The historic ranch has become a character of its own in the hit drama. Yellowstone arrived on our screens almost seven years ago, but in November 2024 the conclusion of the Duttons’ whirlwind story finally arrived, with the second half of the fifth and final season finally being released. The first half of the fifth season aired in November 2022, tormenting Yellowstone fans with a tantalizing two-year wait before the final part of the story would run.

While Yellowstone star Kevin Costner, who played ranch owner John Dutton, announced earlier this year that he had decided to leave the show, the final part promises to continue the story of the Dutton family. The show’s creator, Taylor Sheridan, has led and developed the characters through everything from hair-raising moments to deeply heartbreaking events, yet one element that has remained steady among the show’s chaos and drama is Dutton Ranch itself.

In the show, the events playing out on Dutton Ranch are set in the modern day – with some throwbacks to the late 19th and early 20th century in spinoffs – in Montana. Read more: I went on the Graceland tour that allows you to get closer to Elvis than ever before. When it was not being used as the setting for Paramount’s Yellowstone television series, the property is a working, family-owned cattle ranch, nestled between the striking Trapper Peak mountain summit and the Bitterroot River valley.

The accommodation is two 1916 self-catered cabins on the ranch, nicknamed after Lee Dutton and Rip Wheeler, who each spent time in the cabins in the show, but in real life, they once housed domestic staff who worked for those living in the main lodge. The cabins come with beds, bathrooms, kitchens and a living space, decked out floor-to-ceiling with different shades of wood and logs stretching across walls.

Lee Dutton’s cabin can sleep up to eight guests, costing $1,400 per night for up to four guests, then $50 per night per each additional guest. Rip Wheeler’s cabin can also sleep eight, with a $1,700 charge per night for up to four, with a $50 per night per each additional guest. A guided tour of the ranch is included in the reservation, the website says, as well as opportunities to fish on one mile of ranch property bordering the Bitterroot River.

If you are planning to arrive at the ranch via horse, horses may be pastured or corralled from $25 per day for two horses. Shane Libel and his family have owned and operated the ranch since 2012, but while Libel says the show creates a fairly accurate picture of today’s American Western lifestyle, their everyday lives are a far cry from the melodramatic events that haunt the Duttons. “We don’t brand anybody who works for us,” Libel told TV Insider in 2022, referencing John Dutton’s choice to brand his employees with a ‘Y’ (and occasionally using it as punishment). “Although I had a young man working for me who was scared to death I was going to do that because he’d seen the show.”.

The frame of the lodge has a large stone shell and giant timber logs, while the roof is from one single, gigantic tree and adorned with Tiffany lamps that date back to when the property was built. In the series, Dutton Ranch is witness to plenty of drama – and the same can be said for Chief Joseph Ranch in real life. Read more: Inside the US desert city that defined Hollywood’s golden age – where big adventure meets foodie dream.

Before there was ever a film crew – or even a ranch for that matter – the lands were previously inhabited for hundreds of years by the Salish Native American tribe, Chief Joseph Ranch’s website says. Today, the Bitterroot Salish, along with the upper Pend d’Oreille and Kootenai tribes, with over 7,000 tribal members, live on or near the Flathead Reservation further upstate. The land upon which the cabin now stands also became significant due to the trail that ran through it. The Nimiipuu people who make up the Nez Perce tribe, annually travelled the trail south to reach bison hunting grounds in the Big Hole Valley. This historic trail winds over the ranch just west of the Lodge and funnels down to where the barns are now located.

In September 1805, the trail was also used by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, military men who led an expedition to the western position of the country after the Louisana Purchase. They entered the northern Bitterroot Valley and followed a trail used by the Native American tribes during their expedition. However, the ranch lands were not always a place of expedition and discovery. War broke out between the US Army and a band from the Nez Perce tribe after they were forced to give up their ancestral lands and move to a reservation.