Stradling the New Mexico and Arizona border near the communities of Alma, NM and Alpine, AZ, the Alma Mesa Ranch offers a rare opportunity to own an historic National Forest cow/calf operation with an impressive carrying capacity of 682 pairs + 18 horse/mule. This robust and productive ranch benefits from its ideal blend of strong feed, ample water sources, and natural cover making it a prime choice for serious cattle operations.
The Forest allotment lies within the Gila National Forest on the New Mexico side and the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest on the Arizona side with elevations ranging from 5,400′ to 8,200′ with the majority of the allotment under the 7,000′ mark offering a gentle climate of cooler summers and mild winters. The allotment encompasses 46,423± acres anchored by 87.7± deeded acres.
Cattle are available for sale through Private Treaty. The ranch features a host of well-maintained improvements designed to streamline and enhance operations:
Facilities:
- A comfortable 3-bedroom, 2-bath ranch house with a full front porch, offering a serene place to relax after a day’s work.
- An office with a half bath, ideal for managing the day-to-day business of the ranch.
- State-of-the-art working facilities, designed by Temple Grandin, include pipe fences, scales, a covered hydraulic squeeze chute with palpation cage, sorting pens, working alleys, and both semi and gooseneck loading facilities.
- Secure holding facilities made from durable pipe and wire.
- A fully equipped shop with a ¾ bath and an adjacent bunkhouse for ranch hands or guests.
- Hay barn for ample feed storage.
- Three cube hoppers for efficient feed management.
- A saddle shed to keep tack organized and protected.
- Water is plentiful with two existing domestic/livestock wells and one more authorized, plus 5,000-gallon water storage tanks and a 500-gallon tank.
- Reliable power is provided by solar systems and a generator for off-grid efficiency.
Beyond its practical amenities, Alma Mesa Ranch offers breathtaking natural beauty enhancing the experience of ranch ownership as well as world-class hunting.
Alma Mesa Allotment Map
Click to View/Download Allotment Map
A Special History
If you follow the Outlaw Trail that goes west and north from Silver City, New Mexico, you’ll pass through Alma Mesa. But the history of this area starts well before members of the Wild Bunch worked here. Pre-Colombian history is evident in the pit houses in the area that was home to the Mogollon Indians for centuries. Fast forward, this part of Arizona and New Mexico was settled after the Civil War, when English and Scottish investors established large cattle ranches on the open range. Those investors included Harold Wilson and Montague Stevens (later author of the western classic Meet Mr. Grizzly). Their names are the basis for the WS in the WS Ranch. The WS spread was vast, from eastern Arizona (where naturalist Aldo Leopold would later serve as a forest ranger) to the foothills of the Mogollon Range. According to Captain William French, manager of the WS Ranch and author of Some Recollections of a Western Ranchman, “frontier” hardly described the area. The Apache, consigned to the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona, periodically made forays through the area en route to the Mogollons, which were the birthplace of Geronimo. Tombstones in area cemeteries describe tragic deaths from ambushes, shootouts and illness. WS ranch hands during this time included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid of the Wild Bunch. Their stay on the ranch apparently ended when tipped off by a local that Pinkerton agents were swarming Alma after bank notes began surfacing there that had allegedly been stolen in a train robbery in Montana.
After the WS Ranch moved its cattle operation to northeastern New Mexico, others arrived. One arrival was Hugh McKeen, whose descendants remain prominent citizens in the San Francisco (formerly Keller) Valley. Mr. McKeen and his children carved out another vast ranch in much the same area as the WS Ranch. When the Forest Service set up grazing allotments on public lands, one such allotment was the Alma Mesa Allotment, which straddles the Arizona and New Mexico state line and is the sole entry to a large swath of Arizona east of the Blue River. What’s evident on the allotment is the thoughtful work that the McKeens put into working with the landscape to enhance the country and its productive capacity for livestock, which also benefitted the abundant wildlife. Fences were built with the landscape as a guide. Stock tanks were placed to catch water from simply gushing down canyons. Pipeline systems were installed in areas with grass but a long walk to water.
As the decades passed, many of the improvements on Alma Mesa went into disrepair.That has changed. Fences have been re-built and new fences have been built. The west side, for example, now has a perimeter fence. New Mexico South and Beaver Trap have a new perimeter fence. Maple Charlie Moore Pasture has been fenced into two parts to allow better livestock management—south of the primitive boundary (still Maple Charlie Moore Pasture) and north of that primitive boundary (Six Shooter Pasture). There is a water lot where Alma Mesa Pasture, Six Shooter and West Trap meet. There are now new traps for breeding at Antelope and Cradle Basin.
Water projects have been a primary focus for development, which benefit livestock as well as wildlife.There are now pipelines from Beaver Canyon to Charlie Moore Mesa, to Sunflower Mesa, to the southeast corner of Maple Charlie Moore Pasture and up Beaver Canyon half-way to Buzzard Tank. There are now pipelines from Keller Canyon to Cradle Mesa Trap and Cradle Mesa. There is an extensive, largely buried water network that begins at Stateline Camp and runs to West Trap, New Mexico South Pasture, New Mexico North Pasture, South Stateline Trap, North Stateline Trap and to Alma Mesa. Stock tanks have been cleaned and re-built. Cattle, bear, elk, deer, turkey, lion. You and the hunters who come to the area will now see them or their tracks outside of riparian areas as a result of this work.
Previously, there was no living or working facility on the private land associated with Alma Mesa. That has also changed. There is now a three-bedroom home to live in. There are new state-of-the-art facilities for working cattle at Keller Canyon Headquarters. Included is a new, two-bay shop with a bunkhouse, a paneled ranch office, a set of covered processing facilities with a hydraulic squeeze chute and palpation cage, a Temple-Grandin inspired processing tub and working pens, a certified set of scales, a hay barn, a saddle shed and a well house. There are two solar systems, each with maintenance-free batteries, a back-up propane generator and over 10,000 gallons of water storage from two wells.
Alma Mesa. History. A passion for the country, cattle and wildlife.
