Historic Winecup Gamble ranch for sale

ELKO — The historic Winecup Gamble Ranch in northeastern Elko County is on the market for $77 million, which buys nearly 1 million acres. “That’s turnkey,” said Clay Nannini, who has the listing for Coldwell Banker Algerio/Q Team Realty in Elko. “That’s the rolling stock, all the water, all the deeded land and federal grazing permits and over 9,000 cows of all shapes and sizes.” The land package includes 247,500 deeded acres, 558,080 acres of grazing rights on federal land and 142,800 ares of deeded land owned by others available for use, according to the real estate packet. “The ranch’s nearly one-million-acre expanse places it on a singular pedestal — we know of no other contiguous, blocked-up operation of this size that is available in all of North America,” stated marketing broker Bates Land Consortium Inc. of Salt Lake City. The Winecup Gamble Ranch is indeed a big outfit with a long history. The California Trail went for 28 miles through the ranch, and James Armstrong began using the Winecup brand in 1868. John Sparks was an owner from 1881 to 1901, when he sold the ranch and later became governor of Nevada. Owners also included the late actor Jimmy Stewart and years later Sierra Pacific Power Co., which planned the Thousand Springs power project on the land. The power project fell through in 1991. Jimmy Stewart and partners bought the Winecup side of the ranch in 1953, at a time when the ranch was split into the Winecup and Gamble sides. Current owner Paul Fireman, who bought the ranch in 1993, was among the top 40 largest landowners in 2015, according to The Land Report. He had purchased North American rights to Reebok in 1979 and later bought out the company. He sold Reebok to Adidas in 2001 and founded Fireman Capital Partners, an investment firm. Fireman started updating and rejuvenating the ranch in 2009 and listed the property for sale for $50 million in 2010. According to the brochure, he later withdrew the listing and decided to focus on building up the ranch. The renovation work cost $19 million, according to the brochure...more