The Yellowstone franchise lives on, even after the flagship series ended late last year. Taylor Sheridan’s hit neo-Western television series has now expanded into a full-blown universe, complete with prequels, spinoffs, and sequels that will help round out the larger story of the Dutton family. With 1923 airing its second and final season on Paramount+ and 1944 bridging the gap between the prequel and the original series, fans have explored nearly every generation of the Dutton family, from the pioneers until the present day. Yet everything revolves around a single tract of land.
The original Yellowstone series revolves around John Dutton and his family as they fight to maintain control of their ancestral ranch, the Yellowstone. Faced with threats on all sides, the Duttons struggle to defend their home from land developers, greedy neighbors, and even Native American tribes who seek to reclaim the land generations after losing it to the settlers. Yellowstone’s story, however, is quite simple. All viewers need to know about the Duttons and the Yellowstone Ranch can be summarized up in a single line from the first episode.
One Line Perfectly Sums Up the Yellowstone-Dutton Ranch
The First Episode of Yellowstone Tells Viewers Everything They Need to Know
The Dutton family drama begins to unfold in the first episode of Yellowstone, as John and his son Jamie work to keep the ranch’s day-to-day operations intact despite numerous challenges. Jamie, a lawyer, and terminal opportunist, abides by his father’s will to never sell even an inch of the land they had inherited from their forefathers but secretly would rather use the land to secure the Duttons’ wealth and power (as later seasons will demonstrate). When a rival arises who wishes to buy a portion of the Yellowstone Ranch to develop a massive housing complex, Jamie follows his father’s orders to get their claim shut down in court. Behind the scenes, however, Jamie argues with his father, believing that they would be better off considering the offer, as well as the money and leverage that it would offer them. John curtly replies, “Leverage is knowing that if someone had all the money in the world, [the Dutton Ranch] is what they’d buy.”
This short and meaningful quote supplies viewers with everything they need to know about the Yellowstone Ranch–and the Duttons’ relationship to the land. From this point forward, audiences understand that there is nothing more important or valuable than the land that makes up the Yellowstone Ranch. The Duttons took over the land at the end of 1883, worked to build up a successful ranch during the events of 1923, and fought to keep control of it in Yellowstone. For many members of the family, the land even came before their relatives. This piece of land will be the central focus in a five-season-long drama, with rivals emerging from the shadows with designs on taking over the ranch and one falling one at a time. No matter the storyline, the characters involved, or the outcome, at the center was always the Yellowstone Ranch.
Why Was the Yellowstone Ranch So Valuable?
Everyone Wants the Yellowstone Ranch
With so many fighting for the Yellowstone Ranch, a question is still left hanging: What makes the land so valuable? On a surface level, the ranch is valuable simply because the land is valuable. Yellowstone establishes that Montana is on a path toward urbanization, with many businesses and land developers setting their sights on the rural areas of the state. As such, a tract of land with tens of thousands of undeveloped acres would be the score of all scores for a land developer looking to cash in. The Duttons sat on a goldmine, determined to sell the land and give way to the next era of Montana. In many ways, urbanization becomes the unofficial overarching villain of Yellowstone, as the gears of progress seek to overthrow the way of life that the Duttons had perfected over generations.
The gears of urbanization forced the Duttons to do terrible things to protect their home but this was not the only reason that they were willing to sacrifice everything for a piece of land. On a much deeper level, the Yellowstone Ranch was emotionally connected to the Duttons. Over a century earlier, James Dutton and his family traveled West in a wagon train, stopping before they reached Oregon. They buried their daughter, Elsa, who died along the way, on this piece of land. Generations of Duttons will grow up on that same land, establishing the ranch that will become so precious to their descendants. The Yellowstone Ranch was the Dutton family’s legacy–and they were willing to do anything to protect it.
The Yellowstone Ranch Destroyed the Duttons
The Duttons’ Most Prized Possession Was Also Their Doom
Tragically, the same ranch that was so precious to the Dutton family was also the very thing that destroyed them. The Duttons would do anything to protect their ranch–and it cost them their family in the end. Although some of the earlier generations of Duttons are shown to have been good and upstanding citizens, the later generations of the family dipped into more moral gray areas to survive. By the time John Dutton III was running the ranch, the Yellowstone had become the center of a criminal enterprise. The Duttons were ready and willing to murder people who threatened their land, bribed and extort politicians to protect it, and even became politicians themselves to skew the government in favor of their own interests. Although they maintained a facsimile of honor, the Duttons grew to be a selfish clan, clinging onto land that they knew would eventually be taken from them.
Even worse, the Yellowstone Ranch sowed discord in the Dutton family itself. Under the patriarch John Dutton III, the family grew increasingly toxic until it fell apart entirely. John manipulates his children in vain attempts to control them, each one feeling that they must earn their father’s love through strict obedience. This inevitably caused some of John’s children to turn on him. Jamie Dutton lashed out hard against his family, betraying them in hopes of selling the ranch for his own benefit. While Beth and Kayce remained loyal to their father, neither had a beneficial relationship with him. Kayce fought hard to not become like John, eventually breaking free from the ranch and starting his own family. Beth, on the other hand, found herself in dire emotional straits, always fighting for the love she never received from her parents. The Duttons managed to protect their land for generations but at the cost of their family’s well-being.
Yellowstone revolves around one massive tract of land that everyone wants. The Duttons spend generations defending their ancestral home, which they prize above all else–even family. The tragedy of the Dutton family is inextricably tied to the Yellowstone Ranch, which gave them great wealth yet destroyed them from the inside.
