Richard L. Holt

I had a contractor working for me who was from Idaho.  We had spent a lot of time together over the past four years, and he had done a great sales job on the great State of Idaho.  His mom still lived near Sandpoint, Idaho, and on a NCI trip to Seattle to settle some issues at the new Hutchinson Cancer Center there, he and I  stopped our flight in Spokane and drove to Mrs. Russell's home in Idaho.  The Russell family was a part of the  family of  Charles Russell, the very famous and well known western painter, from Montana and Idaho.  Mrs. Russell knew the way into my heart and how to convince me that Idaho had something special to offer.  She fixed me an elk steak dinner on our first night, and that sold me on Idaho!!  I had never eaten a better tasting piece of meat.

To make a long story short, I went back to Virginia, resigned my job with the National Cancer Institute, withdrew all my government civil service retirement funds, then I sold my beautiful home there where I was living (for a huge profit), and with my trusty German Shepherd dog Rusty II  in my truck, he and I drove to Idaho Falls where I bought a house. 

You might wonder why Idaho Falls?  It just so happened that Science Applications International Corp. which was the parent company of JRB Associates who had been working for me at the NCI had an office in Idaho Falls.  There were three Physicists working there for the Navy at their nuclear reactor training facility at Arco, about an hours drive from the Falls. 

Bob Beyster who had long been trying to get me to join SAIC hired me on a very special basis where I could live in Idaho and work for him in La Jolla, California as the Assistant to the President.  I was given an office to use in the Idaho Falls office.  I even got an office and a secretary in La Jolla although I was seldom there.  Also had an apartment made available for me when I was there. The deal was that I would be available and respond immediately when he called and asked me to take on a job no matter where it was in the world.  I agreed.  And I also took over a Comprehensive Cancer Center contract for JRB in Denver and managed it from Idaho Falls, although I spent a lot of my time in Denver out of Idaho Falls.  Quite an arrangement, you might say, but it worked for more than a year while I started looking for my ranch in Idaho.

But another major reason for Idaho Falls was that it was in the real skiing belt of that region.  Sun Valley, one of the premier resorts in the world was a short drive, and better yet, Jackson Hole, Wyoming was even closer.  There were at least two other great ski spots within an hour's drive of Idaho Falls.  The only downside was the weather, where the wind howls in the winter and the temperature drops into the minus 20 or lower region.  Dr. Beyster came to visit just once, got off the airplane on an old fashioned stair-ramp when the wind and temperature were doing their thing.  We all walked into the terminal and he announced that we had to be nuts to live in this climate.  The temp that day was about 25 below zero and the winds were at about 40 MPH, so the wind-chill factor was down.  Beyster finished the meeting with us, got back on the same plane, and never came back! 

My goal was to find a piece of property somewhere in Idaho where I could develop the land for subdivisions  as well as run a ranch and farm on the land while I was setting up for doing the subdividing thing. 

Geological map of Idaho

It's obvious when you look at the terrain features of Idaho you quickly note that most of the State is mountainous.  There is a "banana belt" in the southern portion that has the Snake River running through it.  This starts on the far Eastern side of Idaho and runs across the state to the Oregon border on the Western side.

One of the attractions to me were the fantastic mountains in Idaho and also the lack of people.  At the time there were about 750,000 residents in the whole state which is about the size of all of New England.  I also was drawn by the skiing throughout the state, the pristine slopes mostly unknown to outsiders.  Skiing had become a major sport for me during my years at the National Cancer Institute when trips to Europe were frequent and lengthy.  I always took my skis aboard the flights to Switzerland and France.  Idaho had the same kind of slopes with less people.

The Great State of Idaho

If you've never been to Idaho, you are really missing something.  We travel all over the world, and right here in this one State we have much of what we travel to other countries to see.  Mountains, deserts, beautiful rivers, great skiing, terrific hunting, fishing, and many other features that make this the prime state to me.

I met a great guy in a local real estate office who was the former quarterback for Utah State and was into selling farm land, and that's what I wanted.  We talked the same language, and his wife was a super cook.  A fast way into my heart has always been through my eating.  I spent time at his home discussing what I was looking for in Idaho or Montana.  I had a long list of specs for a particular piece of land and gave that to him so that he could save us time by narrowing down the field. 

I wanted a piece of at least 400 acres; it had to be next to a town, had to have good water on it, and had to be able to be farmed for some years before I did anything else with it.  The "anything else" was land that could be developed into subdivisions, all with good views.  It had to be view property. I also wanted land that was in Idaho's banana belt where the winters were not severe, along the Snake River.

Jack the Realtor found me a place.  While I was busy running around the country being a consultant, working in Denver, La Jolla,CA, and even in Boise, Idaho at the Mountain States Tumor Institute, he located a place that met all my requirements. 

It was in Weiser in the far western part of the State.

From Weiser you can be, in just one hour, into great ski country.  And yet here in Weiser at just 2000' of elevation, the weather even in the middle of winter is pleasant.  It is called the banana belt of Idaho with the Snake River and Weiser River coming together in this small town of 5,000 people.  From the view property, which is most of what my ranch property was, you can see both rivers, the far mountains, railroads, highways, and forever into the western sky.  And by the way, the sky is always clear here in this part of the world.

On the map above, you can see Weiser at the Western border with Oregon.  It is at the base of where you start up into the mountains.  Idaho Falls where I was living is on the far Eastern border with Wyoming.  And by the way, is also right next to some of the best skiing in the world in Jackson Hole, Wyoming which I went to quite a bit that first year in Idaho.  Sandpoint, where through Mrs. Russell's cooking I fell in love with Idaho is in the far northern part of Idaho up near the Canadian border.

I got my first look at what I later was to name The Sage Mesa Ranch in May 1974.  I found this in Weiser, Idaho on the Western border with Oregon.  I got a call from my agent one evening late that he had just been notified that a piece of property had just come up for sale that had never been sold since its onset as a homestead.  It was in Weiser, and that night I just happened to be staying in Boise where I had been doing a consulting job at the Mountain States Tumor Institute. 

I got up the next morning and drove the 75 miles to Weiser, met the owner, Mr. Jack Hand up on the property at about 0600 in the morning.  He showed me the land and told me all about it.  I fell in love with him, met Mrs. Hand and she took me in like a long lost son,  loved the land because it met all of my criteria, and by 0830 that morning I had myself a ranch.

I bought 500 acres from Mr. & Mrs. Hand, that met every one of the criteria that I had spelled out for Jack my realtor friend in Idaho Falls.  He had hit it right on the head.  And the price was fantastic.  I could meet the price and saw where I could have it paid off much sooner than I had ever imagined.  The highest point on the property was named Sage Mountain at about 3,000 feet altitude, so I named the ranch the Sage Mesa Ranch.  It had formerly been called the Chicken Hill Ranch because there were so many pheasant and chucker running all over the property, pheasant being called chickens by the locals.  Bing Crosby had even hunted on this same property many years before because of the huge number of game birds on it.