Taylor Sheridan thought he had figured out what came after Yellowstone. He had already bought a ranch in Weatherford, Texas, paid for it in cash and, by his own account, planned to retire from Hollywood once the series was done. He wanted to show horses, keep a small hobby herd and spend his time ranching. Then the Four Sixes Ranch, also known as the 6666 Ranch, came up for sale. Sheridan had known of the property since he was young. He grew up in North Texas, in what he has described as the “shadow of the Four Sixes,” where owning one of its horses was considered a status symbol. He later used the ranch as the model for the scale and operation of Yellowstone’s fictional Dutton ranch, saying that a working property of comparable size no longer existed in Montana because most had already been carved up. After the death of longtime owner Anne Marion, the Four Sixes went up for sale, giving Sheridan the chance to buy the ranch that had influenced his most successful show.
How Anne Marion’s death put the Four Sixes up for sale
Sheridan first became closely connected to the Four Sixes while arranging to film Yellowstone there. He met Anne Marion during that process, and the ranch subsequently appeared in the show’s fourth season. Marion, the great-granddaughter of ranch founder Samuel “Burk” Burnett, died in 2020 at age 81. After her death, the ranch became part of her estate and was offered for sale. Sheridan has said that he learned it was going to be broken up and sold in pieces, but that Marion had asked her representatives to try to find someone who would maintain her vision for the property. According to Sheridan’s account on the Rodeo Time podcast, the people handling the sale eventually approached him. “And, so, the person they came up with was me,” he recalled. The Four Sixes was not a single small ranch but a collection of three non-contiguous divisions the main Four Sixes, Dixon Creek and Frisco Creek together covering about 266,000 acres across four Texas counties.
Why Sheridan told the sellers he was 300 million dollars short
The numbers were far beyond what Sheridan had available at the time. In his 2026 Rodeo Time interview, he recalled being told the price was $330 million and responding, “I’m about 300 million short.” Earlier accounts of the transaction give slightly different figures: the ranch’s three divisions were originally listed for a combined roughly $342 million, while contemporary reports initially focused on individual portions of the property and put the main Four Sixes at around $192 million. The final purchase price was never publicly disclosed. What is established is that Sheridan assembled a group of investors to acquire the entire property, with the sale closing on January 21, 2022. Sheridan later said that when Yellowstone production shut down during the pandemic, he wrote a large amount of material and sold enough scripts to become the majority owner in the partnership. He also revisited an overall production deal with Paramount Global, a deal contemporary reporting valued at about $200 million. Sheridan later summed up the financial effect by saying, “I was real rich for 45 minutes. Then I was broke again.”
Why owning the Four Sixes made Sheridan’s retirement impossible
Buying into the Four Sixes did not simply give Sheridan another place to live. It gave him responsibility for one of America’s most significant working ranch properties. The ranch was established by Samuel “Burk” Burnett in 1870 and remained connected to the Burnett family for generations before passing to Marion. Its three divisions together cover roughly 266,000 acres and support cattle and Quarter Horse operations. Sheridan has said that he knew from the beginning that owning the property meant he could not simply walk away from work. “I knew that if I bought this ranch that I was not going to be quitting my day job for a while,” he told Dale Brisby. He also said he wanted to make sure the ranch’s general manager would remain in place to handle its day-to-day operation and that his son would eventually be willing to take responsibility for the property. That turned what had been a retirement plan into a long-term commitment to keep the ranch operating.
How the ranch purchase kept Sheridan working in television
The irony is that Sheridan’s attempt to leave Hollywood ultimately tied him more closely to the television industry. His renewed relationship with Paramount produced a long run of shows, including 1883, 1923, Mayor of Kingstown, Lioness, Tulsa King, Landman and The Madison, while Yellowstone continued to expand its own universe. The Four Sixes also became part of that television world, appearing in Yellowstone and helping introduce viewers to the real ranch behind Sheridan’s fictional version of Texas ranch life. Sheridan has previously said that he does the shows for the ranch, a line that explains why the purchase changed his career rather than simply adding another asset to it. The ranch was sold as a historic working property, not merely as a piece of land, and Sheridan has repeatedly emphasised the importance of preserving its existing operation and legacy. His planned retirement after Yellowstone therefore never quite happened. Instead, the decision to buy the ranch gave him another reason to keep writing, producing and working so that the place he had wanted to own since childhood could continue to function as a ranch.
