Historic Eagle County ranch nears deal for preservation with state organization
Eaton ranch up Squaw Creek was homesteaded in the 1800s
Courtesy photo
This story has been corrected to reflect new information from the Eaton family and the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust.
One of Eagle County’s historic ranches, homesteaded in the late 1800s, will soon be protected from future development.
When many locals think of the Eaton Ranch, they think of the property in Edwards across the Eagle River from the Eagle River Preserve open space. But that isn’t the original Eaton Ranch. The original property is a 160-acre parcel up Squaw Creek. On that land, about 5 miles from U.S Highway 6, still stands the cabin where Vail co-founder Earl Eaton was born.
Eaton’s cousin Mike, one of the surviving family members, still runs cattle on the property and cares for the land. He and his brother, Perry, recently reached a conservation easement agreement with the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust. It’s an addition to roughly 8,000 acres of easement holdings the organization has in Eagle County.
The Eagle County Board of Commissioners recently agreed to provide $88,550 in transaction costs for the deal. Those costs include an appraisal, various mineral, water and environmental reports and legal fees.
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The property is surrounded by U.S. Forest Service property. Access will be maintained to an existing trail through the property.
Without the easement, the land near Cordillera could have been split into four home parcels.
County Open Space Manager Peter Suneson said that isn’t what the Eatons wanted to see on the land.
The land has “real meaning” to the family, Suneson said. “We appreciated that, and we’re happy to be a teammate in that process. It’s a lovely piece of property.”
Speaking by phone from the porch of the homestead’s cabin, Mike Eaton was taking a break from moving sprinklers around.
Preserving the family’s original property is “Why I’ve stayed here,” he said. “It’s a unique, beautiful place.”
Eaton has spent his life in Eagle County, and has spent that lifetime working the original ranch and the one by the river — which came into the family through marriage, he said.
Eaton’s son, Tyler, is also working the ranch, but family succession is always a precarious thing. The land itself is valuable, of course, but preserving it means more, Eaton said.
Eaton said working with the Cattlemen’s Land Trust worked better for his family. “They get what it takes” to preserve agricultural land and maintain agricultural status on a piece of property, he said.
The conservation easement through the Cattlemen’s Land Trust won’t require removing any of the two miles or so of barbed-wire fencing on the property, or similar changes that would affect ranch operations. And, while the land can’t be divided into development parcels, the easement does allow a four-acre building envelope where the current buildings sit.
The easement will permit two residential buildings with a total of 7,000 square feet of building footprint. Neither building’s footprint may exceed 5,000 square feet. But the rest of the property will remain as the family, and the rest of the valley, has known it for more than a century.
“It makes me feel that my life wasn’t for naught,” Eaton said.
