The $124 trillion Great Wealth Transfer is reshaping how fortunes move between generations, but billionaire John Poindexter is pursuing a different path: directing wealth toward the restoration of Shafter, a nearly deserted former silver-mining town in West Texas. Poindexter, 81, has never married and has no children, so his Tidewater and Big Bend Foundation is becoming the vehicle for his legacy. Since late 2020, the foundation has received nearly $67 million in contributions, including $20.6 million in the fiscal year ending November 2024, when it reported $62.5 million in net assets, according to IRS filings compiled by ProPublica. Shafter is in Presidio County, which had an estimated 5,433 residents in 2025, down 11.4% from 2020 and from 7,818 in 2010. Median household income was $43,802, nearly one in five residents lived in poverty, and population density was about 1.6 people per square mile. The foundation’s plans include a resort and living history museum built around a reconstructed saloon, general store and post office, plus about a dozen adobe homes for overnight rentals. By early 2025, Poindexter had bought several Shafter properties and offered to restore the historic church at the town entrance. The town’s Presidio Mine operated from 1883 to 1942 and produced 35.2 million ounces of silver; it is now owned by Black Bear Minerals. Residents are divided, but David Long, Shafter’s water board president, said reliable water infrastructure could help the town grow. Poindexter’s foundation is also expected to eventually own all his properties, including the 30,000-acre Cibolo Creek Ranch, where Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016. His approach contrasts with Warren Buffett’s decision to direct his $140 billion fortune to four family foundations, and with California Forever, a project backed by Silicon Valley investors that spent roughly $800 million buying Solano County farmland for a new city. Poindexter instead says the goal is to recover a connection to earlier generations. The project has been compared with Colonial Williamsburg, whose restoration began in 1926 after John D. Rockefeller Jr. acquired properties and committed $5 million to rebuilding the former Virginia capital. Poindexter has taken a more public approach, inviting about 200 guests to Shafter over Labor Day weekend.