The Four Sixes Ranch | Samuel Burk Burnett | Tom Burnett | Anne Valliant Burnett Tandy | Anne W. Marion
The Big House | Oil and the Four Sixes | Horses of the Four Sixes | The Four Sixes Cattle
Four Sixes Supply House | Burk Burnett's Private Rail Car and The Burnett Buggy | End of the Open Range
Managers | Quanah Parker and Burk Burnett | Quanah Parker | M.B. Loyd

Oil and the Four Sixes Empire

For generations, ranching has played an important role in the family of Anne W. Marion, president of Burnett Ranches Ltd., which includes the Four Sixes Ranches in Texas and Montana. Among her other leadership positions are president of the Burnett Foundation and Burnett Companies and chair of the Burnett Oil Co. Inc.

Her family tree is a Who’s Who of Texas ranching and commerce. She is the daughter of Anne Burnett Tandy and James Goodwin Hall. Her grandparents included Tom Burnett, who built the Triangle Ranches near Iowa Park and Paducah, and Ollie Lake.

Hundreds of people flooded the town of Panhandle, Texas. Oil field workers, lawyers, freighters and lumbermen literally changed the city following the discovery of oil. In the Panhandle Oil Field from 1919 to 1957, it was too dangerous to smoke where drilling was taking place, so the men took up chewing the old favorite brands of Mail Pouch and Beech Nut tobacco.

Burk Burnett, who died in June 1922, did not live long enough to enjoy this increasing wealth. Not a problem: he was rich without it. He wrote to his friend, Sid Williams, a couple years before he died saying, “This puts four of the best outfits in Texas drilling in there [Dixon Creek Ranch], and they should get something by spring if there is any oil field up there. Of course, this would put the ranch out of business as far as cattle is concerned. But there is more money in oil than cattle, don’t you think?”