Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site

Grant-Kohrs Ranch is a working National Park Service unit on the north edge of Deer Lodge that preserves a complete 19th-century Montana cattle operation. The 1862 ranch house, the bunkhouses, the blacksmith shop, the barns and corrals are all original; rangers and volunteers run draft horses, milk cows and demonstrate ranch work in season.

The visitor centre puts the place in context — the boom of the open range, the Texas-to-Montana trail drives, the closing of the frontier — and a marked walking route through the ranch yards takes 1-2 hours. Free entry, open daily. The cottonwood-lined Clark Fork River runs along the back of the property and adds to the setting.

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A story
Conrad Kohrs ran one of the largest cattle operations in the American West from this ranch in the 1880s, with grazing rights across 10 million acres and a herd of 50,000. The brutal winter of 1886-87 — the same "Big Die-Up" that ended the open-range era across the West — killed most of his cattle and ended that style of ranching. The National Park Service took over the ranch in 1972 with most of its original buildings still standing, livestock still running, and four generations of family papers in the desk drawers.