Bob Norris
A visit to a California livestock sale more than 50 years ago taught Bob Norris that land would become Colorado Springs’ most valuable commodity.
Norris, now 78, realized after looking at a brochure advertising land for sale that ranches in California were selling for more than 100 times what land in Colorado was fetching. After returning to Colorado, he began buying ranches outside the Springs.
“When I saw what land in California was bringing, I thought that someday California would fill up and there would be a mass exodus and Colorado Springs would be one of the places they would come to,” Norris said. “This place has so much going for it — that why it’s growing.”
During the past five decades, Norris amassed a ranch that eventually would span more than 110,000 acres and make him El Paso County’s largest landowner. Parts of his ranch in the Falcon and Fountain areas now are under development or directly in the path of growth.
Bob Penkhus, who owns a local car dealership and is married to one of Norris’ two daughters, described his father-in-law as a visionary:
“He doesn’t just think about what will happen in next three to five years like everyone else. He is thinking 30 years out,” Penkhus said. “When he bought those ranches, he had a vision that the city would knock at his back door and that is exactly what is happening.”
Norris continues to look ahead — he traded some of his El Paso County holdings earlier this year for two ranches totaling 36,000 acres near Limon in hopes that someday that land also will be in the path of growth and become more valuable.
“When I started putting together my land around Colorado Springs 50 years ago, I figured that growth was coming,” Norris said. “I see growth headed in the direction of Limon. It is definitely a long-term-growth play. This land has water, and that is important.”
Norris is much more than just an investor speculating in local ranch land — he raises 120 quarterhorses and more than 1,200 cattle on his ranch, oversees a charitable foundation that supports dozens of charities and holds key roles in several rodeo organizations.
He also was featured as the “Marlboro Man” in cigarette advertisements in the 1960s and 1970s, battled corporate raider Carl Icahn for control of the shareholder’s committee in the Texaco Inc. bankruptcy and raised an elephant to dance and play a piano.
“Bob has always followed his dream and done what he likes — he is a rancher at heart,” said Bill Tutt, who serves with Norris on the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo Foundation board. “He has a tremendous commitment to ranching, rodeo and the Western way of life.”
A native of St. Charles, Ill., a rural area that became a Chicago suburb, Norris decided as child to become a cowboy and has raised horses since 1947. He attended the University of Kentucky, studying animal husbandry and playing football for Paul “Bear” Bryant.
Already married to wife Jane, he left college one month short of earning his degree to manage a farm in St. Charles against the advice of his professors. He never regretted the move, saying he learned “more there in six months than I had in four years of college.”
Norris spent two more years managing another farm in St. Charles for his father, but sinus trouble prompted him to move to Colorado.
He started out with a 2,000-acre spread near Fort Collins and two years later, sold that ranch to buy a 20,000-acre ranch near Guffey.
Storms that dumped more than 10 feet of snow on his ranch and sent temperatures to 65 degrees below zero convinced Norris to head to a lower altitude. He and Jane ended up in Colorado Springs, where he began accumulating land for his ranch, called the T-Cross Ranch.
“He knows when to buy and sell land,” said Rob Alexander, managing partner of Paragon Financial LLC, who has done business with Norris and serves with him on the rodeo foundation board. “He watches markets and has been very smart with his money.”
Norris dabbled in retail during the late 1960s and early 1970s, operating a meat market that sold the beef raised on his ranch. He shut down the operation after he found that a manager had been stealing beef from the store and reselling it to supermarkets.
The experience taught him “there just weren’t enough hours in the day to watch the back door. I don’t like to spend too much time in the office — I’m there less than once a week. I want to spend time out on the ranch. I’d rather deal with cows and horses than people.”
Raising prize-winning horses and cattle is what built a national reputation for the T-Cross Ranch, and would eventually lead to Norris’ role as a Marlboro Man.
A part of his ranch in Black Forest had been selected as the background for a photo shoot. A Chicago advertising agency brought models and brand-new Western wear for the shoot, but jettisoned both in favor of an authentic cowboy — Norris. He would appear in dozens of Marlboro ads during the next 12 years, until his children started asking questions.
“My kids told me I was a hypocrite for telling them not to smoke and then doing cigarette ads. I told them I did it for greed. After that, I did only one more ad,” Norris said. “I’ve gotten a lot of hate mail over this saying that I killed more people than Hitler.”
Norris proved he was no ordinary cowboy in the late 1980s, when he headed the stockholders committee and played a key role in reaching a $3 billion settlement with Pennzoil Co. in its lawsuit against Texaco for interfering with a deal Pennzoil had to acquire Getty Oil. He ended up on the committee because he is the grand-nephew of a Texaco founder and his father had served on Texaco’s board for 40 years. Icahn, the corporate raider who owned 12 percent of Texaco, wanted to take the job from Norris as a way to seize control of the oil giant.
“We sneaked down to Houston and they put me in hiding so we could meet with (Pennzoil chairman) Hugh Liedtke. I told him we had an offer and didn’t want to dicker,” Norris said. “I held my breath for what seemed like three minutes before he said he could live with it.”
Shortly after Texaco exited bankruptcy, Norris was approached by an animal trainer about buying a baby elephant from Zimbabwe whose mother had been killed. He hand-fed and nursed the sickly runt to health on a small ranch he owns in Arizona.
“It was a real blessing to be involved with such a wonderful friend,” Norris said. “She is fully grown and lives on a ranch in Arkansas with other elephants. I grieved for four years after she left. But we visit her every year and she never forgets me.”
Norris doesn’t plan to retire — there’s always a new crop of calves and colts to tend — and still rides six hours a day on his ranch. He continues to look toward the future of his ranch, Colorado Springs and even Limon — a vision that likely will long outlive him.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0234 or
wayneh@gazette.com
WHO HE IS
Occupation:
Owner, T-Cross Ranch
Education:
Attended University of Kentucky, majoring in animal husbandry
Hometown:
St. Charles, Ill.
Personal:
Married to Jane; four children, two sons and two daughters; 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren
Little-known facts:
Played football for the late Paul “Bear” Bryant with George Blanda and Vito “Babe” Parilli; featured in the 2001 book “The Cowboy and His Elephant” about how he raised a sickly baby elephant to dance and play a piano.
Community:
Director and past president of the American Quarter Horse Association; director of the National Cutting Horse Association; director, National Cowboy Hall of Fame; former member, Colorado State Board of Agriculture; director, Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo Foundation
