Part of Hanna Ranch preserved from development

Everyone, it seems, has wanted a piece of the Hanna Ranch — utilities, road-builders, oil drillers and always the developers, offering sweet deals to carve up the southern El Paso County prairie for more suburban sprawl.

Owner Ann Hanna’s desire is just to have a ranch, a struggle her husband Kirk Hanna fought until he committed suicide in 1998, driven to despair by the pressures of staving off incursions.

“Every day I’d come home and there would be a business card stuck in my screen door,” she said. “I’m the only one who’s giddy about the recession, because it’s all stopped.”

Wednesday, ranchers, elected officials, open space advocates and environmentalists gathered at the ranch to mark the establishment of conservation easements for the ranch and to celebrate the successes of a program that protects private ranch and agricultural land.

Kirk Hanna fought on his own. But the Peak to Prairie program, which uses lottery funds and private donations to buy easements, has preserved 114,773 acres of prairie in the Pikes Peak region. That now includes 460 acres of the Hanna Ranch, which county property records show covers more than 4,200 acres.

“Both the Hannas and the Frosts were like a lot of ranching families, who were fiercely trying to protect their lifestyle,” said Dan Pike, executive director of Colorado Open Lands, referring to a neighboring ranch that has sold easements. “They were really trying to protect a way of life that was once prominent in Colorado but was fading.”

“It would have been an awful lot easier to sell out. They could have made a lot of money and be living in Maui right now,” Pike said.

Peak to Prairie covers El Paso, Pueblo, Crowley and Lincoln counties. The area is one of 25 parts of the state identified by the Colorado Conservation Partnership for preservation.
The Hanna Ranch was built in the 1940s by Kirk Hanna’s father and grandfather, who came from New Mexico and chose the site for its proximity to Fountain Creek, which runs through it.

Kirk Hanna was known as an “eco-cowboy” for sustainable practices like dividing his ranch into 35 pastures and rotating herds. He was a school board president and community leader who has a park named after him in Hanover. He fought Colorado Springs over development that sent more water down Fountain Creek and the possible extension of Powers Boulevard south onto the ranch.

“He was constantly fighting the city of Colorado Springs. They were forever planning growth but not planning for water,” said Ann Hanna.

Ranch land was taken for Interstate 25, and the threat of new seizures — from the Southern Delivery System water pipeline to a controversial toll road along the Front Range — persists. So Ann Hanna has been working for years to have some of the land put into conservation easements.

With easements, an owner sells the rights to develop land, for a nominal sum or tax credits, ensuring the parcel won’t be developed.

Said Ann Hanna, “This is what I want for our (two) kids.”

She has given up rights to build on 460 acres along Fountain Creek and will receive $500,000 to $800,000, Pike said.

“This is perpetual. The lands that are protected are protected forever,” he said.

Ann Hanna hopes the easements and money will give her ammunition in future endeavors against development.

As for her late husband, she said, “He would have absolutely loved it, but knowing him, he would have wanted it to start much faster.”