For 50 years, the American-Colombian Corporation owned the largest property in Colombia: the Lands of Loba. While the principal investors, men from Utah and later also Laurance and Nelson Rockefeller, dreamed of making a fortune from this tropical “fairyland,” none of their plans bore fruit and they eventually lost control to thousands of so-called squatters. To explain the failure of an American free-standing company, this article emphasizes misguided perceptions and a challenging external environment rather than managerial inexperience. Examining recycled notions of tropical abundance demonstrates how ideas of nature can influence investment decisions. Overlapping property rights and tension between possession and title complicated company efforts to raise capital. Local resistance and a fractured political landscape further limited its influence. Ultimately, the very scale of the property both generated delusions of grandeur and frustrated the company’s territorial control.

50年来，美国哥伦比亚公司拥有哥伦比亚最大的财产：Loba土地。虽然主要的投资人（来自犹他州的人以及后来的劳朗斯和纳尔逊·洛克菲勒）梦想着从这个热带“仙境”中发家致富，但他们的计划都没有结出硕果，最终失去了对成千上万个所谓的擅自占地者的控制权。为了解释一家美国独立公司的失败，本文强调了错误的看法和充满挑战的外部环境，而不是管理上的经验不足。对热带丰度的循环利用概念进行研究，证明了自然观念如何影响投资决策。重叠的产权以及所有权和所有权之间的紧张关系使公司筹集资金的努力变得复杂。地方抵抗和政治格局的破裂进一步限制了它的影响力。最终，财产的规模既引起了宏大的幻想，又使公司的领土控制权受挫。