In a land before time, dinosaurs wandered this property. And it’s been almost as long by real estate standards that this acreage last graced the market.
More than 50 years, in fact.
This historic cattle and big-game hunting ranch offers a huge, 21,000-acre hunk of Colorado countryside (108,277 acres, including those leased and deeded) ideal for anyone looking to trophy hunt — or try finding the bones of reptiles that have been dead since before the birth of humankind. It asks $15.5 million for sale.
The stunning, calendar-worthy property is located slightly east of the aptly named town of Dinosaur, Colorado, and abuts the town’s fossil-filled namesake, Dinosaur National Monument.
Three Springs Ranch, as the sweeping land is named, has a history of its own with dinos. In 1979, while visiting this ranch with her mother (who was friends with the ranch managers), the then-teenage India Wood noticed a piece of bone sticking out of the hillside. After some digging, she uncovered what turned out to be the hip bone of an allosaurus, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Over the years, she dug up more bones, eventually bringing them to the Denver Museum of Nature and Sciences (where the bones were gifted), which confirmed they once belonged to a dinosaur — and sent a team to assist her in further excavation.
During that time, the property was owned by New Orleans-based investor Jack Foster, who bought the ranch with a group of fellow investors in 1970 and is only now listing it, after 52 years.
In addition to the rocks, mountainsides and templed hills, the property also includes two owner’s homes, a hunting cabin, a manager’s home, an employee house and a shop.
The land remains ripe with fossils, as well as preserved Native American petroglyphs — and is often host to deer hunts, as well as home to a year-round cattle-raising operation, listing agent Brian Smith of Hall and Hall told the outlet.
