Billionaire knocking as Idaho governor, officials vote to auction Teton Valley ranch land

Fifth generation homesteading family fights to preserve longstanding lease.

By Christina MacIntosh / Environmental Reporter
Photography by Bradly J. Boner
13 hrs ago
5 min to read



TETONIA, IDAHO — Nick Beard’s dad began leasing 160 acres of state land near their Tetonia home in 1992, when Beard was 5 years old. Beard, a fifth-generation homesteader, helped his dad fence the perimeter of the parcel — a two-year undertaking.

“We walked every section of this, pounded every post, strung every wire, put every clip by hand,” Beard said Monday evening, surveying the property as a light rain rolled in over the Tetons.

But, last Tuesday, the Idaho State Board of Land Commissioners unanimously voted to put the parcel, known as Driggs 160, up for auction. A local landowner — state officials won’t say who — expressed interest in the land and the department found that selling it would maximize the financial returns for the beneficiaries of state land, in this case, the state’s charitable institutions fund. The parcel is bordered on two sides by the sprawling estate of Thomas Tull, a billionaire who owns at least 8,000 acres of land in Teton County, Idaho with a total value of nearly $100 million, according to the county’s land records. Tull, a financier and founder of a film production company, helped bankroll “The Dark Knight,” the second movie in director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.



The piece of Idaho state land known as the Driggs 160 parcel is primarily sagebrush and grassland, with views of the Tetons to the southeast. Nick Beard, a rancher whose family has been leasing the land for cattle grazing since 1992, said birders and snowmobilers recreate on the parcel, and deer and elk frequent the land as well.
BRADLY J. BONER / NEWS&GUIDE



Nick Beard’s family has been grazing cattle on the Driggs 160 parcel of Idaho state land for more than 40 years, and said grassland for grazing has become scarce for ranchers all over the region. Beard said just this spring he lost an additional 380 acres of grazing adjacent to the state land parcel due to private land purchases by billionaire Thomas Tull, who owns thousands of acres of nearby property as part of his Teton Ridge Ranch.
BRADLY J. BONER / NEWS&GUIDE

Dustin Miller, director of the Idaho Department of Lands, would not confirm for the News&Guide whether Tull was the landowner who initiated the sale.

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