Grant-Kohrs Ranch Cultural Resources Statement

A. Significance

Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, as an historical park administered by the National Park Service, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as seen in the Federal Register 40, No. 24, Tuesday, 4 February 1975. An examination of the buildings and sites in relation to the National Register criteria can bring the merits of the assemblage of buildings and other structures into clearer focus.

The ranch, because it is intact, possesses certain rarely found qualities, creating a site with considerable integrity. First, most of the buildings from the 19th century remain intact, and with two exceptions, in their original location. And even the two exceptions, the buggy shed and a machine shed, were moved in response to one of the major historical events in the life of the ranch, the construction of the railroad tracks of the Milwaukee Road in 1907. So the quantity of buildings is quite close to being historically accurate, and site integrity is present as well. The nature of the buildings—utilitarian ranch structures built of local materials and displaying vernacular workmanship and design—seems practically to define the criteria on pages I-5 and I-6 of the National Park Service Management Policies (1975). The site is also listed in Prospector, Cowhand, and Sodbuster (National Park Service, 1967) as a historic place "eligible for the registry of national historic landmarks."

The ranch is representative of a major development in American history, the range cattle industry, and thus meets the criteria calling for associations which "outstandingly represent, the broad cultural, political, economic, military, or social history of the Nation . . ." Thus the national significance level automatically gained by the site when it was deemed eligible for national landmark status is deserved.

B. Resources

The following is a list of the structures, sites, and other resources within the park. Detailed information such as exact dimensions, construction materials, and immediate preservation needs of individual structures forms part of the Historical Data section of the Historic Structure Report for the ranch, found later in this report, and will also be reflected in the Architectural Data section of the same report, currently being prepared.

The entire site, while already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has received the attention required to complete the National Register forms, which are on file at Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS.

The structures can be located by number on the Historic Base Map (Map 1).

Historic Structure

C. Historical Objects

Historic objects associated with the ranch number in the hundreds, and are currently being cataloged under contract with the Department of Art, University of Montana. These are, for the most part, furnishings inside the various buildings. There are, however, a few large objects that are outside, in immediate and direct association with the historic structures. These objects merit attention along with the structures themselves. Among such objects are the hoof trimmer, the steam thresher, and feeders.

1. Steam Thresher

Purchased by Con Warren ca. 1950, this object is a large, wheeled, steam-operated International Harvester grain thresher dating from the mid-1930s. It has been in its present location on the west side of Historic Structure 18 since the early 1960s.

2. Hoof Trimmer

This wood frame structure, built of large timbers, was ordered by Con Warren ca. 1950. It consists of a hoist to elevate the bulls to be shown or sold, and clamps to fasten their feet so that the hoofs could be trimmed. Located in the open area just north of the barn (Historic Structure 15) in which the Hereford bulls were housed in the 1940s and 1950s, it has apparently always been in its present location.

3. Self Feeders

Known in other parts of the West as "Creep Feeders," these wooden objects, averaging six feet in length and three and a half feet in height, are filled at the top, and, by gravity, the food falls into trays near the bottom for the cattle to feed from. An unknown number of self feeders were in the ranch's inventory, but at least two are in the pastures at this time.

4. Feed Troughs

At least five small wooden feed trays, or feed boxes, are in the pasture just west of the Kohrs-Manning Ditch. They are wooden, possibly five feet by eighteen inches, are four to six inches deep, and were designed to hold feed for the calves and heifers grazing in the pastures.

5. Farm Machinery

The farm machinery at the ranch is as yet uncataloged, but it soon will be. At that time the material will have to be evaluated.

D. Unnumbered Historical Structures

Some of the historical structures at Grant-Kohrs Ranch defy formal numbering and full identification. Among these structures are the miles of fence lines.

1. Fences

As a working ranch raising a number of different kinds of animals (at least two separate breeds of cattle and three types of horses at any given time), the ranch had many small enclosures, corrals, or feedlots delineated by fences. These fences fall into various categories. The most common is the "Jack-Leg Fence," shown in Illustrations 1, 3, 8, 18, and 20. Essentially this is composed of two vertical notched members crossing at an X. The fence members are then attached to these Xs. The advantages of this kind of fence in an area rich in wood supplies, as is southwestern Montana, are many. The fence follows the lay of the land with ease, and even rots in such a manner that it only needs to be replaced every thirty years. It is easily repaired when necessary. The Jack-Leg is an excellent fence for crossing boggy or wet ground, such as is found in the bottomlands at the ranch and elsewhere in Montana. A variation of this is the "Post and Rider" Jack-Leg fence. This consists of one large vertical member into which a hole is bored about halfway up for a smaller post to fit in at a diagonal. Thus the X almost remains, but is composed of a shape more resembling an X without one of the upper quarters (or an inverted letter Y). The Jack-Leg fence types are often interchanged, and there appears to be no particular benefit except in manufacture; the Post and Rider is easier and cheaper to build and erect.

Other fences at the ranch include the picket fence, of a standard design and painted white, that surrounds the ranch house. Less frequently seen are wire fences. There are a very small number of standard barbed wire fences with wooden fence posts on the ranch. Standard "Post and Pole" fences, such as those delineating the working areas on the north side of the cattle scale (Historic Structure 35), are used at corrals. These fences consist of vertical poles sunk into the ground with horizontal members nailed on them. They usually define working areas or corrals, not large areas like pastures, which are generally Jack-Leg fenced. A final type of fence still extant at the ranch, mostly on the western fringes close to the Deer Lodge River (currently called the Clark Fork of the Columbia River), is the sheep wire fence, a smooth wire fence composed of gradually larger rectangles beginning at the bottom at about three by five inches and proceeding to about five by eight inches at the top.

The fence lines as they lay in 1972, when the National Park Service acquired the land, are close to those shown on the 1907 map (Map No. 1). Until a thorough ground cover study is made, however, the fence lines as they exist now will have to be considered historical. As they now stand, they represent the Warren Era, 1935-72.

2. Irrigation Ditches

Most of the fields and a few portions of the west feedlots contain irrigation ditches along with diversion dams. The ditches, now grassed over, are about eighteen inches wide and ten to twenty feet deep. They have diversion dams every few hundred feet along the way. These dams are composed of rubber impregnated canvas (or a heavy rubber sheet in some cases) attached, as a manuscript is attached on a scroll, to sturdy poles, usually three to four inches in diameter. When flooding is desired in a given area the pole is placed across the ditch and the fabric dropped into the hole, the bottom held by any available nearby stones. The water then rises and spills over the edge or out of vents in the low berm along the ditch cut with a shovel. When not in use, the portable diversion dams are thrown alongside the ditch.

3. Underground Water Systems

There were numerous attempts to drain off excess groundwater from the lower elevations of the ranch during the active years of its operations. Remnants of these attempts remain in the form of buried wooden pipes, or boxes, roughly square, with access points spaced along them. One such system, just one of perhaps fifteen or twenty, is described in some detail in the Historic Structure Report portion of this study. In addition, pipes fed water to various barns and to the ranch and bunkhouses. The system to the ranch house included a hydraulic ram that brought water in from the Kohrs-Manning Ditch.

Until the ground water level is reduced, it will not be possible to test the ground archeologically in order to determine the exact trace of the subterranean water systems. They are a recognizable part of the historical resources, however, and, once determined, should be given a historic structure number. Any ground disturbance is likely to intercept some of these drain systems, and considerable care should be taken during any excavations.

4. The Historical Scene

A vital resource at Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS is the historical scene as it exists today. The relationships of the fence lines to the ranch activities and of buildings to feedlots, pastures, corrals, squeeze chutes, irrigation ditches, the cattle scale, and the beef hoist are, in themselves, a vital resource of the park. The arrangement of the fence lines is no accident. The placement of the various feed sheds within the lots, and of the feed racks on the fences, reflects the exact purpose of that portion of the ranch. The lanes delineated by the fences were placed thusly to facilitate the moving and separation of cattle—the "working" of the stock. The relationships of building to pasture, building and structure to fence line, and the juxtaposition of the buildings themselves are possibly the vital resource at the park.

Introduction
Historic Resource Study | Cultural Resources Statement | Historic Structure Report