Montana Land Reliance - Friends of Conservation

George Lien

“I’m an old timer, and I’m proud of it,” says Springdale rancher George Lien. “I’ve been around this country a long time. It’s good country if you know how to work.”

The country George is referring to is along the Yellowstone River between Springdale and Big Timber, north into the foothills of the Crazy Mountains, and south toward the Absarokas. This is good grazing country, where open pine forests merge into broad grasslands. This is where he learned to raise cattle and sheep, and to stretch barbed wire, and to handle unruly horses. This is where he learned to read and write in a one-room log schoolhouse. And this is where he learned to value community. 

“When I was growing up,” he says, “in the 1920s and 1930s, everybody knew everybody. If you went into town, into Big Timber, you knew the name of everyone you met on the street, and they knew you, and knew your family.”  George grew up at a time when none of the ranches had electricity, or running water, and very few had automobiles.

“Most of the time, in those days, when you went any place, you went horseback. There weren’t any four wheelers or motorcycles or four wheel drive outfits. For a long time we didn’t even have pick-ups around here. We used horses for everything and we got by just fine. Of course, it’s nice in the wintertime to sit in the cab of a truck, but we weren’t used to that. We were used to being outside no matter how cold it was!”

George has passed on his decades of ranching knowledge and his work ethic to his two nephews, and he intends to pass his ranch to them as well. But he knows it’s not as simple as that. 

“The estate taxes really make it difficult to leave land to your family,” he says. “It’s crazy when people have to sell off their land to pay for their land. It’s not right.  This land around here should be appraised for what it is—good cattle land. But instead they appraise it as high-dollar recreation land. That’s just not fair to a fellow who’s trying to make a living off it raising cattle.” 

As a way to help his nephews with a possible estate tax burden in the future, he started thinking about a conservation easement.  “That will bring the value down a bit,” he says, “and there’s some other tax benefits that kick in, too.” 

But taxes were not the only reason George began to consider an easement. The turning point, he says, was last spring, when he went to a bull sale in Three Forks. He hadn’t driven through the Gallatin Valley for several years, and he was shocked.

“On both sides of the road there was just steady building, nothing but houses. So I thought, by God, I’m going to have to do something so that doesn’t happen up in my part of the country, too. And that’s when I really started thinking about it. About conservation easements. I hate to see all that good land with houses all over it.  There is some awful good grass country back in here. Good grass and water. But you put a house on every hill, and it ruins the land forever.” The more George looked into how an easement might work for him, the better he liked the idea—despite occasional objections from acquaintances.

“Some folks tried to tell me it was a bad idea. For some folks, it’s all about money. They said, ‘You’re devaluing your land too much.’ Well, money’s fine, I guess. But there are other things, too. They said, ‘In a hundred years or so, your heirs might want to sell off part of the land, or build some more houses.’ Well, that’s one reason I got the easement in the first place, so that wouldn’t happen! I guess it’s none of my business what other folks do, but I sure hate to see all that building. I like to see some wide open country. When it starts to change there’s no going back. That’s what I’m afraid of. Some folks say I spend too much time looking backward. But I think I’m looking forward. There are lots of things that’ve changed, and maybe for the worse. Now people say, ‘Boy, it was sure nice the way things used to be.’ Well, I say do something about it. For me, I’d just like to have part of the country around here stay the same. With some old timers still on it.”