The 32,000-acre Wylie Mountain Ranch includes nearly all of its namesake range.
By Katharine Jose, Managing Editor Chron.com, Sep 8, 2024
A truly giant West Texas ranch that comes with its own mountain range and deep roots in Texas’ early ranching history was recently listed for an eye-watering $27 million.
At more than 32,000 acres, the Wylie Mountains Ranch—located just outside Marfa—is almost surely the largest we’ve covered, eclipsing not only the (somewhat) nearby 5,000-acre Anchor Land & Cattle and the 6,000-acre historic O | W, but also the Axis Ridge Ranch, which sprawls over 11,000 acres.
For the steep price tag, a buyer gets an enormous amount of land, obviously, but also nearly the entire range of the Wylie Mountains, which has peaks that run up to 5,000 feet above sea level and serve as home to a wide variety of wildlife including deer, several species of quail, elk and aoudad.
“The magnitude of a property such as the Wylie Mountains Ranch is the type of place that may only pop up once in a generation,” Republic Ranches listing agent Ross Studer wrote in an email.
The range and the ranch are named for Robert Kelsey Wylie, who was born in Mississippi in 1836 just after the Texas Revolution, according to the Texas State Historical Association. He arrived in the Lone Star State in 1850, just five years after statehood, then moved west throughout the next decades, starting in Anderson County then moving to Erath, Runnel and then Coleman. In 1885 he founded what became the Wylie Mountain Ranch near Van Horn and grew his herd of sheep to 60,000. The mountain range includes Bob and Mollie peaks, which are named for Wylie and his wife.
Like much of the region, the natural environment on the property belongs to a number of different types of Chihuahuan Desert ecosystems, but the listing notes there are trees in its canyons as well as six operating wells for water. Unique to the acreage is an unexplored cave and a specific type of mineral known as butterscotch agate.
The buildings on the property are a bit less grand than their breathtaking surroundings, consisting of a three-bedroom, two-bathroom owner’s home and an older manager’s home. There is also infrastructure for ranging—barns, shed, cooler, traps and pens—though the property does not currently support any livestock other than, according to the listing, a couple of stray cows that belong to a neighboring ranch.
“When we use the term legacy ranch,” Studer said, “we mean that the property has the makings for a generational legacy ranch for a family. We don’t use that term lightly.”
https://www.chron.com/homes/article/wylie-mountain-ranch-west-texas-19747655.php