There are only “day jeans” and “night jeans” in Chris Dutton’s world, and there’s really not a whole lot of difference between the denims.
That’s because he’s one of four children that fed the cows and the sheep and the horses in the morning, again in the afternoon after school and whatever sports practice, and then they would go to sleep in a home with a yard that stretched as far their eyes could see. That’s because they were raised on the Dutton Ranch, a 1,200-acre cattle farm that’s been mostly located near Flushing in Belmont County since 1981.
“My mother’s family was in the coal mining business for a lot of years, and then they got into the reclamation business,” said the co-founder of the Blame My Roots music festival. “The cattle business is my father’s vision and it’s something he started years ago as a side thing, but we all grew up working that ranch.
“In the summers we were putting up hay on those Saturday mornings, the cows had to be fed before we went to school in the mornings and then again when we got home,” he recalled. “We grew up on an active farm with cattle, and sheep, and things like that, and it’s why I always wear boots.”
The Dutton Cattle Company also operates another 400 acres close to Lafferty and although all the land was barren of beef about 10 years ago, the family properties currently operate as a full-fledged cow farm.
“We now have a ranch manager and a staff of five, and we also have folks who work in the administration and sales departments,” Chris explained. “As far as family, I’m the only one of the four of us who works for Dutton Cattle and I deal with the sales and marketing sides of the operation, and my brother Greg has designed and has built our lodging on the ranch, and all of us are involved with the events we have there.”
There are three cottages and cabins on the Dutton Ranch, too, one of which (The Hut) was featured on HGTV’s “Building Off the Grid” series in 2019. Weddings and other occasions have been staged at the houses the past couple of years, and that is one of the major differences between Belmont County’s Dutton Ranch and Montana’s fictional “Yellowstone”.
“Of course, there really aren’t any real similarities to those TV characters to us. Trust me, my sister Nina is nothing like the Beth Dutton in ‘Yellowstone,’” Dutton said with a chuckle. “But there is something about the land. In ‘Yellowstone,’ there’s always someone coming after the Dutton land whether it’s private developers or the government. There’s always someone who wants their land.
“We may not be fighting the government for our land, and there aren’t private developers pushing to build resorts or anything like that, but in the last few years we’ve really worked on defining our operations so it makes sense to have a ranch this big,” he said. “If we don’t have the operations that allow us to sustain a ranch of this size, then you can’t pay the taxes on your land. To us, it’s about the present and it’s about the future.”
“John Dutton”
It stars Kevin Costner, Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, and Cole Hauser, it debuted in June 2018, and since “Yellowstone” has become one of the most popular streamed television shows in the United States. The show’s fifth season premiered on November 13, and episode 6 – “Cigarettes, Whiskey, A Meadow and Fog” – is scheduled to air tomorrow evening on the Paramount Network.
Costner has been the show’s main character from the beginning, and his “Yellowstone” name is “John Dutton,” and he is the father of three sons and a daughter.
The owner of the Dutton Cattle Company in Belmont County is John Dutton, the father of three sons and a daughter.
“It’s just weird,” Dutton said. “When I really think about it, it’s really, really bizarre. There are just so many unintended coincidences.
“It is funny to us and one of our favorite lines is, ‘Yes, there are a lot of similarities, but we don’t kill as many people as they do.’ Of course, that’s supposed to be a joke because, well, we don’t have that ‘train station,’ near the ranch” Dutton said with a smile. “My dad gets it a lot because of his name, and another weird thing is that my dad has always been referred to as, ‘John Dutton. Not just ‘John,’ but ‘John Dutton.’ There are people like that, and he’s one of them. It’s always his full name, John Dutton, just like it is for the Costner character in the show.”
The Oscar winner has starred in movies like “Bull Durham,” “For The Love of the Game,” and “Tin Cup,” and he’s portrayed Superman’s father in the DC Comics movies. He also is the leader of a nine-member band called Kevin Costner and Modern West, a group that has produced four studio albums and goes on tour from time to time.
“We got to meet Kevin Costner because he has a band and they were playing in Columbus and I reached out to his manager,” Dutton explained. “After I contacted the manager about our family and about all of the similarities, everything was set up for us to meet him, but it was funny because I was so careful not to sound weird or bizarre or like I was making it all up just to meet him. But they were really nice about it.
“And Kevin Costner couldn’t have been cooler to us, and at one point he said to my dad, ‘Wow, this is like the end of ‘Field of Dreams’ when I meet my dad,’” he remembered. “My father has always been a huge fan of Costner’s, and he enjoyed it when Kevin also told him not let his kids grow up like the kids he had on the show because they are all crazy.”
Pronounce ‘Wagyu’ Like ‘Ragu’
Chris’ father wanted to be a biology teacher so cattle ranching somehow seemed like a good fit after he met and fell in love with his bride, Rita.
The Duttons have raised three boys and a daughter:
- Nina Dutton Perfett is a DNP in Hematology and Cellular Therapy at West Penn Hospital in the Bloomfield area of Pittsburgh;
- John, or J.P., serves as one of three Belmont County commissioners and is the chief financial officer for Leonardo Technologies in St. Clairsville;
- Greg is an architect and a principal of Midland Architecture, a design studio company with offices in Pittsburgh and Columbus;
- And Chris is a realtor in the Columbus area, a co-founder of the Blame My Roots festival (along with sister Nina Perfett), and he has been instrumental with turning the Dutton Ranch into a Wagyu Beef producer.
“Cattle operations are tough, and it is hard to make a decent profit in the cattle business these days because of the way the industry is run overall, but in 2016 we were introduced to the Akaushi breed in Texas,” Dutton explained. “There are a lot of different kinds of cattle operations, and we’ve done a lot of different things over the years, but that beef is a higher grade of beef than what we had, so that change was made.
“But with Akaushi breed and the Wagyu beef we saw more of an opportunity to sell it at a premium on market,” he said. “It’s a breed that allows us to have the operations we’ve had for a long time because we’re making more money now from that breed. At the same time, we found the cattle were easier to work with and the bulls are incredible, too. That breed also has allowed us to do everything involved with selling the beef right here, too.”
The Pike 40 hosted a Wagyu Steak Night at the end of November, and the family’s eatery features a selection of burgers made with the Akaushi breed beef, too.
“We’ll definitely be having similar events in the future because there was a waiting list for that steak night, and the Pike’s burgers are really, really popular, too,” Dutton said. “It’s odd. We all have the Wagyu beef at our homes, but we won’t eat it because of how good it is. I know that sounds weird, but it’s kind of like being allowed to sit on the ‘good furniture in the front room’.
“It’s taken a few years after the Akaushi bulls arrived to get the ranch to the point where have 50 bulls and around 500 momma cows,” he added. “It’s a good business right now so we’ll see where it goes.”
