A ranch that promised to be an important addition to
Wind Cave National Park in the Black Hills is now for sale on the
open market. The 5,555-acre Casey Ranch would increase the
park’s land base by 20 percent, and add an 85-year-old
homestead and a “buffalo jump” — a cliff from
which American Indian hunters chased bison 1,000 years
ago.
In 2000, the Casey family offered to sell the ranch
to the Park Service after chronic wasting disease destroyed their
elk herd, and the market for bison plunged. The parties reached a
tentative deal, but for the last two years, a bill authorizing the
Park Service to buy the ranch has waited for approval from
Congress. This October, the family began advertising the ranch.
“(The Wind Cave deal) is moving fairly slow,”
says Kevin Casey, a managing partner in his family’s ranch,
“so we thought we’d try other avenues.”
Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., is confident that the bill will pass this
year, but now it must race a wave of newcomers, who are escaping
cities in the Midwest and buying land in the Black Hills.
Tom Farrell, Wind Cave’s chief of interpretation, says
legislators estimated that the government would pay $5 to $6
million for the ranch. The market price tag is now $13.5 million.
“At that price,” Farrell says, “you know
it’s going to be developed.”
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Park expansion threatened.
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