One of Nebraska’s most historic ranches hits the market
HYANNIS, Neb. - One of Nebraska’s most storied and multigenerational ranches is now up for sale. The Metzger Ranch — also known as the Abbott Ranch — spans 55,136 acres in the heart of the Sandhills in Cherry County and is listed for $50 million.
As one of the earliest established ranches in the region, it has only ever had two owners in its long history. In 1892, W.A. Metzger pre-empted the land via the Preemption Act of 1841. In the mid-1880s, Arthur Abbott was hired to trail cattle from Texas to South Dakota.
“During this time, the Sandhills of Nebraska were considered a ‘no man’s land,’ and would eventually be the last place to actually be settled on American soil,” the ranch’s website states. “The only human life that existed were tribes of Native Americans before the U.S. government relocated the Native Americans to live on reservation land. Longing to relocate in the Sandhills from his father’s Kansas ranch, Arthur loaded the wagon with his family’s life belongings and pointed their small herd of Hereford cattle north to the small and upcoming village of Hyannis.”
The Abbott family’s influence in the Sandhills grew steadily. By the early 1900s, they had expanded into banking, and by the 1920s, Arthur’s son Christopher Abbott had become the wealthiest man in Nebraska and the state’s largest landowner. At the peak of his holdings, Christopher owned more than 250,000 acres, ten banks, and three lumber companies. Abbott purchased the ranch from the Metzgers in 1969.
The ranch includes five homes, a bunkhouse, cattle working facilities, a shop, an airplane hangar, a horse barn, and a number of additional outbuildings.
Today, six generations later, the Abbott family’s ranching legacy continues to shape the Sandhills. But with the property now on the market, one of Nebraska’s most iconic pieces of ranching history may soon be entering a new chapter.
