Six buy Badlands dream property

Scott Lippert of Williston and five others went home owning some dream property in the Badlands after the breakup of a big Little Missouri River ranch at auction Monday. The owner, Dean Myers, a North Dakota native and successful Atlanta developer, sold his 4,400-acre Southern Cross Ranch, figuring he'd had a good run and it was time to move on. The heavily advertised sale drew about 100 spectators and about 50 bidders, some checking in by phone and Internet. The per-acre price ranged from $550 for some crop and pasture miles west of the Badlands ranch, up to $1,625 an acre for 242 acres of irrigated river bottomland. Less than three hours after it started, Myers had $4.4 million in his pocket - just about $1,000 an acre average - and buyers like Lippert owned a piece of the Badlands. Vern Fortak, a Wyoming rancher, was who auctioneers were watching as the strongest possibility as a whole-ranch buyer, but Fortak said a phone call from Wyoming two hours into the sale discouraged the idea that the man he hoped would run it would move up to the Badlands. "It's too far away for anybody in our outfit to come up and run. I thought the price was in line, fair but not overpriced," he said. For a little less, he might have bought it anyway, he said...read more