MONTANA CATTLE BARON CONRAD KOHRS

"They were a rugged set of men, these pioneers, well qualified for their self-assumed task. In the pursuit of wealth a few succeeded and the majority failed,...the range cattle industry has seen its inception, zenith, and partial extinction all within a half-century. The changes of the past have been many; those of the future may be of even more revolutionary character." —Conrad Kohrs, 1913

Conrad Kohrs and his friends in the parlor of the main ranch house.

Once a sprawling 10-million-acre cattle ranch, the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historical Site is now open to the public to explore. It is not a petting zoo for cows and horses, nor is it a dude ranch. Nope, it’s a working cattle ranch where cowboys still have chores and work hard every season of the year. The ranch is a unique opportunity to take a glimpse into an important period in taming the Old West.

The Montana gold rush of the 1860s lured many a man to stake his claim, but few realized the lucrative potential of selling beef to the miners in butcher shops at the camps. Miners would pay in gold for a nice, juicy steak after eating beans morning, noon, and night.

Carsten Conrad Kohrs, an immigrant from Germany, may have followed his gold fever from California, to Canada, and finally to Montana in 1862, but he soon discovered the motherload of gold on the hoof and became one of the first Montana cattle barons. He had learned the butcher trade from relatives in New York and Iowa and set up a butcher shop, at first taking advantage of the herds of longhorns driven up from Texas.

The main ranch house was built in 1862 by Johnny Grant
and known as the most beautiful home in Montana Territory.
Conrad Kohrs bought the property in 1866 and added a brick addition in 1890. 

Starting small, Kohrs purchased his first ranch in 1866 from Johnny Grant near Deer Lodge in Montana Territory. At first, he only grazed the cattle sold in his butcher shops, but then his business grew until he was shipping 10,000 head of cattle every year to the Chicago stockyards that supplied beef to most of the country. Eventually, he amassed a cattle empire that ranged over four states and two Canadian provinces.

The range was unfenced, and by the 1870s, the bison had almost been wiped out, and the Native Americans couldn’t fight the onslaught of settlers and cattle ranchers. Cattlemen bred the longhorns that came from a Spanish strain with English shorthorns and helped multiply Kohrs herds.

Cowboys herding cattle on the Kohrs Ranch in 1910

The open grasslands of Montana Territory offered unlimited grazing land. Once a herd overgrazed an area, the cowboys simply moved the herd to new pasture. Feed was plentiful.

By the mid-1880s, raising cattle was so lucrative that foreign investors and Eastern opportunists rushed to Montana to make their fortunes. Raising cattle was big business. Ranches multiplied and herds grew larger until there was not enough grazing land to feed them all.

Then came the deep snows and bitter-cold winter of 1886-87 that wiped out almost half the cattle in Montana. When homesteaders started fencing their 160-acre plots of land with barbwire, it was the beginning of the end for the cattle barons.

Even though the cattle “gold” rush only lasted less than half a century, the pioneering spirit of the cattle ranchers changed the industry forever. Much like small farms, there are still cattle ranchers in Montana who take the risk of making money off the range, but there are none who can rival the cattle barons, especially Conrad Kohrs.

All photos in this post are courtesy of the 

National Park Service and are public domain.

***

Will my hero Buck McKean in Dreams of My Heart become a cattle baron in The Reluctant Brides series? Stay tuned for book 2, Love of My Heart, that releases February 1, 2019.

My feisty Irish bride Kate O'Brien McKean asks her Texas cattleman husband Buck for an annulment in Dreams of My Heart, book 1 of The Reluctant Brides series, setting off a chain reaction of events that endangers them both. The historical romance set in 1875 Montana Territory releases April 1 from Mountain Brook Ink. The e-book is available for preorder on Amazon.

After a career spent acquiring and editing books by numerous bestselling Christian authors, Barbara J. Scott has returned to her true love—writing. Barbara and her husband Mike live in the Nashville area, with their two Chihuahuas, Riley and Sissy, both rescued from puppy mills. Reading, writing, and research are her passions. Want to know more? Connect with Barbara at www.BarbaraJScott.com.

Minnesota Historical Sites - Dakota War Sites part 1

While the eyes of the nation were turned toward the conflict between North and South in 1862, in Minnesota, a Civil War of another kind burst into flames--a war that most people have never learned about.

The Dakota people, who had been quartered on a small strip of land bordering the Minnesota River in the southwest corner of the state, and who had been promised money and provisions for ceding their land, were facing starvation and hardship as those payments were delayed.

Tricked out of their land and deeply in debt to local traders, the Dakota were ripe for an uprising. In the spring of the year, tensions between the traders and the Indians boiled over, and the Dakota embarked on a rampage that laid siege to the state and resulted in the deaths of 400 Minnesota settlers.

The Minnesota Historical Society operates several sites important to preserving the history of the Dakota War of 1862.

At the epicenter of the War is the Redwood Agency, located in the southern part of what was the Dakota Reservation. The Agency was home to many traders (storekeepers,) the Indian Agent, and their families. It was here that many of the promised provisions were warehoused and kept under lock and key while the Agent waited for the annuity payment to arrive so he could parcel out goods and money at the same time.

The Lower Sioux Agency Warehouse
Photo by Erica Vetsch

It was here at the Redwood Agency, the first major attack of the War happened.

When you visit the site today, you'll see the stone warehouse, the layout of the Agency, an education center, and a short walk down to the river and the former site of the Redwood Ferry, where the occupants of the Agency fled, and where a contingent of soldiers from the nearby Fort Ridgely were massacred in a surprise attack.

My son a few years ago, sitting on a massive fallen cottonwood tree (old enough to
have been standing when the Redwood Ferry Battle occurred) on the Minnesota
River at the Lower Sioux Agency Historical Site: Photo by Erica Vetsch

You can learn much more by visiting a website administered by the Minnesota Historical Society at: http://www.usdakotawar.org/ 

Have you heard of the Dakota War? Are you familiar with the sites and the people involved?


HHH bloggers, Gabrielle Meyer, Vickie McDonough, Susan Paige Davis, and me, along with Amanda Barratt, Lorna Seilstad, and Kathleen Y'Barbo Turner are excited to announce the release of:

7 Brides for 7 Texas Rangers 

No One Is Too Tough to be Loved
Join seven Texas Rangers on the hunt for a menacing gang, who run straight into romances with women who foil their plans for both the job and their futures. http://amzn.to/2E5Sfox

Best-selling, award-winning author Erica Vetsch loves Jesus, history, romance, and sports. She’s a transplanted Kansan now living in Minnesota, and she married her total opposite and soul mate! When she’s not writing fiction, she’s planning her next trip to a history museum and cheering on her Kansas Jayhawks and New Zealand All Blacks. You can connect with her at her website, www.ericavetsch.comwhere you can read about her books and sign up for her newsletter, and you can find her online at https://www.facebook.com/EricaVetschAuthor/ where she spends way too much time!