Baca land grants

In 1821, Luis María Cabeza de Baca petitioned the government of Mexico for a land grant for himself and his seventeen children in an area he called Las Vegas Grandes (Big Meadows).

In 1827, Baca was killed at his house in Peña Blanca by a Mexican soldier because he refused to surrender contraband beaver furs belonging to Ewing Young hidden in his house[1][2] In 1835, Juan de Diós Maese and 28 other men petitioned the government of New Mexico for a land grant in the same area as Las Vegas Grandes, apparently unoccupied by the Baca family heirs.

Watts chose to claim five areas, each approximately 12.5 miles (20.1 km) square and each later measured at 99,289 acres (40,181 ha) (155 sqmi) in size.

[4][5] A float is defined as "a government grant of a fixed amount of land not yet located by survey out of a larger specific tract."

In 1909 an Otero heir sold the grant land to the Redondo Development Company, headquartered in Warren, Pennsylvania, for 400,000 dollars.

In 1926, two Bond brothers, George W. and Frank, purchased the grant although the Redondo company retained rights to lumbering on the property.

In 1963, the Bond family sold the grant to James Patrick Dunigan for 2.5 million dollars.

Those efforts resulted in the sale of the 95,000 acres (38,000 ha) owned by Dunigan to the U.S. government in 2000 for 101 million dollars.

[8] Economic activities on the grant were timber harvesting and seasonal grazing of cattle and sheep.

Comanche and Kiowa raids prevented its settlement until the 1870s when the two grants were purchased by a Canadian land speculator named Wilson Waddingham.

[10] It was last sold to Liberty Media's CEO, John Malone, in 2010 for 83 million dollars.The ranch is primarily used for grazing cattle on its extensive grasslands.

3 was already populated, containing the communities of Tumacacori, Calabasas (now Rio Rico), Sonoita, and part of Tubac.

Watts sold the land to William Wrightson, president of a mining company, for 110,000 dollars.

The exact location and dimensions of the float remained in dispute until the Department of the Interior made a final determination in 1899.

[10] The grant was intact as a cattle ranch in 2002 when the Nature Conservancy purchased it for 31 million dollars.

[17] Eighty-six heirs of Luis Maria Cabeza de Baca sold the float to John S. Watts for 6,800 dollars in 1871.

The float land went through a number of different owners until 1936 when the Greene Cattle Company bought it in its entirety.