Ricketts buys 33-acre Granite Creek inholding, one step closer to Jackson Hole

JACKSON (WNE) — The billionaire businessman and conservationist who recently abandoned building a resort nicknamed “Little Jackson Hole” in Sublette County has purchased more land — a little bit closer to Jackson Hole.

In May, Joe Ricketts, the 83-year-old founder of TD Ameritrade, purchased a 33-acre inholding up Granite Creek formerly owned by Safari Club International. The hunting advocacy group historically used the guest ranch to give teachers tools to educate their students about the role hunting plays in wildlife conservation.

The property was listed for roughly $9 million.

Ricketts made the purchase about two months before he abandoned a controversial luxury resort he was building on a larger ranch that he owns in Bondurant. Ricketts saw that project as an economic engine for Sublette County and a way to prevent subdivision of his land near the Hoback River’s headwaters — a pernicious problem that Wyoming officials are fighting throughout Sublette County and the state.

The billionaire is also known for clinching a last-minute buyout of oil and gas leases in the Wyoming Range, protecting an area known as Noble Basin from development. And he funds a range of conservation projects in western Wyoming, studying loons, Clark’s nutcrackers and long-billed curlews.

While some Sublette County residents eventually backed Ricketts’ proposal, most opposed it, seeing Ricketts’ moves as the inevitable encroachment of Jackson Hole’s resort lifestyle into a quieter way of life.

But with Ricketts having purchased property closer to Jackson Hole, forest managers and conservation watchdogs are thinking about what new development on the Safari Club’s guest ranch could look like.

Ricketts has not said what he plans to do with the property.

This story was published on September 11, 2024.