Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on March 13, 2016.
Why is the Grant-Kohrs Ranch considered “historic”? Why should it be saved for posterity? Its timeline of multi-family ownership, almost a century and a half long, contributed mightily to the growth of livestock-raising in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. As early as the 1850s, the Grant family – Canadian traders based in future Idaho -- were collecting cattle from immigrants passing through on the Oregon Trail, and wintering their growing herds in the mountain-basin valleys of future Montana Territory.
In 1862, young John Grant established what became his home ranch in the Deer Lodge Valley, with construction of a grand house and other buildings near the junction of Cottonwood Creek with a river then known as the Arrowstone River. In time, Grant’s herds of cattle and horses numbered in the thousands. In 1866 Grant moved his family back to Canada and sold the Deer Lodge ranch to his stock-trading colleague, Conrad Kohrs, a German immigrant who – with his brother John Bielenberg -- was establishing a chain of meat markets in several mining camps. By 1900 Kohrs and Bielenberg eventually expanded to a large horse and cattle operation across deeded land and grazing leases in four states and two Canadian provinces.
It’s important to point out that this ranch story unfolded against a background of earlier livestock pioneering across the West.
By 1700 or so, the Northwest tribes already were building a thriving horse business. Their earliest horses were of Spanish Barb breeding, obtained by capture or trade from Spanish or Mexican colonists farther south. Several of the tribes, notably the Nez Perce, became expert horse breeders and horse traders. The French Canadian Métis, who were penetrating the Northwest with the fur and robe trade, and marrying into the tribes, brought sturdy Norman horses. With time, these French imports blended with tribal stock to create a unique crossbred horse famed for its endurance and courage. The majority of Grant’s horses, as well as the early cow ponies used on the Kohrs-Bielenberg ranch, were drawn from this thriving population of tribal-bred horses.
More important background was happening prior to the influx of immigrants with the Oregon Trail and the 1848 gold discovery in California. European breeds of cattle and sheep and goats were already filtering north with Hispanic families who had acquired land grants from the Spanish crown and later from the Mexican government. This Hispanic trickle reached as far north as future Montana, where a group of Hispanic families, notably the LaVattas, established a tiny community in the Deer Lodge area around 1860. Indeed, the very concept of a "ranch" comes from the Spanish words "rancho" and "rancheria."
Another reason for the Grant-Kohrs Ranch’s “historic importance” is this: it’s a rare example of a ranch dating from this early period that still has its complex of early buildings surviving largely intact, together with a collection of original artifacts and documents. Between 1972 and 1982, the National Park Service purchased 1618 acres of the home ranch from Conrad Kohrs's grandson Conrad Warren and his wife Nellie. The NPS mission was to restore and maintain this national historic site as a working ranch.
As such, the Grant-Kohrs Ranch can serve as a window through which we can get a clear look into a past that has been much blurred by myth-making.
Originally researched, authored and posted by Patricia Nell Warren on December 30, 2016.
The Grant-Kohrs Ranch is nearing the end of its 174th year of continuous livestock operations. This makes it one of the oldest ranches in the U.S. -- one that is probably unique for the relative completeness of preservation of its historic structures, artifacts and documents. It was in 1862 that Canadian Metis trader John Grant moved his family from their trading camp on the Little Blackfoot to the vicinity of what is now Deer Lodge township. The Grants were lonely for the company of a few other stockraising families, including their old friends, the LaVattas, who had already settled along Cottonwood Creek. The Grants, however, chose some level high ground overlooking the Clark Fork river bottoms, with a spring handy nearby. There they threw up a cabin for temporary shelter (now part of the bunkhouse row) and started construction of the imposing ranch house.
As it developed under Grant ownership, the ranch was a simple rough-and-ready place, with just a few buildings and jackleg fences. Though he was said to own several thousand head of cattle and horses, Grant never filed for ownership of the land, since he was not a U.S. citizen as required by the 1841 Homestead Act. In 1866, having decided to move back to Canada, Grant sold the place, together with furnishings, tools, vehicles and some livestock, to German immigrant Conrad Carsten Kohrs.
Till 1922, the ranch was operated by Kohrs and his brother John Bielenberg, who did the necessary filings for land ownership. The place became the home ranch for a far-flung operation in four U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, involving many thousands of acres of deeded land and millions of acres of grazing leases.
Following Kohrs's and Bielenberg's deaths in 1920 and 1922, the Kohrs estate operated the ranch minimally for another 18 years. In 1940, it finally passed ownership to Kohrs's grandson Conrad Warren, who ran it for the next 30 years. After Warren and his wife Nell got the ranch designated as a national historic site in 1960, the National Park Service became interested in it. After lengthy negotiations, in 1972, the Park Service actually purchased 1168 acres of the ranch that bordered the Clark Fork River, subject to Warren's stipulation that the property continue to operate as a working ranch.
Following a period of repairs and addition of infrastructure needed to serve the public, the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site had its grand opening as a park in 1977.
(Photo by Accidental Trailerist http://accidentaltrailerist.blogspot.com/2012/08/grant-kohrs-ranch-national-historic-site.html )
Researched, authored and posted April 22, 2015 by author Patricia Nell Warren
LIVING HISTORY – NEW IDEA. “When Merrill J. Mattes first visited Grant-Kohrs Ranch in 1967 there was already a growing number of so-called living farms around the country. Mattes at that time was a senior historian at the San Francisco Service Center. In response to Conrad Warren's urgings, he and another staff member were assigned to evaluate the ranch resource and to develop a brief analysis of alternatives that might be considered for its preservation and interpretation.
“Mattes noted that, 'The range cattle industry in its frontier aspects, has great popular appeal as attested to by the extent to which the cowboy theme has preempted the literature and entertainment fields. Paradoxically, this theme is not correspondingly well represented in the field of historic site conservation.' Grant-Kohrs, Mattes noted, was one of eight rare examples of old-time cattle ranches that had been identified as qualifying for National Historic Landmark status.
“Mattes thus inspired the basic concept that would influence the long-term development and interpretation at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. Discussions during the legislative hearings for the Site in 1972 directly reflected his thinking for the potential of the ranch. …. Congress meant this to be a living history ranch. As such, it would be, 'the first unit of the National Park System to be devoted primarily to the role of the cattleman and cowboy in American history.'"
Quote from “Grant-Kohrs Ranch Administrative History” at:
http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/grko/adhi/adhi6.htm
(Photos of Grant-Kohrs range riders c. 1900 from Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS archives)
Researched, authored and posted November 20, 2013 by author Patricia Nell Warren
The Deer Lodge Valley abounds with historic bridges. Let's start with the Clark Fork Bridge on the Grant-Kohrs Ranch. It was built in 1930 by Con Warren, utilizing concrete and massive pony trusses. Con was probably replacing a yet older structure built by Kohrs & Bielenberg, as the river had to be crossed in order to access hayfields and pastures on the West Side.
(National Park Service photo. Bridge also listed in the National Register of Historic Places.)
Researched, authored and posted July 26, 2016 by author Patricia Nell Warren
The historic complex of ranch buildings, and all the work and visitor activities, have their hub in the barnyard. Wheels of horse-drawn vehicles, vehicles with combustion engines, and hoofs of cattle and horses, even visitors' shoes, have worn their traffic lanes on their way from one job to the next. The buildings that ring the barnyard range in age from 1860s to 1930s, when Con Warren modernized by adding several new buildings, including the garage/blacksmith shop on the right. (Photo by Donald Kohrs)