At a December meeting, commissioners said they would like to acquire the former Beartooth Ranch — which federal authorities seized from a drug smuggler roughly two decades ago — and some commissioners suggested selling the property to a private …
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Park County commissioners may ask the governor to hand over 657 acres of state land in Clark.
At a December meeting, commissioners said they would like to acquire the former Beartooth Ranch — which federal authorities seized from a drug smuggler roughly two decades ago — and some commissioners suggested selling the property to a private owner.
“I think we should pursue it and try to get that ranch released and deeded to Park County and then we can sell it and it can become an active ranch paying property taxes again,” Commissioner Tim French said at a December meeting.
However, Commission Chairman Loren Grosskopf said Wednesday that he’d rather “see it in the public hands so we could use it” and that the ranch’s ownership isn’t the county’s real concern with the ranch.
“It’s in deplorable condition. We only want someone to manage it and return it to productive use,” Grosskopf said.
The commission has drafted — but not yet sent — a letter to Gov. Matt Mead. It would ask Mead to work with Wyoming’s Congressional delegation to have various federal restrictions on the Beartooth Ranch removed — and to then transfer the property’s ownership to Park County “unrestricted,” though “while retaining public easements.”
Commissioners say the ranch has fallen into “extreme disrepair” under state management, citing vandalism to ranch buildings and the costs of controlling weeds on the property each year.
Commissioners generally approved the letter at their Jan. 16 meeting, but wanted to run it by Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric and make some further tweaks.
In the meantime, East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited leaders sent commissioners and Gov. Mead a letter last week, “adamantly” objecting to the ranch being given to the county. The group’s letter says the county’s request appears to be “nothing more than a land grab.”
“I’ve been contacted by many members, some rarely heard from; they are unilaterally opposed to the transfer of the property to the county,” said East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited President Tom Reed.
A cocaine smuggler’s treasure
Somewhat ironically, a dispute over fishing access at the Beartooth Ranch played a part in the property falling into government hands.
Stewart Allen Bost, a boat captain, bought the Clark property in September 1987. Federal authorities say he financed the purchase with upwards of $1.35 million he’d earned from shuttling 3,000 kilograms of cocaine from the Bahamas to Florida.
Federal prosecutors indicted Bost on drug charges in 1989, but Bost began going by the name “Allen Stewart” and authorities were unable to find him.
According to a federal judge’s summary of the case and media reports from the time, local Bureau of Land Management officials began taking a hard look at “Stewart” in 1996 when he applied for grazing permits as both Bost and Stewart.
BLM personnel had also noted “continuing problems with missing signs, fencing, and blocking a state right-of-way onto the … property for public fishing,” U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson wrote in a later ruling.
Park County Sheriff Scott Steward became involved in the investigation and worked with U.S. marshals, in part because he’d spoken with “Stewart” on a traffic stop.
Steward and another officer spent months surveilling the ranch and eventually spotted Bost, helping marshals arrest him on the ranch in July 1996.
Over the coming years, the federal government seized hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash and assets from Bost — including the ranch.
For its help, the Sheriff’s Office initially received $140,000, which included proceeds from a home Bost had owned in Colorado. Then, after Bost got out of prison in 2000, locals spotted a large hole at the Beartooth Ranch. It turned out that Bost had reclaimed cash he’d buried years earlier. That investigation wound up netting another $220,000 for the Sheriff’s Office.
The county was in line to also receive the ranch until the Wyoming Attorney General claimed the property on behalf of the state, Steward says. That’s long bothered him.
Steward told commissioners that the state “absolutely had nothing to do with any of this investigation whatsoever,” federal authorities “did very little” and since the Sheriff’s Office “did all the legwork,” the ranch “rightfully should have went to Park County.”
The federal government turned the ranch over to Wyoming in 1999, subject to a series of conditions.
A memorandum of understanding says the state must use the property “solely as a public area reserved for recreational or historic purposes or for the preservation of natural conditions.” Crops can be grown on 80 acres near the ranch house and livestock can be grazed in certain areas if they don’t interfere with recreation.
Management of the ranch was initially transferred to the local chapter of the National Audubon Society, which wanted to use the property as a nonprofit education center. Neil Miller of the Meadowlark Audubon Society told the Los Angeles Times that, “It’s a marvelous opportunity.”
But the society soon found the project to be beyond their financial capabilities and canceled the lease, leaving the land vacant and uncared for.
‘Neglected and abandoned’
Clark resident Lloyd Thiel recently brought the Beartooth Ranch to the commission’s attention, expressing frustration with the “neglected and abandoned” state of what was once “a very nice working ranch.”
“With the removal of agriculture from the use of the ranch, basically they [the state] found out what everybody around here knows — is if you don’t have agriculture, you don’t have green pastures, livestock, trees die, wildlife leaves and you end up with a barren, nothing eyesore,” Thiel told the commission on Dec. 19.