Commonly referred to as the "
Four Sixes" Ranch (after its
brand, which is, unsurprisingly, "6666"), this is one of the largest and most
famous cattle ranches in
American history.
Legend has it that the
ranch's brand originated when
Samuel "Burk" Burnett won the ranch in a
poker game with a winning hand of four sixes. However, the
truth is that Burnett purchased a herd of cattle with the "6666" brand when he was starting his
ranching empire.
No one knows how the original owners came up with the brand...
Burnett was born in
Bates County, Missouri on January 1, 1849. His father was a
farmer until the family home was destroyed in the
Ruffian and
Jayhawker raids in the
1850s. The family moved south and settled in the area of
Denton, Texas when Burk was just ten years old. His father started ranching, and Burk followed in his daddy's footsteps when he was about 19 years old. He purchased his first 100 head of cattle in 1867, and by 1873, was driving 1,100 steers to market in
Wichita, Kansas.
Burk began buying
land and established his
headquarters near what would later become
Wichita Falls, Texas. When a
drought began to dry up the streams, he and several other
ranchers convinced the local
Kiowa and
Comanche tribes to
lease them nearly a million acres of land on their
reservations. Burk also established a
friendship with Comanche chief
Quanah Parker. By all accounts, Burk genuinely
respected the
Indians and wanted to do right by them. The Comanches were especially fond of him, naming him
Mas-Sa-Suta, or "
Big Boss."
Later, Burk became
friends with President
Theodore Roosevelt, who helped the ranchers get extended leases on their lands. When Roosevelt visited them in 1905, Burk and some other ranchers took the president on an unusual bare-handed
coyote hunt.
As the West developed and the
open range shrunk, cattlemen needed to own a
lot of land to stay in business, so Burk set about
buying other ranches -- including the
8 Ranch, the
Dixon Creek Ranch, the
Gradbury Ranch, the
Triangle Ranch, and others -- and soon, the 6666 stood on over a third of a million acres over a good portion of North and
West Texas.
Burk died in 1922; his
will required that two
trustees be appointed to run the ranch. They and their successors managed the ranch and its holdings until 1980, when Burk's
great-granddaughter took over ranch operations.
The 6666 Ranch is still in
existence today. It isn't as
large or as
influential as it used to be, but it's still there, and it still produces several thousand
cattle every year.
Tourism is now a big part of ranch business, with the grand ranchhouse and supply house attracting
visitors hungry for some of the
history of the
Old West.