Chas. S. Middleton and Son LLC
The famed 6666 Ranch, owned by the late Anne Marion, is for sale. The 142,372-acre ranch, in King County near Guthrie, is listed at $192.2 million by Chas S. Middleton and Son LLC.
Marion died Feb. 11, “and terms of her will dictated all of her ranching operations would be sold,” according to the listing. The ranch, founded in 1870 by Marion’s great-grandfather Samuel Burk Burnett, is being offered in a package with the 6666 Dixon Creek Ranch Division and 6666 Frisco Creek Ranch Division, the listing said.
The listing recounts the family’s rich history, starting with Burk Burnett, “who became one of the most influential and prosperous cattlemen in the history of Texas.”
He was born in Bates County, Mo., in 1849. At 19, Burk purchased 100 head of cattle branded 6666. “Soon thereafter, he started leasing and ultimately purchasing ranches and expanding his ranching operation.”
About 1900, he bought the 8 Ranch near Guthrie. Soon after, he bought the Dixon Creek Ranch in the Texas Panhandle and began to expand the 8 Ranch into what’s now the 6666’s Ranch. “In 1917, he decided to build ‘The finest ranch house in West Texas’ at Guthrie. This stately home still stands as the main house at the 6666’s Ranch. It is told that the house cost $100,000, which was considered to be an enormous amount of money at that time.”
The house was built of stone-quarried rock and other materials. Early visitors included President Theodore Roosevelt, Will Rogers, and the Indian Chief Quanah Parker. Oil was discovered on the Dixon Creek Ranch in 1921 and in 1969 on the 6666’s Ranch.
Burk Burnett died in 1922. He had willed the bulk of his estate to his daughter, Anne Valliant Burnett in a trusteeship for her yet-born grandchild, Anne Burnett Marion. In 1980, when Valliant Burnett Tandy died, the majority of her estate went to her daughter, Anne Marion, through the trusteeship. Marion assumed management of the 6666’s Ranch in 1980.