Grant-Kohrs Ranch (Short Days of the Open Range)

Deer Lodge, Montana has a prison on Main Street. While decommission and now serving as the Old Montana Prison Museum, I couldn't shake the idea of a prison right on the main drag. Its replacement, the Montana State Prison, sits farther from the historic district.

But the history of Deer Lodge extends further than prisons to ranching, which actually led to the town's formation. The ranch key to that development is also protected, but its nearly 1,200 acres still operate as a working ranch, a condition of the land joining the National Park Services

The Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site's working cattle ranch dates back to the open range, before barbed wire sectioned off every parcel. The ranch still houses Hereford cattle, draft horses and many other farm animals from its prime, when it was among the largest cattle operations in the West. 

Johnny Grant, child of a trapper and a Metis Indian mother, built the original ranch house in the Deer Lodge Valley and helped found the town. Cattle ranching in the West grew as an opportunity after near-extinction of beavers ended trapping as an enterprise and beef shortages from the Civil War made western operations viable through new rail routes headed east. 

German immigrant Conrad Kohrs (pronounced Coors) would later purchase the house and ranch. His wife, Augusta, would put her own stamp on the ranch house. The ranch endured the notorious winter of 1886-87, which wiped out many northern Plains cattle operations. Grant-Kohrs only lost 60 percent of its Deer Lodge herd. 

At the ranch’s peak, Kohrs grazed on more than 10 million acres across Montana, with more limited operations in Idaho and Wyoming. Although a rail line runs through the ranch, its owners would send their herds to Miles City where they would journey east by rail. The ranch ran successfully into the 1950s, when later owner Conrad Warren would pivot toward preservation and sustainability of the ranch, leading to it joining the National Park Service. 

Celebrating its 50th anniversary in the park system this year, Grant-Kohrs is the only park site dedicated to the short decades of open-range ranching. The heat beat down on the buildings of the historic ranch. Most had been meticulously restored. Others included historic displays demonstrating how ranch staff used various equipment spread around the compound. 

The ranch buildings cover many acres, and an irrigation ditch still connects the ranch with the Clark Fork River. The Flint Creek Range rises rapidly above the valley, framing everything with its peaks that reach above the tree line. Some long-horned cattle grazed in a fenced meadow. A group of heirloom chickens pecked comfortably in the shade. They had a knack for finding shady spots and avoiding the relentless afternoon sun. 

A group of draft horses chewed the grass in a separate meadow. These were working horses, their grazing beneath the blue-tinged Beaverhead Mountains a reward for a day’s work. I kept my distance. They occasionally took extended glances at me, but I did not disturb their grazing. 

Chickens find the shade

At the chuckwagon, a volunteer talked with visitors about daily duties on on the range. The chuckwagon was essentially a kitchen on wheels, serving breakfast and dinner of foods sturdy enough to keep on the range. 

Cattle drives up from Texas took many months. Ranch hands were young and often worked 16-hour days. Since the cattle grazed as they went, the party could only cover about one mile an hour. 

With most ranch hands in their mid-teens, and the chuckwagon cook - "cookie" was the common term of the time - essentially served as second-in-command, since he would be a seasoned cattle drive veteran. On a cool day I might have requested a cowboy coffee sample but only cold beverages would do on that afternoon.

I wrapped my visit with a tour of the ranch house. The Victorian home fit the range. Grant built the white portions of the house, and Kohrs was responsible for the brick addition that included the sun room and the expanded dining room. The house spoke to wealth – the dining table seated 26 - and practiality, as Kohrs would have coordinated ranch activities from his office. But it had relatively humble bedrooms, plus a day room for the lady of the house, as was common during the ranch’s day. The south-facing sunroom/greenhouse was a concession so Augusta Kohrs could garden year-round despite brutal Montana winters. 

Grant-Kohrs falls into the web of national historic sites many people will pass. The working ranch illuminates a slice of history that often falls by the wayside. I like that it illustrates that the West did not always need barbwire to divide up its lots, and that a ranch could find its way deep in Montana's mountains.