Colorado Springs will become home to a family-run pecan shelling and distribution facility.

The Creel Family, which has been farming the nuts for more than 30 years, announced the expansion Monday evening during the annual Boots, Business & Boogie event. A news release from the Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corporation said the expansion could create 50 jobs at an average annual wage of $76,000.

The new facility will be owned by Luis Creel, the sales director of American Beef, also owned by the Creel family and a member of the Palmer Land Conservancy’s board of trustees.

Creel lives in Colorado Springs and wanted to bring the business to the city.

“We really love to live here so we want to have our business where we live,” he said.

Creel said he feels the company got a little lucky, but added, “We couldn’t go wrong” by selecting Peak Innovation Park.

He called the development progress at the park “so great,” pointing to the major companies that call the 1,600-acre parcel home. In 2020, Amazon began work on what was then one of the state’s largest buildings, a nearly 4 million-square-foot fulfillment center. It is also home to Northrop Grumman, the Aerospace Corporation, Frito-Lay and Swire Coca-Cola, among others.

“As a family business, every investment we make is a long-term commitment. Colorado Springs impressed us not just as a great place to do business, but as a place where families, businesses and communities (grow) together,” Creel said in the news release. “We are proud to expand our pecan operations here and grateful for the warm welcome we’ve received and support from the city.”

The Creel family is no stranger to running a business. They’ve been entrepreneurial since the first Creel immigrated to the United States in the early 1800s, said Rob Alexander, CEO of Stockmens Bank.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Reuben Creel as consul from U.S. to Chihuahua, Mexico, according to the Kentucky Historical Society. Alexander said he raised his kids in Mexico, starting what he called a great American and Mexican story.

“For the next 100 years, the Creels worked hard and built businesses,” he said. One venture was a private bank in Mexico. “Fast forward. 1982. The scourge of socialism (hit) Mexico.”

Mexico’s president at the time, Jose Lopez Portillo, nationalized the private banking system, which was on the brink of financial collapse, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

“Better to take over the banks, he reasoned, than to bail them out,” read a Monitor story from 1982. “If bank nationalization does not help in Mexico’s recovery, ‘at least we can say we tried,’ commented a top official.”

The Creels were left with just enough money to buy a small pecan plantation. In 1992, the plantation was 100 acres.

Today, it’s more than 1,000.

“I’m very proud of my family,” Ricardo Creel Sr. said. “They’re going to work hard here for Colorado Springs.”

In both their meat-processing company, American Beef, and the pecan operation, the Creel family focuses on using resources efficiently. It uses no pesticides on their pecan farm, instead relying on natural predators to keep insects away, Luis Creel said.

This is part of why he is involved with the Palmer Land Conservancy.

“I love their values,” he said. He wants to bring the same values on display at the pecan orchard to the operations in the U.S. “We really take care of our land.”

Groundbreaking for the new facility is expected in August 2027, the Chamber and EDC release said. The project is eligible for $610,990 in performance-based state tax credits and exemptions, according to the release.