Deer Lodge
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Deer Lodge

Deer Lodge

Small Montana valley town known for the Old Montana State Prison and Grant-Kohrs Ranch.

Deer Lodge sits in a wide valley between the Flint Creek and Highland mountain ranges, a small Montana town with a disproportionately interesting past. It is the county seat of Powell County and home to around 3,000 people.

The main draw is the Old Montana State Prison, right at the south end of Main Street. The original prison operated from 1871 to 1979, and the old cellblock is now a museum complex that includes an automobile museum, a frontier Montana museum, and a theatre. It is genuinely fascinating — the crumbling cell tiers and guard towers make for an atmospheric visit. At the north end of town, Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site preserves a complete 19th-century cattle operation run by the National Park Service.

Deer Lodge was also once a division headquarters for the Milwaukee Road railroad before its abandonment in 1980, and railroad history still marks the town. Main Street is now a historic district of well-preserved late-Victorian commercial buildings. The surrounding valley offers good fishing on the Clark Fork River and access to the mountains for hiking and hunting.

Guide

Day Trips

Anaconda (40 km south) — a copper-smelter town with a 585-foot brick smokestack visible for miles, a restored 1898 Hearst Free Library, and the Washoe Theater (a 1936 Art Deco cinema regularly rated one of the most beautiful in the United States).

Butte (75 km southeast) — the most fascinating small city in Montana, built on the "richest hill on earth" of the late 19th century copper boom and still recognisably the company town it was a hundred years ago. Berkeley Pit, the World Museum of Mining and the Uptown Historic District easily fill a day.

Philipsburg (70 km west) — a restored Victorian mining town with sapphire-mining operations open to visitors and a well-known candy store on Broadway.

Garnet Ghost Town (60 km northwest, off I-90) — one of Montana's best-preserved ghost towns, a 1890s gold-mining camp left almost untouched after the mines closed.

Missoula (100 km northwest) — Montana's third-largest city, a university town with an active cultural calendar and the access point for the Bitterroot and Blackfoot rivers.

Guide

Getting There

Deer Lodge sits on Interstate 90 between Butte (75 km southeast) and Missoula (100 km northwest). Both cities have small commercial airports with regional connections, and either makes a sensible base for a fly-and-drive trip. Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport is around 280 km southeast and has more frequent flights from major US hubs.

Greyhound runs limited daily service on the I-90 corridor with a stop in Deer Lodge, but a car is essential for getting to Grant-Kohrs Ranch outside town and for exploring the surrounding valley. The 1909 BNSF (formerly Northern Pacific) station downtown is no longer served by Amtrak — the Empire Builder runs the northern route, well to the north. Local parking is free.

Guide

Things to Do

Deer Lodge's two main attractions sit at opposite ends of Main Street: the Old Montana Prison at the south end (cellblocks, guard towers, four small museums on one ticket) and Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site at the north end (a preserved 19th-century cattle ranch run by the Park Service). Between them, the Central Business Historic District offers a walk through a remarkably intact run of late-Victorian commercial buildings. The Clark Fork River runs through town and offers good upper-river trout fishing in summer. The surrounding valley and the Flint Creek Range to the west open up serious back-country for those with their own gear.