A $79.5 million ranch—four times the size of NYC—has turned a mystery buyer into a bigger landowner than Jeff Bezos

For months, one of the biggest land deals in the American West came with a question mark attached. A sprawling Wyoming ranch, so vast it takes up about 1 percent of the state, had quietly changed hands, but the identity of the buyer remained under wraps. That mystery is now over, and the name behind the purchase belongs to a familiar figure in regional politics and land ownership.

Christopher Robinson, a local elected official, bought the 916,000-acre Pathfinder Ranches through his family-owned company, The Ensign Group LC, according to KPCW. The deal closed on January 14 for the property, which had been listed last summer for $79.5 million. The final purchase price was not disclosed.

Stretching across four counties in Wyoming, Pathfinder Ranches spans roughly 1,431 square miles, making it nearly the size of Delaware, KPCW reported. For comparison, New York City covers about 300 square miles, while Rhode Island measures just over 1,000 square miles. The ranch even outpaces the fictional Dutton Ranch from Yellowstone, which was depicted as between 775,000 and 825,000 acres.

Robinson, a Summit County Council member, already controls roughly one million acres of land. He acquired Pathfinder just four years after purchasing the neighboring 86,000-acre Stone Ranch. According to the Summit County website, Robinson has held his council seat since his election in 2008 and announced in December that he would not seek reelection.

Reuniting the land—and the long game

The ranch, named after 19th-century explorer John C. Frémont, is made up of four main properties spread across the Rocky Mountain region. Robinson framed the deal as a kind of reunion.

The Ensign Group, co-owned by Robinson along with his siblings Alexander and Victoria Robinson, has quietly built a vast land empire across the American West. Under the Ensign Ranches name, the family controls more than one million acres of private and public land spread across Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Before the Pathfinder deal, the combined Robinson and Freed holdings were ranked 31st on Land Report Magazine’s Top 100 Landowner List. That standing is now expected to change. According to KPCW, adding Pathfinder Ranches could push the group’s portfolio past 470,000 acres, lifting them roughly 10 spots on the list and putting them ahead of billionaire Jeff Bezos, who owns an estimated 462,000 acres.

Robinson has said the expansion is about more than just scale or rankings.

“We love land and water. We think it’s a good long-term investment, and we like the opportunities it affords us to be stewards over a piece of God’s creation,” Robinson said.
“The family from whom we bought the Stone Ranch used to own the heart of the Pathfinder, and they sold it in, say, 1975. And so we’re kind of reuniting it,” Robinson, CEO of The Ensign Group, told KPCW. “It’s now one big landscape.”

According to Cowboy State Daily, Robinson said the Stone Ranch will serve as a key connector between the eastern and western sections of Pathfinder, allowing Ensign to operate the land as a single, self-sustaining livestock range.

“So, we’re kind of reuniting that, and we intend to, we’re operators,” Robinson told the outlet. “We’re not generally landlords. We’re going to, over time, grow into it, where we’re mostly running our own livestock on it.”