Last division of Swenson Family Ranches near Stamford on the market for $49.2M

The final chapter of the legendary Swenson Family Ranches west of Stamford is about to be written. Flat Top Ranch - the last major division of the ranch established by Svante Magnus Swenson in 1853 – is on the market for $49.2 million. Seven generations have ties to the ranch, which encompasses 41,000-plus acres and includes seven miles of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River. “That’s a good stretch of live water. It’s got some big ponds and man-made lakes and seasonal creeks on it. It’s a nice ranch,” said Sam Middleton, owner/broker of Chas. S. Middleton and Son company, which is handling the sale. "It’s very well watered. It’s blocked up very good. It’s productive country, and I think it will interest a lot of folks,” The listing price is about $1,200 an acre. Family members began exploring the process of selling the ranch about a year ago. “It really wasn’t, ‘Let’s sell Flat Top.’ It was more, ‘How do we get increased liquidity for those that want it? How do you get some people out who want all the way out?’” Swenson said. “It’s some anguish for some of us, but we are holding on to some land as well.” That land is about 15,000 acres in Throckmorton County to the east of Stamford.

Seven years after launching his ranch, Swedish immigrant Svante Swenson’s Texas land holdings surpassed 680,000 acres. He donated some acreage to start the town of Stamford, where the ranch headquarters are located today, and for the town’s Texas Cowboy Reunion, which is the world’s largest amateur rodeo started in 1930. “Historically, this was one of the first operating ranches in the state of Texas,” Middleton said. In 1978, the ranch was divided into four family divisions. Three of the divisions have since sold, and Flat Top Ranch is the last division in family hands, Middleton said. He also facilitated the sale of the 535,000-acre Waggoner Ranch near Wichita Falls in February 2016. Flat Top is a working cattle ranch that also has extensive farming operations, hunting opportunities, potential wind farm development and the possibility of a portion of future mineral income, Middleton said...MORE