JOHN M. BOARDMAN
Researched, authored and posted May 12, 2015 by author Patricia Nell Warren
John M. Boardman was an important son-in-law of the Kohrs family. Descendant of New England colonists, his father owned a sawmill in Dixon, Illinois. Born in 1855, young John first worked in Marshall, Field, & Co., of Chicago, where he got his business management training. In 1879, eager to seek their fortunes in the West, 24-year-old Boardman and a friend, Milton E. Milner, rode a steamboat up the Missouri to Fort Benton.
Starting as cowboys, the two shortly were partners in their own cow outfit, Milner & Boardman. In the 1880s, fierce wars with the Plains tribes ceased and eastern Montana opened up to cattle grazing. Boardman eventually merged his interests into an expanded Milner Livestock Co., with his friend Milton as president and himself as vice president and general manager. Headquartered on the Shonkin-Square Butte range, the operation had numerous investors and large herds of cattle. Like other ranches in the state, Milner and Boardman had heavy livestock losses during the severe winter of 1886-87.
In 1889, when Montana became a state, Boardman went into politics. Chouteau County elected him to the first state legislature of Montana. There, in Helena, he connected with Conrad Kohrs, who represented Deer Lodge County. This led to his courtship of the Kohrses' oldest daughter Anna. The Hon. Boardman and Anna were married in the Presbyterian Church in Deer Lodge in 1891.
Since Boardman was a “progressive cattleman” in his own right, and Con Kohrs was slowing down with various ailments, Boardman left the association with Milner and became general manager of the entire Kohrs-Bielenberg range operation. It's said he had innovative ideas for livestock management following the region's heavy winter losses in the late 1880s.
John Bielenberg, also aging now, remained in charge of the home ranch at Deer Lodge.
In 1898, in Dawson County, Conrad Kohrs and John Bielenberg bought the N Bar N Ranch’s range headquarters on Prairie Elk Creek. Kohrs and Bielenberg's Pioneer Cattle Company made Prairie Elk their own headquarters for eastern-Montana operations on some deeded land and large grazing leases on federal lands there. Large-scale co-op roundups operated out of Prairie Elk, involving several ranches in the region -- the "Malta pool." The Boardman couple stayed there in the frame ranch-house, part of every year, for some years. The 1900 census shows their official residence to be in Helena.
About the same time, Kohrs-Bielenberg also purchased a nearby Dawson County ranch, the 14. It had over 11,000 acres of excellent native grass and deep rich soil, watered by Wolf Creek and Redwater Creek. In 1903-07, John Boardman did extensive irrigation engineering on this ranch, including the Boardman Ditch, which still operates today and bears his name. It's possible that future Kohrs & Bielenberg plans for eastern Montana might have included dryland grain farming and irrigated haying on this ranch, as part of the new policy of ensuring that every ranch grew feed to get their cattle through the harsh high-plains winters.
In 1904, Boardman was elected president of the Northern Montana Roundup Association.
After the untimely 1901 death of the Kohrses son Will, however, with the eastern Montana public grazing lands rapidly being occupied and fenced by homesteaders, Con Kohrs’ failing health and the family’s involvement in the Anaconda smelter pollution lawsuit, circumstances prompted the Kohrs/Bielenberg downsizing. During this period, the Boardmans evidently continued to reside in Dawson County, where John was elected state senator. He served in the Montana legislative session in 1913.
In 1919 Dawson County was divided, with part of it bordering the Missouri being established as McCone County. This included Prairie Elk Creek and its range headquarters. John and Anna Boardman had purchased some additional land of their own in what was now McCone County.
At some point, however, as part of the ranch’s overall land dispersion, the Kohrs & Bielenberg eastern Montana holdings were sold. The Boardmans moved to Helena to be close to the rest of the family.
After Conrad Kohrs died in 1920, and John Bielenberg died in 1922, John Boardman took on extra management duties of the home ranch and the estate -- till April 1924, when he died. He was 69 years old. He and Anna had had no children.
Anna Boardman continued to live in their brick Victorian home at 702 Madison Ave., close by her mother and sister. She died in 1958, and is buried beside her husband in Forestvale Cemetery in Helena.
In Dawson County today, the old 14 Ranch near Richey is still intact as a property. At the time of its recent sale to a new owner, it was called the Waters Ranch, and had been purchased by a Waters ancestor in 1934. It raises both cattle and wheat, and still owns the 14 brand. Irrigation works developed by Boardman on this ranch are still in use, including the Boardman Ditch, which bears his name.
The historic Prairie Elk ranch structures were still in existence until the 1930s, when the area was burned over by a wildfire. When Con Warren and Patricia Warren visited the site in the 1980s, accompanied by McCone County historian Polly Wischmann, only the blacksmith shop remained standing. Its door-frame was still visibly marked with brands of the Malta pool -- evidence that new branding-irons had been made there and tried out on the wood. Elsewhere the ranch had been reduced to charred foundations and rubble.
-- Patricia Nell Warren
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Boardman census information at http://www.familytreenow.com/search/census/results…
Information on the 14 Ranch, with mention of John Boardman and album of beautiful photographs:
http://www.landsofamerica.com/…/11500-acres-in-Da…/id/959713
More information on Boardman and Milner at
http://fortbenton.blogspot.com/…/from-bison-to-beef-open-ra…
Boardman’s involvement in Grant-Kohrs management:
http://www.nps.gov/hist…/history/online_books/…/hrs/hrs4.htm
(Photo from GRKO archives)