Texas Petroleum: The Unconventional History

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF
WYMAN MEINZER PHOTOGRAPHY.
another rise in the Burnett family fortune.
More than 100 million barrels of oil have been
produced from these fields, and the Triangle
Ranch, covering parts of Cottle, Foard, and
Hardeman Counties, also had several
significant oil and gas fields. Although the
Triangle Ranch surface was sold in 1989, the
mineral rights were retained.
Prior to his death in 1922, Miss Anne’s
grandfather, Captain Samuel “Burk” Burnett,
willed the bulk of his estate to Miss Anne in a
trusteeship for her yet unborn child. At the
time of Miss Anne’s death on January 1, 1980,
her daughter, Little Anne—Anne W. Marion—
inherited her great-grandfather Captain
Burnett’s ranch holdings through directives
stated in his will. She then sold the Triangle
Ranch her grandfather, Tom Burnett, had
developed and donated the Burnett home
in Iowa Park to the city for use as a library. In
addition to the Triangle Ranch, other
parcels were sold, leaving the two main
ranches—the 6666 Ranch near Guthrie and
the Dixon Creek Ranch near Panhandle
totaling 275,000 acres.
“Little Anne” is now known by the more
adult name of Anne Burnett Windfohr
Marion. She is president of Burnett Ranches,
LLC, which includes the Four Sixes Ranch.
She also serves as president of the Burnett
Foundation and Burnett Companies and is
chairman of the Burnett Oil Co., Inc.
The Windfohr name originates from her
stepfather, Robert Frairy Windfohr (1894-
1964), who married her mother in 1942 and
adopted “Little Anne.” Originally from
Quantico, Maryland, he moved to Breckenridge
in 1921 and formed an oil partnership with
James P. Nash of Austin. He drilled his first well
with Nash near Graham. The 4,300-foot
venture—called a record for North Texas—was
dry. But he later drilled some 350 producing
wells with Nash and Herman Brown of Austin,
including a 1,000 barrel a day producer in the
Graham area drilled in 1930.
Windfohr was an outspoken conservationist
and a member of the committee that
championed the cause in Texas in the 1930s. He
also fought to keep foreign oil from flooding the
domestic market and sought the end of price
controls in the 1950s. He fought just as hard on
various fronts, including the arts in Fort Worth,
helping guide construction of the Fort Worth
Art Museum during his many terms as president
of the Fort Worth Art Association.
As a young girl, “Little Anne” spent summers
on the Four Sixes, earning the respect of the
cowboys as she learned to ride horses and
perform ranch chores like the cowhands did.
Ollie Lake, who owned a home in Fort Worth,
provided her granddaughter with the emotional
support she needed and further established in
the young girl a love for ranching and its
traditions. Anne was educated at Briarcliff
Junior College in New York, the University of
Texas at Austin, and the University of Geneva in
Switzerland, where she studied art history.
In 1988, Anne married John Louis Marion,
honorary chair of Sotheby’s Inc. She has one
daughter, Anne “Windi” Phillips Grimes, who
also has one daughter, Anne “Hallie” Grimes.
Anne assumed management of the Four Sixes in
1980. Not since Captain Burnett founded and
built the Four Sixes more than a century ago
has any family member taken as much interest
in the ranches as she, according to her former,
long-time ranch manager, the late J. J. Gibson.
Anne is highly regarded as an arts patron and
shrewd businesswoman. Her husband is proud
of her strong will and determination and her
ability to move easily from social settings to
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