Owner of the NFL’s Rams and billionaire Stan Kroenke, has purchased the historic W.T. Waggoner Estate Ranch in Texas for a cool $725 million. The land covers over 520,000 acres, which isn’t much smaller than Rhode Island.
Kroenke isn’t a stranger to owning a ranch; he already owns 11 others in Montana, Wyoming, Arizona and British Columbia.
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“This is an incredible opportunity and an even greater responsibility,” Kroenke said in a statement released by the Waggoner family and its representatives. “We are honored to assume ownership of the Waggoner—a true Texas and American landmark.”
Worth about $6.2 billion, Kroenke recently moved his NFL team from St. Louis to a $1.8 billion stadium in Inglewood, California. He also owns the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, MLA’s Colorado Rapids, and two-thirds of the English Premier League’s Arsenal soccer club.
The 800 square mile Waggoner is the largest one fenced ranch in the U.S. and has been owned by a single family nearly as long as Texas has been a state. The sale of the ranch includes additional acreage, bringing the total to roughly 535,000.
Selling at a price that is over four times higher than the largest known sum for a U.S. ranch in Colorado for $175 million in 2007, this ranch is bigger than both New York City and Los Angeles combined.
The Waggoner was ordered to be sold in 2014 by Judge Dan Mike Bird, in order to end litigation between opposing sides of the Waggoner family who couldn’t agree what to do with the property.
“We never lost sight of what we wanted in a new owner: a keen sense of tradition, a love of the land, and loyalty to the people who work here,” said Bradley Wharton, a representative of some Waggoner heirs.
