Conservation History Association of Texas
Texas Legacy Project
Oral History Interview
Nature Conservancy in Texas

Interviewee: James King
Date: September 7, 2022
Site: Davis Mountains, Texas
Reels: 4189-4190
Executive Producer: Lydia Saldana
Producer: Jeff Weigel
Field Producer / Chief Interviewer: Lee Smith
Videographer: Curtis Craven
Writer / Editor: Ron Kabele
Transcriber: David Todd / Trint
Item: King_James_NCItem17_DavisMtnsTX_20220907_Reel4189-4190_Audio.mp3

[Bracketed numbers refer to the interview recording’s time code.]

James King [00:00:15] I grew up in Corpus Christi, in south Texas. And so my my family has multiple generations from South Texas. And and so I, I grew up in the in the city of Corpus Christi, but we had ranches outside of town that I grew up in and was involved in the outdoors. So that’s where I grew up.

Lee Smith [00:00:39] But then you got sent up to?

James King [00:00:42] Yeah, I was a I was a surfer. I had hair down to here. I grew up in Corpus. And, you know, I went to public school in junior high. And then I was extracted, sent to boarding school in Virginia. My father went to that boarding school. My dad is Richard King, the Richard King family of South Texas. My brother’s Richard King, my grandfather was Richard King. I’m James King, the second son of our family. And so so my brother went to Woodberry. I went to Woodberry, my dad went to Woodberry.

James King [00:01:16] And so I was thrown into a a place where there were 200 extremely creative people. Wild, crazy, but smart. And and that’s really where I, I shifted gears and started learning how to read, how to do math, how to do adventure, how to do all kinds of things. So it was, it was a it was a great experience. At the time, it was kind of like I really didn’t want to go, but it was the best thing they ever did, to send me up there.

Lee Smith [00:01:48] And then what happened?

James King [00:01:50] So I went to, I applied to all these universities. No one took me. I wanted to go to Colorado. I wanted to be up in the mountains. And and I got in to Oxford College of Emory University, which is the original campus of Emory University, about 30 miles outside of town. One of my dear buddies, Hank Scobee, he he was at Woodberry. We both got in. We arrived on campus. They didn’t have room in the dorm, so we rented a house in downtown Covington. And and so I spent two years at Oxford.

James King [00:02:28] And then my father said, “Okay, James, you got to come back to Texas.” And so I went to Texas A&M and I enrolled in range science. Rangeland ecology was my degree. I started in ag eco but ended up in rangeland ecology. And so I graduated in ’81 with a range management, ranch management option. And so, so a little bit of liberal arts at Emory and then applied, you know, kind of ecological principles, agriculture.

James King [00:03:04] I was going to be a cowboy. I mean, I grew up as a cowboy in South Texas. I mean, my family, I worked cattle since I was able to ride a horse. And so I thought, you know, that’s my destiny. And and so that’s that’s the, you know, ranch management degree.

Lee Smith [00:03:22] So, cast your mind back. What is your earliest experience of really connecting with the outdoors?

James King [00:03:34] I think it’s probably hunting and fishing in South Texas. My family were big quail hunters, and so I dove hunted, quail hunted, deer hunted as a young, young boy in South Texas. And that got me into that part of the of the outdoors, but fishing as well. We always had a place in Port Aransas. And so my father had a lot of friends who had boats. And so we’d go offshore. We’d go inshore. And so being out on the water, seeing the birds, seeing all the fish, you know, all that was was eye opening.

James King [00:04:16] And one guy in particular is a guy named Harvey Wild. And Harvey Wild is a is an iconic person of South Texas. And they have the Harvey Wild Sportsman Award every year. He passed away years and years ago. But he was a good friend of my dad’s.

James King [00:04:34] And Mr. Wild would take us offshore. And I was a kid and we would leave, like at five in the morning and we wouldn’t come back till dark. And and it was just eye-opening to me to be out there catching fish and learning about conservation.

James King [00:04:50] He was a big conservationist. He taught me, this is one of my first memories of conservation was we caught a sailfish, we brought it next to the boat. And I’m all about, you know, “Get the gaff, get it in the boat”, you know. And he reached over and put a tag on it and let it go. And I just went, “What is that about?”

James King [00:05:13] And and lo and behold, he takes me and he goes, and my name was Jamie growing up. And he said, “Jamie, come here. I want to show you something.” And he opens up this book and he has all these fish that he has caught and released with the numbers of the tag.

James King [00:05:28] And and he says, “You know, if you if you tag them and let them go, you can catch them again.” And I always thought, wow, that’s a that’s an eye-opener for me as a kid. So he was definitely a mentor of mine.

Lee Smith [00:05:43] Was there any other one that, maybe your dad, I guess?

James King [00:05:46] You know, Mr. Harte, Ed Harte. You know, he ended up, later in life, started the Harte Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies. And I grew up with Ed. You know, he was my dad’s age, older. He he owned the paper in Corpus Christi.

James King [00:06:04] And so Ed was always someone who talked to me a lot about things, about outdoors. He was fighting a lot of causes back then I didn’t really know about. Like, one of them was establishing the national seashore in Corpus Christi. It was kind of controversial. My mother was involved in that and I learned about creating a national seashore. I thought that was really cool. And and later in life, you know, Ed really introduced me to the Nature Conservancy. So, he was he was a great man.

Lee Smith [00:06:40] Was there anything in popular culture that, like any any book that you might have read or a magazine or a movie or anything like that or…?

James King [00:06:50] You know, we, our family subscribed to National Geographic, and I would get it once a month, and I couldn’t wait to get that next issue and learn about some far-off place, some cool mountain, beach, community, culture. It was always fascinating and my mother kept them all on our, in our bookcase. And so I would go in there and look at them, look at old past ones. Couldn’t wait for the new one.

James King [00:07:17] So that and some of the wildlife shows like Mutual of Omaha, Wild Kingdom. I thought that was cool, you know, and what those guys did. And so I was, you know, curious about the outdoors.

James King [00:07:31] You know, growing up in Corpus Christi, I’m on the beach. I’m not on a mountain. So the outdoors, I kind of had to go to it versus it it coming to me. And so later in life, I learned about the Hill Country, the, you know, the mountains and, you know, going to Virginia at a boarding school, the Blue Ridge Mountains, hiking the Old Rag and spending a night in a tent. I didn’t do that in Corpus.

James King [00:07:59] You know, being in the outdoors where I grew up was working cattle and being on a horse from sunup to sundown. It was really not it’s not it wasn’t a recreational sport. It was it was work. And so, you know, the mountains were intriguing to me.

Lee Smith [00:08:16] What was your first break into conservation?

James King [00:08:20] Well, I was I was on the board of GCCA, Gulf Coast Conservation Association, Walter Fondren. My partner… After after A&M, I worked for Kerr-McGee in Oklahoma for two years managing their their ranches and then moved back to Austin and started a real estate company. And my partner, John Schneider, and I went to a GCAA fund raiser and we, you know, big party, big deal. Walter Fondren was there. And so he came over. We bought a big trip. We couldn’t even afford it. We actually borrowed money to pay for the trip we bought, which was a trip to Venezuela, peacock bass fishing. And we both took our dads with us.

James King [00:09:08] And so we were young entrepreneurs in the real estate business in Austin, you know, in the early ’80s.

James King [00:09:14] But they immediately put me on the board of GCCA. I knew nothing about it. And so that was kind of my first introduction to an organized organization involved in that.

James King [00:09:27] And and then Ducks Unlimited. I went to a number of events related to that.

James King [00:09:33] I didn’t really know anything about the Nature Conservancy, nothing, until I was formally introduced to the opportunity to possibly work for them.

Lee Smith [00:09:44] How did that come about?

James King [00:09:46] So I was in Austin during the the the boom of the ’80s in real estate. My partner and I, we made a lot of money and then we lost a lot of money. And we literally got out with our shirts on. We had no debt. We we we but we were alive. And we had, I call it my Ph.D. in real estate. There’s no better way to learn it than if it happens to you.

James King [00:10:13] And so I’m sitting in my office in Austin in 1988. And and there in the want ads is an advertisement for a job with the Nature Conservancy. And it was the name of it was Director of Protection. And I thought, “Well, okay is that guarding animals or is it like protecting the…?” I could do that.

James King [00:10:39] And so I applied. And then I later realized it’s real estate. And I said, “That’s right up my alley.” I was I had years of experience early on in real estate and some big transactions. And so fundamentally I knew the business. And that’s what Director of Protection was, was was a real estate job.

James King [00:10:59] So so I got an interview. I went down to San Antonio. I had my coat and tie on, nervous, obviously. The office was right across from the Alamo. I take this little elevator up.

James King [00:11:13] There’s this gal who is the, she was the receptionist for the Conservancy. Long kind of hippie girl. And I’m sitting there waiting and I’m watching her, and she gets her piece of paper out and starts saving these ants that were crawling across her desk and would go out the elevator and take it down and let the ants go.

James King [00:11:38] And right then, I literally was standing up to walk out, to run away. I said, “No way I can work for an organization like this.” And right when I stood up, the gal came in to say, “Okay, your interview is in the conference room.” I mean that much from running running on that interview.

James King [00:11:57] And so anyway, David Braun and Camilla Herlevich, who was the, well, David was the state director and then the attorney interviewed me and and they offered me the job – January 1989.

Lee Smith [00:12:14] And so what was kind of your first job to do?

James King [00:12:19] Well, so, you know.

Lee Smith [00:12:21] Now you’re now the.

James King [00:12:22] Director of Protection.

Lee Smith [00:12:23] Director of Protection.

James King [00:12:24] And they had an outgoing person there, Chuck. Chuck Cook was his name. He was he was leaving the Texas office to go work in Palau, of all places, in the Pacific. And so we had an overlap of about six months. And so I was learning a lot of stuff from Chuck about what are the projects that we’re working on. What deals do we have in the hopper?

James King [00:12:49] One of which was the Davis Mountains, because like literally within weeks of coming to work, we got a phone call from Don McIvor, who owns the You Up You Down Ranch, who the Conservancy had a relationship with.

James King [00:13:04] And so, you know, there were others like that that that I jumped on. We had we had we had a focused effort of of projects that were meaningful that needed to be protected.

James King [00:13:18] We also had a thing called “walk-ins” where people would just call us and they had this opportunity. They want to donate a property, want us to buy a piece of property. So I responded to walk-ins.

James King [00:13:30] One of the early ones was the James River Bat Cave. This guy, Clinton Chelsea, was the was the superintendent of the school in Mason and he had a small interest in this property that had the bat cave. And so these walk-ins actually produced some interesting conservation results.

James King [00:13:50] But we had a very sophisticated focus on what we called the “Top 40”. This was modeled after the “Top 40” hits, Casey Kasem kind of deal. And our “Top 40” was based on science about these 40 projects. We’d like to find a way to work on conservation.

James King [00:14:11] Buying them, you know, was one way. We had other strategies as well. But when we bought them, we did it either as a preserve for the Conservancy to own and manage, or we worked with our partners and that was Parks and Wildlife, Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service. And we did what we call co-ops where we would actually jump in there, acquire a piece of property, have agreements of a take-out, get that thing off the market, you know, abate a threat of it being subdivided and then sell it back to the agency when they had their funds available. So we did a lot of those. I did, you know, properties all over the state with Fish and Wildlife and Parks and Wildlife and the National Park Service.

Lee Smith [00:14:57] So tell me about the Davis Mountains project. How is that we are sitting here today?

James King [00:15:02] So January is when I came to work for the Conservancy, and sometime after that, like maybe it was February, we got this call from Don McIvor, and I come here to to the his headquarters down by Fort Davis, and we meet Don.

James King [00:15:19] And Don’s mother was in health problems and he just got a, he was the beneficiary of a of a of an ability to sell this land on behalf of his mother and and he felt like he could sell the ranch. He was ready to sell. He wanted to to work with the Conservancy, sell the ranch, use this power of attorney to act on behalf of his mom, Violet Locke McIvor and and and sell to the Conservancy.

James King [00:15:56] And we jumped on it. You know, we had an appraiser, Jim Jeffries. We, we went down the road on negotiating an option agreement to acquire this. And lo and behold, when we got into the title work, we realized that, no, that power of attorney was not sufficient to convey the ranch.

James King [00:16:16] Plus we didn’t have any money. And that’s another big project of raising the funds to do all this.

James King [00:16:22] And so we realized that it was a trust and she had to literally die before there was an ability for the heirs, the beneficiaries, to sell.

James King [00:16:32] So we thought and, you know, any day now … that went on for like six years. And so during that six-year period, I would literally spend a lot of time with Don driving back and forth from San Antonio, going out to the ranch, being in front of him, communicating our desires.

James King [00:16:55] He became a friend of mine, honestly, you know, at the time it was an objective. But then, you know, he was a sweet man. He was AA. He smoked, chain-smoked cigarettes and drank one cup of coffee after the other. And I sat in this living room right across from him, literally, for years waiting for this opportunity.

James King [00:17:17] And so finally, Mrs. Locke McIvor passed away and we were able to to move forward. But still, we didn’t have an idea of how we were going to do it. It was such a huge transaction. 32,000 acres is what the whole ranch was, and we acquired about like 25,000 acres, I think it was. I can’t remember exact numbers. He was wanting to keep the headquarters. And so we had to figure out a way to have to pay for this huge chunk of money. I think it was like $9 million. That number comes to mind. I can’t remember exactly the dollar figure.

James King [00:17:56] So there’s a lot about this story because at the whole time we had to understand how are we going to do this. And are we going to sell it to the National Park Service? Absolutely not. The local community, they had signs on their fences – “Nature Conservancy? No. Private lands? Yes.” They didn’t want the government up here.

James King [00:18:20] And so working with our science, Jeff Weigel and the other folks there, and working with our state director at the time, we basically carved, we designed this project where we would keep a core preserve and pay for it through fundraising and surround ourselves with conservation easements and keep it all private.

James King [00:18:44] And we’d do research with government. We’d have universities up here doing things. But but not a national park, not a refuge, not a state park, not a not a WMA.

James King [00:18:56] And so, so that was the way we did it. And and we had a number of ways that we tested the market to see how we could do this. And we ended up landing with this scenario where we kept the core preserve, Mount Livermore, highest elevation, where most of the unique plants and animals were located, and we sold to our neighbors, to to individuals who became our neighbors, and they donated conservation easements. And so we call them conservation buyers. And so we had a we had a series of about six of those, and we closed simultaneously. We needed their money to do the big deal with Mr. McIvor.

James King [00:19:45] And so it was a bizarre, you know, maybe eight transactions that occurred at the exact same moment to create the capital to do it. It was very creative at the time. It was it was unusual. Our title company lady just totally almost freaked out and ran to the hills. It was so complicated.

James King [00:20:07] But we got through it and and that I never forget that that that afternoon, evening in ’97, I think it was the end of December, late December, before New Year’s ’97, we closed. We had a little party down at Don McIvor’s house. And we, Jeff Weigel and I, got in my truck and we drove all the way to the highest place you could drive. And we spent the night in my truck.

James King [00:20:36] And the morning we woke up and it was a preserve, you know, the Conservancy owned it and it was almost like it was blue sky. It was snow everywhere. It was magical.

James King [00:20:47] And so from that day on, you know, we still had to fundraise and pay for it all. But we had some great donors, we had some great board members.

James King [00:20:57] It was a team effort all the way. It was it was staff, board and philanthropy, like you’ve never seen it before. And and the reason we’re here today in the Davis Mountains is because of that collaboration.

Lee Smith [00:21:13] And those signs came down.

James King [00:21:16] Okay. So, now we own this preserve. And I live 400 miles away, and I’m running up and down the highway trying to stoke all the fires of relationships, which takes a lot of work and trust and developing ability to to work with our neighbors. And suddenly there’s this odd organization stuck in the middle of the Davis Mountains called the Nature Conservancy.

James King [00:21:44] And so I went to my boss at the time, Robert Potts and I were hiking down a trail. And I was just fretting over this thing. I was going to say, “Robert”, I did say this. I said, “Robert, I need to move to Fort Davis.”

James King [00:21:58] I mean, the words barely got out of my mouth and I thought he was going to say, “Absolutely not. We need you here in San Antonio. You got all this other stuff you’re doing.” And and he was like, “Yes!” And, you know, “When are you doing it?”

James King [00:22:11] And so when I got the nod to move, I went home and told my family. We bought one of the two houses that were for sale. My kids were four and five, and I convinced my wife that we’re going to move here, Tammy, for two years. We’ve been here now 24 years.

James King [00:22:30] And and so that that was a brilliant decision, not only by Robert, but by the whole organization, because there’s no way I could have gotten those signs off those of those gates because I became a neighbor. I became … I was in their church. We went to the schools together. We went to football games together. They realized that I wasn’t the demon that they they cooked up.

James King [00:22:59] And so over time, we’ve become very part of the community and still part of the community. Matter of fact, a lot of those naysayers back in those days are now my clients and our company, King Land and Water.

James King [00:23:13] And so I think that was really good. At the time we called it community-based conservation – that we had to be part of the community. And so we moved our office from Alpine up to Fort Davis, and we had land steward. We had various folks that we developed programs here in the Davis Mountains. And so I think that was moving here to west Texas was the best thing.

James King [00:23:38] And not only was it the best thing for the Nature Conservancy, for conservation, it was the best thing for me. You know, I really, really enjoyed raising my kids in this environment with these people. And and so I just am blessed with the opportunity to do that.

Lee Smith [00:23:57] How important was it for the Nature Conservancy to keep their word?

James King [00:24:04] Very. You know, there was there was a disbelief that we would keep our word. There was this, you know, I called it, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling.” At some point, the sky’s gotta fall. If the sky never falls, then there is no monster out there.

James King [00:24:25] And so there was there was an organization developed here to push back against the Nature Conservancy, Davis Mountains Trans-Pecos Heritage Association. There’s some great folks in that organization; a lot of my friends today are in that organization.

James King [00:24:40] But they were just any second now, “See, I told you so”, because we did a deal on the Devils River where we worked with Parks and Wildlife. We did a deal at Sandylands, where we worked with National Park Service. We did a deal on the coast at Playa del Rio, where we worked with Fish and Wildlife. And so we continued to do those co-ops working with our partners.

James King [00:25:05] And they didn’t, they thought any day now we’re going to drop the bomb on them, that this is a national park and this was all just a ruse.

James King [00:25:12] But the Conservancy kept their word. Their donors, I think, were underpinning their ability to keep that word because those donors gave that money for this preserve and not for it to be a national park, you know. So they supported everything the Conservancy did.

Lee Smith [00:25:33] Where do the Schweppes fit into this?

James King [00:25:35] My gosh, the Schweppe girls. So actually, it was Dr. Schweppe, their dad, who started the relationship with the Conservancy. And he was a board member. He was a chairman of the board. And I was very fond of him. He was a character. He was charismatic. He was smooth. Dr. Schweppe running a board meeting was just like it was just like just glass. And he was fond of West Texas. He used to hunt here on the Bright ranch south of Marfa. And he always liked it.

James King [00:26:09] And so when the opportunity came to to try to raise the money for this, our first iteration, we called it 40 acres and a mule, and we had 10 40-acre tracts designed all around the 25,000 acres. And we were going to sell them for $2 million apiece and use those to help raise the money and develop a common area where everyone would have access to the whole thing. And we were going to keep the very summit of Livermore no more than 5000 acres.

James King [00:26:44] And, and I never could get anyone. And finally, Anne and Jane Schweppe came in to our office and and I’m frustrated that I can’t get anyone to bite on the 40 acres and a mule. And they were talking to me and I wasn’t really listening, I don’t think, to what they were saying. I said, “Here, write down on this piece of paper what you want to do.”

James King [00:27:07] And so they wrote this thing down, turned around and sent it, gave it to me, and it said, “We want to give you $2 million, no strings attached.” And that was it.

James King [00:27:19] And I looked at it and went, “Are you kidding me? What about one of the 40 acre tracts?” “No, we don’t want that, we want to give you $2 million.”

James King [00:27:27] And so then we threw the 40 acres and a mule out the window and focused them as a lead gift and leveraged that lead gift with other foundations and individuals. And so, you know, this preserve would not be here if it wasn’t for Jane and Anne.

James King [00:27:43] And we drove around together and and we found arrowheads. We hiked Livermore. They, they they fell in love with this place. And so they were very instrumental.

James King [00:27:57] And their dad just sat back and just watched the girls mature as young philanthropists. And and it was beautiful to watch that. And they named the mountain up here, “Laura’s Rock”, after their mother and and their sister who had passed away.

James King [00:28:14] So, anyway.

Lee Smith [00:28:20] See, we’ve we’ve covered a lot of these just in where we are.

Lee Smith [00:28:26] What is a sky island?

James King [00:28:28] Sky island is a description of a mountain island in a desert sea.

James King [00:28:34] So out here in the Chihuahuan desert (and I just came from the Sonoran Desert and it’s the same thing in the Sonoran Desert), but when you have these elevated mountain ranges and these lower elevations surrounding it, it becomes an island of habitat. And what happens is the higher the elevation, the more rainfall, and the more rainfall, the more different diversity of vegetation, the more trees, the more forests.

James King [00:29:04] And so Davis Mountains is one of those. The Chisos in Big Bend is another one. The Chinatis are another one. The Chiracahuas in the West are another one, outside of Texas.

James King [00:29:17] But so what what happens over time is these become isolated from other islands and you get what they call endemism. You’ve got plants and animals evolving up there in isolation of their cousins.

James King [00:29:33] And so, like there’s a there’s a snail up here, the three-band snail. Well, there’s one here in the Davis Mountains, there’s one in the Chisos, there’s one in the Chinatis. And they’re, they’re distinct, but they’re related, and they just kind of evolved separately.

James King [00:29:48] And you, so this sky island, the Davis Mountains, is, is a place where you get migration. You get, you know, hummingbirds, you get butterflies, you get neotropical birds, you get wintering birds. It’s a it’s a it’s a stopover.

James King [00:30:06] And and not to say the lower deserts aren’t important and the grasslands around them, it just isolates it from the next little mountain where there’s another forest and another group of diverse plants and animals.

Lee Smith [00:30:21] Oh, now, in part of getting the preserve going, there was going to be a board meeting out here and a big shindig. And then there was kind of a incident at a nearby ranch where there was kind of a.

[00:30:38] Well…

Lee Smith [00:30:39] A guy declared that he was independent.

James King [00:30:42] Rick McLaren. Okay.

James King [00:30:45] You know, there’s so many little nuances to this preserve, and that’s one of them.

James King [00:30:51] So there’s a guy named Rick McLaren, and he declared himself the the ambassador of the Republic of Texas. And he had a little piece of property over the mountain that was the Embassy of the Republic of Texas. He’s the ambassador.

James King [00:31:08] And he has this logic that that Texas entered the union illegally, and therefore, he is representing the Republic of Texas. And therefore, I own Texas and my friends own Texas.

James King [00:31:23] And and so he started this separatist movement. And and there was actually an event that occurred where where they took a hostage over in this adjoining subdivision. And there was a stand-down with law enforcement. And and they had DPS officers everywhere. There were there were they actually shot. Republic of Texas folks shot one guy, Joe Rowe. It was accidentally shot them. They hit him in the shoulder.

James King [00:32:06] Of course that is like, “Okay you shot someone.” And so they ended up with these K-9 dogs. Some of them escaped into the woods. The dogs chased them. They had one guy climbed up a ponderosa. He killed one of the dogs and then they killed him in the tree.

James King [00:32:23] And so it became serious. I mean, it was it was. And there was fear that these outside influencers would come in and support them. And it was nip and tuck. CNN was here. It was just a crazy time.

James King [00:32:36] A little story: as I drove in during that time with a U-Haul full of furniture for the Nature Conservancy to put in this cabin. And as I was driving, a buzzard knocked my windshield out.

James King [00:32:51] And so here I am driving up the loop with all these law enforcement. I have no windshield and a U-Haul truck, and I pull in here and I was immediately surrounded by these guys and ended up they help me unload the U-Haul trailer.

James King [00:33:06] But it was a it was a, and we ended up buying that property. It was foreclosed on. They had a sheriff’s sale, the embassy, and we bought the embassy. It was on closing. It was a snowy day and we put we cleaned up all around. There was junk everywhere. These guys lived in the woods. They were like, you know, I don’t know what you call them, but military separatists.

James King [00:33:33] And they put everything in the little building and we burned it. And all the neighbors came over thanking us for getting rid of the embassy.

James King [00:33:44] And so that piece of property now has a conservation easement. It buffers us from the the subdivision called DMR. And and it was and those guys all went to jail. And they’re still in jail today.

Lee Smith [00:34:01] So how does this site relate to the McDonald Observatory?

James King [00:34:05] So McDonald Observatory is owned by the University of Texas and they have a lot of partners there, other universities. There’s universities in Arizona, California, Germany that have a variety of telescopes up there, and they’re doing lots of research, science, and they also do education.

James King [00:34:26] And so right next to the observatory, a subdivision broke out in the ’70s called Olympia Crossing, and they divided all those into five-acre tracts and people started building houses. And the observatory became concerned that their dark skies will start being diminished.

James King [00:34:48] And so when I was out here, my little before I moved here, my my office literally was a pay phone at the visitor center of the McDonald Observatory. And I would call ranchers and people and we would meet and do stuff.

James King [00:35:05] And so I introduced myself to Frank Bash, Dr. Frank Bash, who was the head of McDonald’s Observatory. And we became friends.

James King [00:35:15] And and I’m looking at his donors and he’s looking at my donors. And we realized a lot of them were the same people. You know, natural science is is is astronomy as well as biology.

James King [00:35:31] And so we started co-conspiring. He let me use their facilities to entertain my donors. I would invite him to our board meeting and he would talk about the observatory.

James King [00:35:45] And so we both kind of came to the conclusion that if I was successful in abating threats – the threat here is fragmentation, subdivision – then I was going to protect the dark skies for the observatory.

James King [00:36:00] And so the Conservancy and McDonald Observatory literally are like, you know, partners, although they’re looking up and we’re mostly looking down.

James King [00:36:11] But I think that if you look today at the maps that show the extent of conservation easements and lands that will never be subdivided, a lot of that is right next to the observatory.

Lee Smith [00:36:24] So you’re from Corpus and then you were in Austin and San Antonio, but now you’re in Fort Davis in a dark sky. What was it like the first time that you really noticed what’s up there?

James King [00:36:40] Well. So when I graduated from high school, at Woodberry Forest in Virginia, I got a jeep for my graduation and I went from Corpus Christi straight straight to Big Bend National Park. The first time I’ve ever been in the mountains of West Texas. Got a little taste of it there.

James King [00:36:58] And and then in 1989, when I worked for the Conservancy, just started, two buddies and I got permission from Don McIvor. This is the the the winter of and spring of ’89. I started in January. We we asked him if we could camp up here in the meadow and hike Livermore. He said, “Sure, fine.”

James King [00:37:26] So we camped out here and that night looking at the … I tell you when it was, it was 4th of July because I remember we came from Big Bend. We came here, it was cool versus the hot desert down there and looking at the stars, it was just unbelievable. And the next day (we were all single) we all said, “Let’s go to San Antonio.” We drove to San Antonio, walked into a bar, and I met my wife after camping out here – Tammy.

James King [00:37:57] And so the sky’s here. If you haven’t seen them at night, it’ll it’s almost deafening in the sense you can’t see the the constellations because there’s so many stars out there. They don’t stand out. They’re, they’re camouflaged. And the variety of of of stars and galaxies that are out there. It’s amazing.

James King [00:38:23] McDonald Observatory has a star party and it’s a great place to go. Get the public out and involved and see that kind of thing you’re talking about.

Lee Smith [00:38:35] So let’s go a little bit east. What was your involvement with Dolan’s Falls and the Devils River?

James King [00:38:42] Okay. Dolan Falls. So I don’t remember the year. I think I closed Dolan Falls for the Nature Conservancy August of ’91. That comes to my mind.

James King [00:38:53] So while I was early on at TNC, there was a ranch for sale on the Devils River, and it bordered the state natural area that the that the Texas Parks and Wildlife owned. And not only did it have river frontage, but it had Dolan Creek and the springs and stuff associated with it.

James King [00:39:13] And so there was a classic old Texas broker named Gary Rogers. Gary was classic. He called me Jimmy and he said, “Jimmy, let’s go take a look at that.”

James King [00:39:26] And so we got Karen Leslie with Parks and Wildlife. She was the real estate person for Parks and Wildlife. Gary and I, and we drove out there in White Dog, that was his Suburban that had a million miles on it. I’m not kidding.

James King [00:39:43] And and we drove to the gate and I’d never been to the Devils River. I’d seen pictures and I’d known about it, but I’d never been. And we got closer and closer and we opened up the gate to go on this ranch. And I got out of the gate. I got out of the car, open the gate, walked around.

James King [00:40:02] And we were there with the idea that we might do a co-op with Parks and Wildlife. Andy Samson was the head of Parks and Wildlife at the time. They didn’t have any money to pay for it, so it was like, “Well, Conservancy, if you can find a way to buy it, we might take it later as an addition.”

James King [00:40:24] And I literally walked around the car and I told Gary, “We’re buying it. And it’s for us, not Parks and Wildlife. This is just such an incredible resource, I’m afraid the public might ruin it.” My fear was state park, multiple campsites, people climbing all over the falls. The fragile nature of the endangered fish and the aquatic vegetation. It needs to be managed, you know. It needs to be careful.

James King [00:40:55] And not to say Parks and Wildlife can’t do that. But when you have the public mandate, whereas the Conservancy doesn’t have that mandate, their mandate is for protecting biodiversity.

James King [00:41:09] And so, so, so I had a great board member. His name is Dick Bartlett. He passed away. He was he was the chairman of our board at the time. He was gung ho. “Let’s go buy Dolan.”

James King [00:41:22] And we sat around in a meeting and lo and behold, it was like 3.8 million. We didn’t have 3.8 million. So we borrowed it from our national office. We bought it. We closed it. And and and that started the Conservancy’s direct involvement there on the Devils River.

James King [00:41:41] And so kind of like the Davis Mountains in a way, although there’s a public partner there, with Parks and Wildlife. And so we sold the non-river part to our neighbor, John Eddie Williams. He donated an easement. We kept the core, which is now called Dolan Falls Preserve.

James King [00:42:00] And then we worked on a number of other tracts over the next five years and and through our conservation buyer program, well, we would buy the properties and then we would sell them to a conservation buyer and they would donate a conservation easement.

James King [00:42:17] And so I think there’s over maybe 100,000 acres in conservation easements now on the Devils. And and the Conservancy has the core.

James King [00:42:28] We even, later in life, I even helped establish the South unit of Texas Parks and Wildlife.

James King [00:42:36] And another key element in this fear of over-developing by public properties is, is Parks and Wildlife really wanted Brushy Canyon, which is a preserve we had out here near Big Bend. And so we had bighorn sheep on it and they were more capable of managing than we were. They had staff right there at Black Gap.

James King [00:43:00] And so we ended up trading them. We gave them Brushy Canyon and they gave us a conservation easement on the state natural area on the 19,000-acre original state natural area.

James King [00:43:15] So in case the legislature changes, public policy changes, that land will never change. That land’s got an easement on it. And so so the North unit and the South unit both have conservation easements. They’re now owned by Parks and Wildlife with the Conservancy kind of in the middle. And then other landowners in between.

James King [00:43:37] Now, what about, is it David Honeycutt? Tell me how David Honeycutt fits in there.

James King [00:43:44] David was a … I’ve known David a long time. And in fact I knew David Honeycutt when I was my company in Austin in the ’80s was called Schneider King Company. John Schneider from Austin was my partner, and we did a lot of real estate deals in the Austin area, and we did ranch stuff around the state. And we knew David at the time. We’d go have dinner and go to the bars and do all that stuff.

James King [00:44:08] And David emerged. He bought a piece of property on the Devils River, a small piece, in a subdivided area called Blue Sage. And when when when the Conservancy started. Wait, it wasn’t the Conservancy. When when Rod Sanders, who bought the the Devils River Ranch, which is across the river from Honeycutt, I started representing Rod in the sale to the state.

James King [00:44:41] Honeycutt got really bent out of shape because he also had these thoughts about the public running up and down the river and ruining it.

James King [00:44:49] And so I’ll never forget we had a public meeting in Del Rio and Honeycutt got up and, and just berated our transaction and it was like, “Dang, Honeycutt,” you know? And you know, “Remember me, man? I’m your friend,” you know.

James King [00:45:05] And then, I mean, literally, it wasn’t a month later when he gave a lead gift of like, I think it was a million and a half dollars to the project to help fund the purchase of that property. So David went from, you know, being a adversary of this state purchase to being the biggest supporter you could have.

James King [00:45:27] And then with that, he he became involved with the Nature Conservancy. He became involved with Devils River Conservancy. I’m on the advisory board of Devils River Conservancy. David is a past chairman of that board.

James King [00:45:40] And so, David, I think he finally thought it through and realized that the real threat to the Devils River is is not the state, it’s it’s fragmentation. And more importantly, it’s pumping groundwater. It’s moving that groundwater away from that watershed, that will affect spring flow, that will kill his river that he recreates in.

James King [00:46:04] And so and then I think the Conservancy influence helped to open his mind to multiple other things.

James King [00:46:11] So David is like the biggest advocate for conservation on the Devil’s River.

Lee Smith [00:46:16] Well, and there was there was some conversation or some some thing he had with with Carter where Carter had had changed his mind about some aspect of it, too.

James King [00:46:27] Well, that’s that’s what I’m saying is that when when he was very outspoken against Carter, you know, and Parks and Wildlife in buying that property, Carter needed about five million dollars or so. I’m just kind of trying to remember these numbers.

James King [00:46:45] And so the landowner gave a bargain sale – Rod Sanders – gave a bargain sale to make to allow Parks and Wildlife to to get that five million dollars. And then, you know, Mr. Dan Allen Hughes gave money.

James King [00:47:02] But but the other major lead gift was Honeycutt. And so Carter in his beautiful way (I hired Carter as a staff person for the Nature Conservancy). I love Carter. He’s a dear friend and he’s a great thing for Texas. And and he’s got a way with words. And so he spun Honeycutt right around from against to for, not only for, here’s a million dollars. So he’s he’s a he’s he’s a force of nature himself.

Lee Smith [00:47:34] One thing about that Devils River area: to me, it’s a very tactile environment. It’s it’s the ground is hard. The plants seem sharper. The air seems.

James King [00:47:50] Yeah.

James King [00:47:51] You know, crisper. And it’s it’s it’s as different from the flats around Matagorda as you can possibly get.

James King [00:48:02] And it’s so rugged, so rough, so raw, so beautiful, so diverse, you know. And it’s a tough environment. I love that limestone country. As a matter of fact, my wife and I and my son, we just bought a ranch on the lower Pecos River, very similar to the Devils. And and those canyons and ruggedness are inspiring in their in their own self. But you got to know the country. You got to be careful. You can get in trouble out there for sure. Yeah.

Lee Smith [00:48:37] Where am I? Okay. And let’s backtrack a little bit to the West. How did the Independence Creek Preserve come about?

James King [00:48:47] Oh, man. Independence Creek – that is a long story. And it is diverse, unique. And there’s lots of parts to it.

James King [00:48:58] It started with the Chandler ranch. And the Chandlers owned the mouth of the of the creek. Independence Creek is a huge outflow of the Edwards Trinity Aquifer and it entirely changes the lower Pecos River from that point south. And and it’s also a refuge for fish, rare fish, endangered fish, to come up in during like algae blooms along the Pecos River. The Pecos can be kind of beleaguered upstream from there.

James King [00:49:31] And so the Chandlers owned that mouth, that connection. And so the Conservancy, I’ll never forget the first time I went out there with Helen Ballew and met Mr. Chandler, Joe Chandler.

James King [00:49:43] He had a guest ranch down there. It was a golf course and he had people from all over Midland, Odessa and Texas go fly in there, play golf, drink, go, you know, have a good time on the water.

James King [00:49:57] And, you know, Joe had these thousands of ideas. And one of them, which is to dam the Independence Creek, create a Lake Powell and have recreation and boating and all this. And we’re all going, “No!”

James King [00:50:12] And so so, Helen and I went out there and and we met Joe and Mildred, his wife. They were characters and, you know, we ate. We went to the kitchen, they made us dinner. The meat of that dinner was blue colored. Blue! I have no idea what it was. And and I just kind of moved it around on my plate.

James King [00:50:40] And he goes, “Okay, well, we’re going to get started in the morning. And I’ve got all my records right here.” And he pulls this grocery sack off of his off of his refrigerator. And those were his documents, his deed, a lawsuit that he was involved in. All this stuff was in this grocery sack.

James King [00:50:58] And so he takes us and puts us in our cabins. He lets me off outside and he says, “I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll come pick you up.” And off they go.

James King [00:51:10] And it’s pitch-black dark, and I don’t have a flashlight. And I literally find my feel my way into this and crawl on the floor. And feeling this furniture. I had no idea what it looked like. I finally found a lamp, went up the lamp, turned it on. And so that was my first night on Independence Creek.

James King [00:51:30] And we went around with him. We got stuck. I learned how to jump a high jack. We got high-centered on a road and he, he jacked up, put the jack in the middle of the bumper and jacked it up and that steel was just bending and he said jump out of the way and he gunned it and he jumped the rock over the top of the jack and got unstuck.

James King [00:51:58] And so he was a legend. And Joe Chandler’s book, written about him by his daughter, one of his daughters was married to E.K. Holub of the of the Texas Tech.

James King [00:52:13] And and so we literally started down the road of buying the conservation easement. They didn’t have any money. They didn’t have any resources. They’re old rancher, sheep and goat, recreation, trying to make a buck, getting people to play golf out in the desert.

James King [00:52:31] And so we basically agreed to the terms of a conservation easement over that part of the ranch. Not all of it, but the river and the creek part.

James King [00:52:42] And so Joe got sick. And, Joe, there are so many stories about Joe Chandler, you know, before this time, one of them, which was that Joe was on his death bed. He had a bad heart. The family was all around him. They were praying and they were saying goodbye. And the doctor was going to turn the switch off on his breathing apparatus.

James King [00:53:05] And they turned the switch off and Joe reached up, pulled it off and said, “Dang, what are you guys doing here?”

James King [00:53:12] And he lived for another five years. You know, he wasn’t on his deathbed. We were joking that he was sucking more out of the machine than the machine was giving him.

James King [00:53:24] And so anyway, he got sick this time for real. And, and for some reason, technically, we couldn’t complete the transaction. And he literally was was on his death bed. And he would call me up and we’d go up there and I’d sneak a pizza. He would put it in his sheets under his bed.

James King [00:53:46] One time my jeep got, wouldn’t wouldn’t run. Battery was dead. And Joe got out of bed and helped us push it. And his his daughter saw him behind my jeep pushing it. And they raised all kind of hell with us. He had his nightgown on, you know, and pushing it, trying to get us to start it.

James King [00:54:06] So so what we came up with, which is very great idea, is with the concurrence of their family, we faked a closing. It wasn’t a real closing. We didn’t have the real documents. It wasn’t I think our the title commitment wasn’t done or something.

James King [00:54:24] And so Joe came in and we had this conservation easement and he signed it and his children signed it and we had a little celebration. He was so excited. He got it done before he died and he died like two weeks later.

James King [00:54:42] And so we did the actual closing about a month later. But his family was so appreciative of us doing that for Joe, and I think Joe appreciated that as well.

James King [00:54:53] So that was the first bit of it.

James King [00:54:56] We always drove through this ranch called the Oasis Ranch, and we dreamed about that ranch – lakes, springs, water, beautiful headquarters. And, you know, we felt like no way we could ever touch that. Maybe we could work a conservation deal, conservation buyer deal. So I kept in touch with this broker, Gary Rogers, same broker at Devils River.

James King [00:55:23] And one time he said, “Well, it’s for sale.” And and we met the owner. It was a doctor whose father had given it to him. And so we we had this idea of buying that ranch and then selling it to a conservation buyer.

James King [00:55:42] And Jeff Weigel and I and Robert Potts and others we dreamed about, maybe we keep like 100 acres and have a fee title area there on the creek where we could have a research station, a little cabin or something, not just easements because the Chandler deal was a conservation easement. We didn’t own anything.

James King [00:56:01] So we had that idea. We took it to the board and lo and behold, the board said, “No, this is so important. We’ve got to find a way to make this whole thing a preserve.”

James King [00:56:12] And so that became a very difficult task at the time, trying to raise that kind of money.

James King [00:56:19] And so there was another ranch then, the neighboring ranch, became available next to the Oasis that had river, creek frontage, and we dialed that one into the equation as well. And now we’re up to 9000 acres. Well, with, you know, four million dollars, five million dollars.

James King [00:56:37] And then we met. We were looking for a conservation buyer. There’s no way we had a donor ready to pay for that.

James King [00:56:45] And and we met Robert McCurdy. And Robert McCurdy, I’d known Robert from Caddo Lake. He gave land to us at Caddo Lake and he helped us leverage that into a huge addition to the state park, there at Caddo Lake.

James King [00:57:06] And and so he was looking for a ranch. And, you know, Robert is is Robert. And we found out we both went to the same boarding school together. We had a lot in common. He was very creative. He was extremely wild.

James King [00:57:22] And and so we hatched this idea literally from with his accountant, me, Robert and his accountant at Independence Creek. We’re staying there and he has this idea of why don’t I buy it and then immediately donate it, but reserve a lifetime hunting use of the property and recreational use.

James King [00:57:49] And so we we literally made that document up between like five in the afternoon and stayed up all night long and listening to his stories and him going off on this and going off on that and drinking martinis and just, you know, just I mean, I felt like I escaped there the next morning with my life. And maybe he used that to get me to agree to certain things. I don’t know. But in the end, I think we, another one of these really creative ideas that came up.

James King [00:58:23] There were some there was some challenges of appraisals at the IRS and those kind of things. But we did it, you know, straight up, above board, we appraised those retained rights, diminished that from his charitable deduction. And in the end, we had someone who would help us on the preserve.

James King [00:58:42] And so Robert had certain places where he would be exclusive and we would have places where we’d be exclusive and we’d share places.

James King [00:58:50] And so in the end, our dream came true. It wasn’t a hundred acres, it was 9000 acres, 9500 acres, or something like that. And so now the Conservancy is a is the, you know, owns most of all of the Independence Creek. We have a neighbor across the highway that has a part of the headwaters.

James King [00:59:11] And so it’s a classic story of of of creativity, a wonderful staff at the Nature Conservancy, incredible creative people. You know, you hit a wall, you go this way, you hit that wall, you go this way.

James King [00:59:28] And and then I can’t underpin the board. It’s all volunteers, their efforts and time and connections and abilities. And then the donors who help, like Robert, to create this thing that is now the Independence Creek Preserve.

James King [00:59:45] And I personally have now invested later, 20 years later. I have a ranch downstream. I rely on that water and I’m doing a conservation easement on my land with the Nature Conservancy. I’ve just started that like last week.

James King [01:00:01] And so I hope to drag conservation down that river and work on a landscape around the lower Pecos – it’s just as important as the Devils. And and so utilizing Independence Creek as the kind of headwaters and then then the landscape of the canyons and the water below there with private landowners and conservation easements.

Jeff Weigel [01:00:28] James, it’s 20,000 acres.

James King [01:00:31] It is? Oh, God.

James King [01:00:34] Really? Wow.

Jeff Weigel [01:00:37] Yeah. Our wet dream is even bigger than you remembered.

James King [01:00:40] Man.

Lee Smith [01:00:42] You mentioned the the fish, the endangered fish and whatnot that are in there, but there’s also other plants and whatnot in there that you don’t expect to be in that area.

James King [01:00:57] Independence Creek, you’re talking about?

Lee Smith [01:00:58] Yeah. The oaks and whatnot.

James King [01:00:59] Yes. The big plateau live oaks there that are, you know, just I mean, I don’t know if you ever been there in October, but the monarch butterflies, when they migrate, they just, you know, there are thousands of them on those big oak trees and they’re they’re they’re they’re structure for all kind of birds and things.

James King [01:01:20] There’s, you know, there’s, there’s waterfowl, you know. There’re beavers in that watershed and they create these little lakes and there’s, there’s, you know, all kind of of birds that use that, not only waterfowl but shorebirds and waterbirds and all kinds of stuff.

James King [01:01:38] You’d be amazed how much, you know, waterfowl that are on the Pecos River watershed.

James King [01:01:45] And the uplands there’re know endangered fishhook cactus and there’s a lot of interesting plants there. So it’s not.

James King [01:01:55] And there’re, you know, there’re endangered birds. They used to be endangered I don’t think they are any more. The black-capped vireos – they’re they’re in those canyon heads and a lot of other songbirds in there. So it’s quite a diverse thing. It’s not just the fish.

Lee Smith [01:02:10] And that Pecos corridor, the cultural significance, the pictographs on those on those springs.

James King [01:02:17] Unbelievable. It’ll blow your mind when you put your head around the the the history and the culture and the and the art that they did there. It’s also on the Devils River. But that that lower part of the lower Pecos is just extraordinary. And Shumla School is down there. You know, they’re near Langtry and they do a lot of stuff. The Whitney Museum is involved in a cultural site there called the White Shaman.

James King [01:02:49] And so I think I think the conservation stuff that I’m talking about isn’t just biology, but it’ll it’ll address those things.

James King [01:02:59] And I also try to address dark skies when I work on easements to to make sure there’re shielded lights and things that are done. So an easement can address multiple things, besides just biology. Yeah.

Lee Smith [01:03:17] So let’s head further east. What was your involvement with the Barton Creek Preserve?

James King [01:03:24] Barton Creek Preserve? Boy, we were young and full of piss and vinegar back then.

James King [01:03:31] That’s my first beginning with the Nature Conservancy. One of the big projects I worked on was a Habitat Conservation Plan in Austin, and that was a board of developers, environmentalists and working on trying to find a solution for this, this fight between environmentalists and development, and it was all based on endangered species of birds and some some cave critters and things like that.

James King [01:04:02] And so the Conservancy was the chairman of that board, David Braun. And and so we looked across the landscape and looked at areas that could be preserved to develop a big enough protected area to protect those species of concern that would allow other areas to be developed. And we had to have a minimum threshold of acres of golden-cheeked warbler habitat, acres of black-capped vireo, acres of cave critters, permanently protected that would allow the development of these other areas.

James King [01:04:39] So so at the time, Austin was in a huge sink on their real estate market and many of the developments were foreclosed on and those savings and loans collapsed. And a lot of those properties went to the Resolution Trust Corporation, set up by the FDIC to resolve these assets, get rid of them, so the government doesn’t own them. And they were mostly failed subdivisions.

James King [01:04:39] Well, Barton Creek was one of about I think it was nine properties that we put under contract with RTC. I negotiated with a guy from Dallas. We joked with him because he didn’t have any fingernails. He was so nervous, he’d chewed all his fingernails off. He was constantly worried about getting his land sold.

James King [01:04:39] But we didn’t have any money. We needed a bond issue to get the resources to go buy this stuff. And so we got him to trust us, to give us a long-term option and we used that option to go to the City of Austin, Travis County, to this committee, to show that, yes, we can do this. We’ve got control now of 10,000 acres of land right here in Austin. And so Barton Creek was one of those properties.

James King [01:06:00] And so at the exact same time, before we closed on it, while we had it under option, Jim Bob Moffett of Freeport-McMoRan was developing Barton Creek Country Club. It was still a wild ranch. In fact, I used to deer hunt on that ranch from a previous owner who’s a friend of mine, James Henderson. I used to sit in blinds out there and shoot deer on Barton Creek when I was in college.

James King [01:06:28] And so Freeport McMoRan needed mitigation credits. They couldn’t wait for this Habitat Conservation Plan to evolve. They needed it now because they wanted to start turning dirt and developing a golf course and a subdivision.

James King [01:06:47] And so they were looking for an individual permit, not a Section 10 permit, was a regional permit. They wanted their own permit.

James King [01:06:57] And so we negotiated with Jim Bob. I sat down with his attorneys and and we were criticized by the environmentalists, Save Our Springs. Bill Bunch, who’s a friend of mine, you know, gave me the riot act. You know, “How dare you go talk to the devil?” You know, Jim Bob was thought of as the devil in Austin at that time.

James King [01:07:21] And so we were young. I mean, I was in early 30s. We hired a great lawyer. We had a great kind of groovy land planning firm named Bosse Compton. They helped us kind of plan this thing out.

James King [01:07:36] Barton Creek was the Uplands and Sweetwater Ranch. Those were two subdivisions. And they were I think it was like 130 million dollars was loaned against that property with these savings and loan. And we had it under contract for maybe 8 million.

James King [01:07:53] And so another problem was a road district, Southwest Parkway. That whole area had a tax on it. And so we had to collapse the road district.

James King [01:08:05] Well, luckily, the bondholders in Chicago believed that their investment was beleaguered. And they took like nine cents on the dollar. We bought the road district out. And so no longer did they have a lien on this entire area. And the idea was that the development of this area would pay off the road bonds over time. And that road was there. They’d already built Southwest Parkway – middle of nowhere. And so that was a challenge.

James King [01:08:37] There was a water plant that we had to get rid of. We’re not in the water business. So we sold that to LCRA. In retrospect, I kind of wish we didn’t, because it was cheap. It was $500,000. And that water plant now serves the development of that whole area there at Bee Caves. But, you know, you go with what you got.

James King [01:08:57] But the most amazing thing was we go into this room, conference room, with. And Freeport had lawyers from New York as well as local counsel. And they had their staff there. Beau Armstrong was the staff person.

James King [01:09:14] And so they make a presentation to us. They said, “Look, we’ll give you a hundred acres on the creek and we’ll give you $100,000 of of management money and you can protect those critters that you want to protect.”

James King [01:09:32] And we, with a straight face, no crackup or anything, looked across the table at these grown men. We’re young, you know, conservation, you know. I don’t know what we are. We’re just trying. And and we say, no, we want all of the real estate and we want two million dollars.

James King [01:09:54] And they jumped up. They threw their papers down. “This is absurd!” And they they left the office. And we’re sitting there and we got up and we all high-fived each other just like, “Can you believe we just did that?”

James King [01:10:11] And then, and then we hear a knock on the door. “Oh, here they come.”

James King [01:10:14] And we sit back down in our chairs and they come in and they say, “You got a deal.”

James King [01:10:20] And, you know, and so that was Barton Creek Preserve. It was free. It was mitigation. It wasn’t really free because there was a consequence of it. And we had an endowment.

James King [01:10:31] And so that gave us an opportunity to have like 3200 acres on Barton Creek right there near Austin. It was way outside of Austin at the time. Now it’s like a postage stamp.

James King [01:10:43] But still, I think it was it was just a moment in time when we where we had the you know, we had nothing to lose and we had everything to gain, you know. So it’s a great preserve now for the Conservancy.

Lee Smith [01:10:56] And how does it fit in? Let me see – at one end, you’ve got Barton Springs. You know, iconic place.

James King [01:11:06] Yes.

Lee Smith [01:11:06] But it’s it’s critical to that. And then on farther west, you have the Shield ranch.

James King [01:11:14] Yes.

Lee Smith [01:11:15] So it’s this kind of mosaic of protection.

James King [01:11:18] And that’s what this was, was a patchwork of places that are still intact all along the Barton Creek watershed, the Cypress Creek watershed, Bull Creek watershed, Lake Austin. And so the rest of that bulk sale with RTC, we acquired another eight failed subdivisions, you know, Double J and T was a property of like 1700 acres on Lake Austin. We bought it for $900 an acre. 1700 acres on Lake Austin.

James King [01:11:57] And so these patchwork of areas were acquired and paid for by a bond that was passed early on – Prop 1 or Prop 2 – can’t remember.

James King [01:12:08] And then also way up on the Cypress Creek watershed – it wasn’t Cypress Creek. It was it was way up by Leander. There was a big area called Post Oak Ridge. And that became the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.

James King [01:12:25] I literally went to Washington and sat in front of the Interior Appropriations Committee staff and told them this whole story of what we’re doing in Austin. And and got the first $2 million appropriation.

James King [01:12:40] But we went up there and optioned for a year 10,000 acres from these landowners – Sunset Ranch, very cheap at the time – to show these these decision makers in Washington. You know, we’ve got it right here. You just got to give us the appropriation. So, and the same thing with the City of Austin. So there were all these.

James King [01:13:04] And then they had another part of the bond initiative was connecting Barton Creek to the pool where there’s a hiking trail there. There was protection done there. The Ayres family had a combination of gift and sale of a conservation easement that tied in to that whole area.

James King [01:13:26] So there was a magic moment in time when Austin’s real estate market crashed. There was a will by the by the community to fund conservation. The Conservancy was there and and sellers were eager to get rid of their property.

James King [01:13:46] Landowners, like the Ayres, Shield-Ayres Ranch, were interested in conservation and education. And so if we weren’t able to have done that back then, there’s no way that could happen today. No way.

James King [01:14:01] And I think, honestly, we literally stimulated the market when that all went down and Austin took off because there was there was assurances now for developers that they could develop this. It’s not part of this preserve area. It’s over here. Preserve area could continue.

James King [01:14:18] And more importantly, I’ve got land next to the preserve. That land went up in value significantly.

James King [01:14:25] So it wasn’t it wasn’t a downer for the economy of Austin. It literally, it shot it off. And I don’t think it’s stopped since. It’s, you know, it’s gone crazy.

Lee Smith [01:14:40] So what projects have you been involved within Mexico and along the Mexican border and why is that important?

James King [01:14:47] Well, you know, when you look at these landscapes that we work in, you know, Tamaulipas Thornscrub, Chihuahuan Desert, the Hill Country, for that matter, Edwards Plateau, you know, Devils River and stuff like that. You know, that’s only half of a of a of the ecosystem.

James King [01:15:07] The other part is in Mexico.

James King [01:15:08] And you can’t divorce yourself from what’s going on on the other side of the river ecologically and culturally for that matter.

James King [01:15:17] And so, you know, I grew up in South Texas. I grew up near the border, you know, and I traveled all over Mexico. We’d take the train from Laredo, Nuevo Laredo, down to San Miguel, Mexico. Oaxaca in the ’70s, surfed on beaches in the Pacific. It was it was like a it was like a paradise, honestly. No fear, all adventure, great fun being a young man with friends.

James King [01:15:43] And so as a professional with the Conservancy, our state board and our state staff realized that there were things that we needed to be working on in Mexico as we look holistically toward these ecosystems.

James King [01:15:59] And you start prioritizing in the Chihuahuan Desert, for instance, you can’t say no to Cuatro Cienegas. You know, this is like the jewels of the desert and and, you know, down in South Texas, you can’t say no to the other side of the Laguna Madre. I mean, it’s the same thing on the Texas side without a Intercoastal canal going down it.

James King [01:16:25] And we and that’s a whole ‘nother story. But we worked one night to kill the Intercoastal Canal in Mexico by getting the minister of interior a little inebriated. And then the next day, they agreed to throw in the towel on the Intercoastal Canal. I think because he was hung over, of course. But there was a plan at one time to continue the Intercoastal down to Tampico.

James King [01:16:51] And so, you know, Intercoastal, South Texas, you know, ocelot, jaguarundi, neotropical birds, you know, all that – butterflies go out here to West Texas, sky islands, the Wild and Scenic River. It’s just logical.

James King [01:17:09] And and what I found, this is me personally, but there were staff in the Conservancy, Jeff Weigel being one of them, who took off and went down to Monterey and learned Spanish. And he’s a cheesehead from Wisconsin. And he goes down to Monterey and learned Spanish? And it’s like, how dare him have all the fun.

James King [01:17:30] And so so we started a Mexico program in the state chapter, and we had a board member from Mexico, Roberto Zambrano, wonderful guy from from Monterrey. And we started partnering with Pronatura Noreste, an organization like the Nature Conservancy. And and we started working on projects together.

James King [01:17:55] We had some skill sets that maybe they could learn from. I found out those guys knew just as much as we did. You know, the salaries they received as professionals and the education they had as biologists blew me away. The the knowledge was just as equal or maybe even better on the biological side. But they got paid a third of what we got paid. And were still passionate and were still eager and worked hard.

James King [01:18:27] And so we immediately became friends with a bunch of those folks down there, and we worked collaboratively on a number of projects – Laguna Madre, Cuatro Cienegas, the del Carmens, different places around.

James King [01:18:42] So today, even today, it’s important to continue those efforts. You know the the the the river is is is just that, it’s just, you know, we’re one side of that river and there’s a whole ‘nother side of that. And we need to learn and find ways to work with them across the river.

Lee Smith [01:19:07] So how is your switch to the for-profit sector still allow you to do conservation work?

James King [01:19:16] So in 2008, I think that was 2008, 2007, 2008. I left the Nature Conservancy after 20 years, 19 point something years, but I call it 20 years. That’s a career for me.

James King [01:19:31] I’m an entrepreneur and I think that’s what attracted the the Conservancy to me, and me to the Conservancy, for that matter, the pragmatic. And, and and I saw myself being a little diminished and a little constrained with working in a in a big organization. You know, it’s just like any organization. There are levels, there is bureaucracy, there’re lawyers, there’re things. And if you’re trying to to to move fast and move hard, sometimes organizations just won’t let you.

James King [01:20:08] And I’m not saying that’s bad, because sometimes bureaucracy is there for a reason. It keeps you from going too far, too fast. And my personality is wanting to go faster and harder.

James King [01:20:25] And so I, I left. My wife started a little real estate company called Texas Mountain Realty in Fort Davis. We did houses and stuff, you know, just kids were, you know, grown up and give her something to do. And she did a great job getting it started.

James King [01:20:42] And and so she and I started King Land and Water, which today we’ve had that for 15 years. Matter of fact, just yesterday I tallied the number of acres that King Land and Water has been involved in in real estate. And we’re 18,000 acres shy of a million acres in Texas, and we’re over a billion dollars in real estate.

James King [01:21:10] And so our little mom and pop shop here in Fort Davis with our son, Harrison, we we have a wide swath and I call it a conservation real estate business. And I do a lot of what exactly I did before with the Nature Conservancy. Although they’re my partner, I work with them. I work with all organizations. I work with the Conservation Fund. I work with Trust for Public Lands. I work with Parks and Wildlife. I work with Fish and Wildlife. I work with landowners. I work with a variety of partners in the same goal.

James King [01:21:47] And the other piece of the puzzle – I did all this conservation buyer work, you know, hundreds of thousands of acres with easements. Well, the basic tenet of an easement is someday someone’s going to sell that and they got to be able to articulate why it’s still valuable. And the typical brokerage ranch brokerage community in Texas just can’t get there. They think oh, it’s, it’s restricted, it’s diminished, therefore it’s worth less.

James King [01:22:19] And I say it’s special. That’s why the easement’s there. These restrictions enhance the value. When you put them together in a complex, the property’s more valuable. And so I’ve done many, many, many sales of lands with easements. Many of the ranches that I put those easements on, I ended up helping those landowners sell.

James King [01:22:43] And so it’s been a logical transition. It’s kind of weird. I started with I started in for-profit – Schneider King Company. I went to non-profit, and now I’m back to for-profit.

James King [01:22:56] But my for-profit days today I’ve become a little more of a of a a a more of a person that gets involved in advocacy. I’m the president of Port Aransas Conservancy. I’m on the board of Devils River Conservancy. We’re fighting wind farms on the Devil’s River. We’re fighting de-sal down on the coast.

James King [01:23:23] And so I’ve become a fighter, which I really couldn’t do within the Conservancy, because that’s just not their M.O. Other people do that.

James King [01:23:32] And so now I’m one and I’ve found I’m pretty effective at it. And, and I have a lot of donors and friends and alliances that help me do that.

James King [01:23:44] So I’m in I’m in the real estate business basically, is what I do. I focus most of my work on conservation real estate. I don’t represent developers. I can’t do it.

James King [01:23:56] I’ve had people come to me and say, you know, I want to buy this land. I want to subdivide it, and I just can’t do that. I can’t go there.

James King [01:24:03] Not all of my lands have easements. So many landowners are heritage landowners who have no interest in subdividing and they never will. And that’s okay with me.

James King [01:24:15] Kick that can down the road. See what happens 50 years from now. It’s not developed today.

James King [01:24:20] Let’s go, let’s go, look at the monster that’s right down the street that’s about to be developed. And so. So I think we’ve been good.

James King [01:24:27] My son, Harrison, he is a chip off the old block. He’s 28, soon to be 29. He is just as good or better than me. And my daughter is a real estate attorney. Who would have thought that? You know, she she wanted to save the world. Now she’s like, doing gigantic real estate deal deals.

James King [01:24:48] So. But I think I think I’m, you know, when I talk about the Nature Conservancy, I use the word “we”. I don’t say “them”. And I think a lot about the Conservancy still today. They’re very close to my heart.

Lee Smith [01:25:07] So what advice do you have for young people that are considering some career in conservation?

James King [01:25:17] Jump in. Number one. Just get in there. Whatever level you can. You know, I started, I thought I was going to be, you know, protecting, you know, Director of Protection, protecting, you know, preserves from, like, you know, feral hogs or something.

James King [01:25:34] Jump in there, get involved, get a job, learn, be passionate, you know, go with your passions. You know, some people are really good at certain things. You know, nurture that and go with that. And and and listen and work with people. There are lots of different organizations.

James King [01:25:56] Find out, you know, are you a, you know, a land steward type of guy who wants to work on, you know, management, prescribed fire, you know, exotics, rangeland health. You know, there are places to focus on that.

James King [01:26:13] There are places to to work on policy.

James King [01:26:17] I no longer look at I mean, I know there’s a spectrum in the environmental world and we need everybody in that spectrum. It all works together to help move the ball down the field. But but if you’re young and and you have an interest there.

James King [01:26:32] You know, chasing money can be something that can satisfy you just for a while. But if you do something from passion and the heart, it satisfies you for the rest of your life. And so when you know you’re part of something and you’re and you’ve done something meaningful, you know, you can you can say, you know, I made a difference.

James King [01:26:57] And so I think I think there are a lot of opportunities for young people to get involved.

James King [01:27:02] And the population of Texas is just, you know, expanding at rate’s that’s just unprecedented. And I don’t know where we’re going to get the water, the clean air, the open space to to provide for these people. So it’s never too late.

James King [01:27:19] You know, like like when we started buying this stuff, when I bought the Davis Mountains, I appraised it for 330 an acre, 330 bucks an acre. And everybody thought we were crazy. It’s like, “Are you kidding me? You had to’ve, like, have fudged that appraisal to get it that high so you could satisfy, you know, the seller.” And and so we just swallowed and made it happen.

James King [01:27:43] And, you know, 25 years later, it’s like it’s nothing. And so even in Austin today, when you’re looking at, you know, 30,000 dollars an acre, we were looking at that same land for a thousand an acre. Well, ten years from now, it’ll be 100,000 an acre. And so, you know, keep it going and get get get involved in whatever that your passions are.

Lee Smith [01:28:09] As TNC closes in on its millionth acre, what has its impact been on Texas?

James King [01:28:18] I think their impact has been huge. If you look across the state and you look at the Nature Conservancy’s portfolio and let’s just start with the preserves that they own. These are safe places. These are platforms. These are places you can build from. These are places that you can educate. These are places where, you know, families could come out and learn and become voters with appreciation of of of resources. And so it’s it’s highly important what they’ve done over the years.

James King [01:28:55] On top of that, if you look at the public lands in Texas, it’s a private lands state. I understand that. And you have to have strategies for that.

James King [01:29:04] But there’s nothing more important than the the suite of public lands that we have in our state – the parks, the WMAs, getting kids out hunting, getting people fishing, getting people birding, hiking. Those are are paramount. And we need honestly more of those.

James King [01:29:24] And there are some efforts with landowners opening their gates and providing opportunities.

James King [01:29:31] But I think TNC, if you look across the refuge system in Texas, shoot, 90% of that, they did. And you look at the the really significant parks and and state natural areas, TNC was involved. And and so I think that million acres is a legacy.

James King [01:29:55] And there needs to be another million acres pretty quick, you know.

James King [01:29:59] So I’m I’m I’m a partner. You know, I’m in I’m in the trenches with them and we need to make it happen.

James King [01:30:08] So what’s the future look like for conservation? Are you optimistic or what?

James King [01:30:13] So so if you probably don’t know me, but I am known as the eternal optimist on anything I do, and talk to several of my clients and friends, you know, And so I’m always optimistic.

James King [01:30:28] But I’m concerned. I’m concerned.

James King [01:30:31] I mean, I’m I’m involved in Port Aransas Conservancy and I see the state agencies that manage our environment and and hands-down their job is to provide permits for industry. That’s what they do. They’re not there to protect us or the environment. They’re there to issue permits.

James King [01:30:52] And at some point, the cascading effect of that is going to be beyond our control to pull back. And so I think planning, thinking long-term. If you’re going to do industry, where are you going to do it? Let’s do it back over here where there’s ten other plants. Don’t stick it over here in a prime area for, you know, migration of fish and things like that.

James King [01:31:17] And so politics in Texas right now is very bitter about conservation. And I think it’s more more focused on trying to to support industry and making money. And that that depresses me.

James King [01:31:38] And so what it tells me is Parks and Wildlife, Carter Smith, oh my gosh, what a hero of the state of Texas he is and was and continue will be. But you need leadership, serious leadership, in all these agencies and all these organizations.

James King [01:31:56] And politically – these politics need to change into what’s important for Texans and for our state. And so I think the values of Texas, if you polled people across Texas, they love Texas. They love the natural resources of Texas.

James King [01:32:14] People don’t love, you know, LNG plants. They love the marsh that’s right next to it. But so we’ve got to find a way to empower people in leadership roles to understand the importance of our environment to to the people of Texas. And it’s and it’s it’s in our best interests. Hell, it’s it’s it’s the only reason why we’re going to survive is to have the air and the water and the quality of habitat that we need. So.

Jeff Weigel [01:32:53] Bravissimo.

James King [01:32:55] Yeah.

Lee Smith [01:32:56] Is there anything that you want? That we didn’t hit that you wanted to.

James King [01:33:00] I want to say one thing. I want to say that these two guys right here, Robert Potts and Jeff Weigel and I, at one time when when this Davis Mountains deal went down, we had a lack of leadership. That’s what I’m just talking about. Leadership was our state director, and we literally had to move that state director along.

James King [01:33:21] And it came to really our shoulders because we were the three kind of head of the conservation part of our business. And and I got to tell you, those guys stepped up. Robert became the state director. I don’t think he wanted to do that. Weigel and I didn’t want to do that. He became state director. He focused on conservation. I did the real estate part of this deal, and the Davis Mountains would not have happened if it wasn’t for these two guys and me working together. So. Yeah.