Yellowstone Dutton Ranch

"I've worked for some strange outfits in my day. This place beats them all." - Walker ^[1]

The Yellowstone Dutton Ranch is a fictional ranch located near Bozeman, Montana, founded by James Dutton at the end of the nineteenth century and is owned by his family. Several generations of the Dutton family have run and protected the ranch through several harsh decades filled with threats and misery.

The ranch can be seen as a final destination of the TV series 1883 and is the main setting for its succesor 1923 and Yellowstone, the series that introduced the Dutton family.

History[]

Hailing from Tennessee, James and Margaret Dutton pursued their dream of starting a ranch at the American frontier in 1883. They were on their way to Oregon when their daughter Elsa got injured and was slowly dying. They decided to not leave her behind when she died and let her choose the spot where she would die so the family could make it their home. On recommendation of Spotted Eagle, one of the prominent members of the Crow tribe, she chose a spot in Paradise Valley, where she went with her father and died in his arms. ^[2]

A decade later James was shot and died shortly afterwards, his two sons, John and Spencer, not old enough to take over the ranch, leaving Margaret inclined to write to James's brother Jacob and ask him to help pursue his brother's dream. He came a year later and found Margaret had died as well, frozen in a snow drift. The two orphaned sons she left behind were half starved an barely able to speak when Jacob and his wife Cara took them in as their own and started their journey of making the ranch into an empire. ^[3]

Management[]

19th century[]

Right after its founding James Dutton himself did most of the work, along with his wife Margaret and their two sons, John and Spencer. When James and Margaret died Jacob and Cara Dutton took over. ^[3]

1920's[]

When Jacob and Cara got older they were glad to have John and his wife Emma around to run the ranch. Zane Davis was hired as foreman and oversaw the cowhands. ^[3] When John died and Jacob was (near) fatally injured, Cara wrote to Spencer, who was overseas, hunting in Kenya, and asked him to come home to help save the ranch. ^[4]

Late 20th century[]

During the second half of the 20th century John Dutton II ran the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, part of it together with his son John Dutton III. ^[5]

1990's & onwards[]

As the owner of the ranch John Dutton III played an important part in leading the ranch hands from the 1990's and onwards. He did so with his wife, Evelyn, by his side, until she died in 1997. ^[6] Their oldest son Lee played a big part in running the ranch as well ^[7], but after his passing it was mainly Rip Wheeler who led the men in their work. When John and Evelyn's youngest son Kayce came back to the ranch, he took over as foreman when he was around. ^[8]

Employees[]

Employees, or ranch hands, can be divided into two categories: ^[7]

hands who are part of the family or come by the job honest and deserve it;
hands who get a second chance after messing up in one way or another.

The ones that belong to the latter category are to be sure that they are willing to take their last chance, as they have to take a branding iron to the chest and will be marked with the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch brand for the rest of their lives. Getting branded, therefore, means they're in it for the long haul, but it also means they have to do all the violent, dirty work. It also works the other way around: unbranded hands tempted to participate in illegal activities for the ranch are to wear the brand from then on.