In 1862, heirs sold Colorado’s Baca land for 30 cents an acre; 140 years later its 97,000-acre ranch sold for $31.28 million and helped create a national park nearly four times the monument’s original size

A piece of land can begin as a forgotten investment and end as part of a national treasure.

That is the remarkable story of Colorado’s Baca Ranch, a vast property at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

In 1862, heirs of Luis María Cabeza de Baca sold the land to Territorial Governor William Gilpin for only 30 cents an acre, according to the National Park Service.

More than a century later, the ranch became entangled in one of the San Luis Valley’s biggest debates: whether its groundwater should be developed and exported.

As documented by the Colorado Division of Water Resources in its StreamLines newsletter, the Nature Conservancy agreed in 2002 to purchase the ranch for $31.28 million.