Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton selling land, horses in Parker County

By MICHAEL LINDENBERGER

SODA SPRINGS — Water brought settlers to this part of Parker County in the 1850s, and it’s water that lured one of the world’s wealthiest women in 1998, when she hired local rancher Mac Coalson to help her string together nearly 6,000 acres of horse-friendly ranch land.

For nearly nine miles, the Brazos River runs through Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton’s two remaining Texas ranches, which she and Coalson began putting together as Walton moved from Arkansas 17 years ago. She came to continue her quest to build some of America’s top-producing cutting horse bloodlines, and since then her breeding operation has produced enough trophies, titles and lifetime earnings on the cutting horse circuit to make even the richest person in Texas proud.

Now, Walton has tapped Coalson to dismantle the property he helped assemble, and she’ll sell her herd of about 100 horses in a two-day auction at the Rocking W Ranch beginning Monday.

The horses for sale Monday and Tuesday aren’t ordinary cow horses. They’re the end result of a 25-year program that Walton began in Arkansas and brought to fruition in Texas. Thousands of spectators are expected Monday for the horses’ workout.

Jeremy Barwick, whose Western Bloodstock Ltd. is handling the sale, said the horses should bring at least $2.5 million and perhaps much more, given their bloodlines...

When Walton moved to Texas in 1998, she did it quietly. And her profile here has been much lower than that of other, far less wealthy billionaires, from Mark Cuban to T. Boone Pickens. That year, her $11 billion net worth tied her for sixth place among America’s top billionaires, in a tie with her widowed mother, Helen Walton, and three brothers.

The first public word of her trading Arkansas for Texas came in a report in The Dallas Morning News on Oct. 7, 1998, citing real estate records showing she had bought a ranch near Weatherford. The headline: “Walton’s Daughter May Live in Texas.”

Seventeen years later, Walton’s nearly $40 billion net worth makes her the world’s third-richest woman. She’s also the richest person in Texas.

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