Bently purchases Pine Nut land

Don Bently just bought three 40-acre plots of land in the Pine Nut Mountains.

"Somebody wanted to get rid of them," he said, "so I helped them."

On a map on the wall of building 2 at Bently Pressurized Bearing Co. in Minden, Bently points to the parcels in question. The land is up in the piñons and junipers, probably under some snow now.

Instead of Park Place, Boardwalk and Marvin Gardens, this neighborhood bears names

could be found in a Louis L'Amour novel: Williams Canyon Well, Monarch Mine, Preachers Mine, Erastra Springs, Utopia Mine, Sunrise Pass, Buffalo Canyon, Flowery Peak, Pony Meadows Mine.

Bently said he was out in the boondocks surveying his property from the north to the south when he came across a remnant of an old mining operation.

"It looks like a coffin," he said. "It was perfectly smooth, a beautiful smooth rock."

What he'd seen at Erastra Springs was its namesake, an erastra, a device that was pulled in a circle by a mule to grind rock down for iron ore.

When asked how he gets around to visit his land, Bently said, "Very slowly. They are very poor roads. We don't bother to fix the roads - it creates too much traffic."

And the purpose of the land?

"Some of it would be good grazing land if I fix it up," Bently said. "I collect property. I own all the property free and clear - no mortgage payments."

On another, larger map of Nevada, different colors indicate squares of land owned by different entities.

Most of the squares are beige Bureau of Land Management land. A bit fewer are the green squares designating ownership by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Washoe tribe. The next most common color is red. Those squares are owned by Bently.

"The plan? Pay taxes on it," he said. "If you don't pay for three years then the county owns it."

Bently turned 82 years old last month and said his land will go to son and daughter-in-law Christopher and Amber Bently. Christopher Bently is the director of Bently Pressurized Bearing and lives in San Francisco.

Don Bently gives a cryptic answer to the question of whether his son shares a vision of buying Nevada land and keeping it wild.

"Everybody's continuing to add buildings in this area," he said. "The mines don't work too well. There's better places to mine."

Bently said the old Monarch Mine has specimen gold pieces in dumbbell shapes.

"The Monarch Mine had 50 percent gold and 50 percent silver," he said. "Very rare."