DECATUR — The 3,200 acres of land owned by L&LFarms brought $6,492,000 at auction last week, according to auctioneer Tony Langdon of Williams & Williams Real Estate Auction.

L & L Farms is Peterson Farm’s cattle operation and was founded by the late Lloyd Peterson in 1961, according to the Peterson Farms website http://peterson- farms.com. The four farms sold on Sept. 25 were equal to about five square miles or about twice the size of the city of Decatur.

Langdon estimated there were about 250 live bidders at the auction, held at the Mount Olive Farm across the street from the Decatur Northside Elementary School. The auction company

took online bids as well, he said. The farms were divided into 38 tracts to give buyers the opportu- nity to purchase a five acre tract or an entire farm. The entire Mount Olive Farm was purchased by one buyer, while the other farms were

divided, Langdon said. The Peterson family is highly

respected in Arkansas, and a land sale of this size would be a big deal wherever it happened in the country, he said.

Dividing the land appealed to a larger base of customers and gave buyers who could not af- ford to purchase an entire farm the opportunity to buy a small tract, according to Langdon. All of the sales were subject to seller confirmation. Buyers placed a 10 percent deposit on the land and, if the price is accepted, sales will close in 30 days