6666 Ranch: How One Family Held It for 150 Years, and Why They Let Go

The full story of the 6666 Ranch, the Four Sixes, and the family who held it for a hundred and fifty years. In 1871 a young Texas cattleman bought a hundred head of cattle that already wore a brand: four sixes. He kept the mark because it was hard for a rustler to alter. While the Vanderbilts, the Astors and the Berwinds were turning industrial fortunes into marble on the eastern seaboard, Samuel Burk Burnett spent fifty years buying grass. When he finally built a house, he put it in a Texas town of a few hundred people, because that was where the work was. The Four Sixes outlasted the Gilded Age palaces. It is still running cattle today, and the Burnett family no longer owns a foot of it. This is the story of the deal with Quanah Parker that saved the ranch, the oil nobody planned for, the will that was broken in court, the four generations who kept it whole, and the buyer nobody saw coming. ON THE RECORD The poker-game origin of the 6666 brand is legend. The ranch's own published history records Burnett buying a hundred already-branded head from Frank Crowley in 1871. Reported prices for the 2021-22 sale range from roughly $192.2 million to past $300 million against a $347.7 million asking price, and no party to the deal has settled the question publicly. SOURCES Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas: "Four Sixes Ranch"; "Anne Valliant Burnett Tandy"; "Thomas Lloyd Burnett" 6666 Ranch official published history, "Straight Sixes" American Oil & Gas Historical Society, "Boom Town Burkburnett" The Land Report; Dallas Express, coverage of the 2021-22 sale CHAPTERS 0:00 The men who built proof 2:14 The brand he did not choose 4:46 The drought, and Quanah Parker 7:45 Buying the empire 8:38 The house at Guthrie 10:06 Oil under Burkburnett 11:48 The will that was broken 13:04 A century of women 15:25 The listing 17:08 The buyer 18:36 What actually fell If you like the stories of the fortunes that built America's greatest places, and what happened when the families behind them let go, please subscribe. 'Where They Summered' - Following American fortunes to the world's most exclusive destinations. #6666Ranch #FourSixes #TexasHistory #GildedAge #AmericanHistory