Tulsa World reports that the Osage Nation completed a deal in June to buy the Bluestem Ranch for $74 million. The 43,000-acre prairieland property west of Pawhuska was utilized by Turner Ranches to run 3,000 head of bison and cattle. In a letter to Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, Turner noted he was hoping all along that the tribe would become the new owner when he put the property up for sale. “It is my sincere hope that our transaction is the last time this land is ever sold,” Turner wrote, “and that the Osage Nation owns this land for all future generations.” The purchase was the latest by Standing Bear to buy as much land as possible in Osage County, where the tribe once owned nearly 1.5 million acres. In the early 1900s, however, the Osage Reservation was allotted to individual tribal members.
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