bought nearly 3,459 acres in the scenic Pine Ridge area of northwest Nebraska in December for $7.45 million.
The purchase, which averaged $2,154 per acre, involved two groups of land once owned by a Wahoo businessman, Dan Kreitman, whom Ricketts had appointed to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission in 2016. One parcel is just east of Chadron State Park. The second is just west of East Ash Road.
Both parcels are in the scenic Pine Ridge area of Nebraska, south and southwest of Chadron in Dawes County. It is rugged canyon land known for strong populations of deer and turkey, and even some elk and mountain lions. Part of the land the senator purchased was burned during wildfires over the past 20 years, leaving behind lots of blackened trees and newly restored grassland.
Ricketts, who enjoys turkey and deer hunting, purchased the land for recreational purposes, according to a realtor with knowledge of the sale. His father, Joe, raises bison on land he owns. There was no indication that Pete will be raising livestock on the new land.
Messages sent to Ricketts' senate office seeking comment did not result in a response by Friday.
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While past purchases of Nebraska ranch land by Turner, the founder of CNN, and acquisition of farmland by Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, raised the ire of some nearby landowners, a former Chadron radio news director said feelings might be different with Ricketts' purchase because he's from Nebraska and is a former governor.
'He's not an outsider,' said John Axtell, a longtime Chadron-area radio news and sports reporter who is now retired.
Dawes County Commissioner Jake Stewart, who owns Pine Ridge ranch property not far from the Ricketts land, said the purchase is considered a 'private sale' — one not used to set property values for nearby land — that should not impact property valuations and property taxes for neighbors.
The price paid by Ricketts, $2,154 per acre, is higher than the average price for all property in northwest Nebraska of $965 an acre, according to a report this year by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Center for Agriculture Profitability. The average price paid for non-tillable grazing land, which is most of what Ricketts bought, was $630 an acre.
But the price for so-called 'recreational land' that provides a private hunting preserve can go much higher. Current listings for such property in the Pine Ridge can leap above $4,000 — to as high as $12,000 an acre.
Ricketts, when governor, proclaimed that Nebraska was the 'best destination in the United States' for turkey hunting. Besides that, he posted photographs of deer hunts, and the Pine Ridge is known for its ample populations of mule deer and wild turkeys.
'Land in the Pine Ridge is prized by big-game hunters, regardless of whether they're rich or poor,' said a veteran western Nebraska realtor, who asked not to be named to avoid upsetting clients. 'It's one of the last wild places in the United States.'
There also are likely some mountain lions on Ricketts' land. In 2020, the Lincoln Journal Star wrote a story about Kreitman shooting a deer on his Pine Ridge ranch land, but when he located the animal, a mountain lion had already begun feeding on it.
Gates, according to a Flatwater Free Press story in 2024, owns 20,000 acres of farmland across 19 counties in Nebraska. But most of Gates' holdings are tillable farmland in eastern Nebraska, not rocky outcroppings in the Pine Ridge.
In 2018, the Omaha World-Herald reported that Turner owned approximately 500,000 acres of ranch land, mostly in the Sand Hills region of the state, where he raises bison.
John Malone, who made billions in running telecom companies including Liberty Media, also is a major owner of Nebraska property, according to the realtor interviewed by the Examiner.
So, said Axtell, the former radio reporter, Ricketts' purchase in the Pine Ridge area pales by comparison.
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