Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/20776
Heritage DEPARTMENT OF THE GRANT-KOHRS RANCH THE ARTFUL TREASURES BY ELLEN BAUMLER PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE GRANT-KOHRS RANCH AND NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Conrad Kohrs continued to use Johnny Grant’s “G Hanging J” brand long after he purchased the ranch. Nineteenth-century Victorian sensibilities and the Montana ranching frontier harmonize in the artistic treasures of the Grant-Kohrs Ranch at Deer Lodge. The National Park Service today operates this National Historic Site, once the heart of Montana’s cattle ranching industry, and maintains 88 ranch buildings, family archives, and more than 23,000 artifacts from the 1860s to the 1960s. The splendid collection includes everything from saddles to sewing needles. The historic home, completely furnished, has been beauti- fully restored. Ranch founder Johnny Grant drove the first cattle into the Deer Lodge valley to winter there in 1857. He returned in 1859 with 250 horses and 800 head of cattle to settle permanently. Grant, a Métis of French, Indian, and Scottish descent, acquired his stock in trade with immigrants along the Oregon Trail at Fort Hall, near present-day Pocatello, Idaho. His father, Richard Grant, was the well-known factor there. Grant brought his Bannock wife Quarra, his several other wives, and their many children to settle in the valley. 42 Johnny Grant Others followed. Indians, Mexicans, whites, and French- speaking Canadian Métis like Johnny himself made an ethnically diverse settlement. In the fall of 1862, Grant built the present clapboard home with 26 expensive, green-shuttered glass windows, an unheard of luxury. A visitor noted that the house looked as if Grant plucked it from the banks of the St. Lawrence River and deposited it on the frontier. An anomaly among his neighbors’ tipis and log cabins, the Grants’ generous hospitality was widely renowned. The fam- ily lived on the second floor and Grant’s trading post was on the first floor. Grant’s worth stood at half a million dollars, a symbol of Métis prosperity, but as the decade wore on, he began to suffer losses. Gold discovered earlier that year at Grass- hopper Creek and at Alder Gulch in 1863 upset the cultural balance. Racial tension between the valley residents and newcom- ers ended the days when neighbors were tolerant of other cultures and inter-racial marriages. DISTINCTLY MONTANA • WINTER 2011