Who Owns The Most Land In Wisconsin?
The largest private landowner in Wisconsin currently owns over half a million acres. That's a lot of real estate. Who owns the most land in the cheesehead state?
The largest private landowner in Wisconsin actually recently changed a few years ago. It was at the time Plum Creek Timber Company. They were founded in 1989 as a timberland owner and manager that also did mineral extraction and property development. They were based in Seattle, Washington.
Weyerhaeuser announced that they would be merging with Plum Creek in 2015. The merger was completed in 2016. Weyerhauser now owns nearly 12,400,000 acres in the United States. That's 19,400 square miles.
To put that in perspective that's almost the same amount of square miles if you add up the following states:
- Rhode Island
- Delaware
- Connecticut
- Hawaii
- Massachusetts
That's a lot of land! The company's website shows that they harvest sustainable forests, extra land and minerals, create wood products, and also are an energy provider.
How much exactly do they own in Wisconsin? 500,000 acres translates to 781.25 square miles. That's about the size of Juneau County in Wisconsin. That's a good chunk of Wisconsin.
Besides the United States, Weyerhauser also manages land in Canada. They operate 14 million acres in Canada as well. So that's about 26 million acres of land they manage. That's 40,625 square miles. Crazy!
Weyerhauser recently had a worker strike that was resolved just weeks ago in October. 1,000 employees went on strike for 46 days because of health care costs in union negotiations.
So there you go, now you know the largest landowner in Wisconsin. Impress your friends with this useless trivia.