Forget the Name, How Did Perry's Family Afford Their Property?

Rick Perry's family leased a hunting property that once went by the name of Niggerhead. That doesn't seem very much of a story. The Perry family did not apply the name. They went to some effort to change it after signing the lease in the early 1980s. Yesterday's Washington Post story questions whether the effort was sufficient.

Yet after reading the story through a couple of times, the question I'm left with is less one about race - and much more about that most fascinating of Perry subjects: money.

Perry (as he often says) spent his early childhood in a house without running water. His father (as Perry also often says) was a tenant farmer.

And yet in 1983, the Perry family was leasing a 1,070 acre hunting parcel and lodge on the West Brazos river, sometimes traveling by private plane. How'd they manage it? Even with Perry's father's salary as Haskell County commissioner for 30 years up through the 1980s? (The current commissioner earns a little north of $48,000.)

OK granted, West Texas land isn't all that expensive. On the other hand, we're still talking about upwards of a thousand dollars per person for the lease of a property sized like the Perry family's in Throckmorton County, if this advertising page here is representative.

Maybe the Perry property was worth less. Maybe the Perry farm was more lucrative than acknowledged. Maybe there's some other reasonable explanation. Still - the disconnect between Perry family income and outgo would seem at least as inviting target to reporters than repainted topographic racial slights.