Grant-Kohrs Ranch Historic Resource Study/Historic Structures Report/Cultural Resources Statement

B. Con Kohrs's Early Montana Years

In the late spring of 1862, twenty-seven-year-old Conrad Kohrs arrived in the Deer Lodge Valley enroute to gold diggings farther west in Idaho. To date he had enjoyed a rather

kaleidoscopic career as cabin boy, grocery clerk, river raftsman, sausage salesman, California and Fraser River gold miner, with some experience as butcher and assistant in a brother-in-law's packing plant in Davenport, Iowa. [14]

By the time Kohrs entered the Deer Lodge Valley he was out of funds and almost out of provisions. Then he happened to meet Hank Crawford, and quickly accepted his offer of twenty-five dollars a month to run a butcher shop in the boom town of Bannack. With a borrowed scale, a carpenter's saw, and a bowie knife that he ground down to cut steaks, Kohrs dropped his dreams of a prospecting career and began the work that would lead him into the cattle-raising business. [15]

At Crawford's direction, he picked up three heifers at Cottonwood and headed to Bannack (south of Deer Lodge in extreme southwestern Montana) to set up shop. Almost immediately he took over the books for the shop, purchased cattle to replenish the stock, and received a raise to $100 a month from his grateful boss. Through the summer, fall, and winter Con Kohrs worked for Crawford in a rapidly growing butcher business. The hordes of miners made great demands for meat. Kohrs, searching for beef on the hoof, no doubt received an orientation in the cattle business of the region.

In early spring Kohrs's boss, Crawford, faced a local outlaw named Henry Plummer, but failed to kill him as intended. Fearing Plummer's revenge, Crawford cleared out the cash box and fled. Con Kohrs found himself in business "on my own hook," as he recalled it years later. With no operating funds available, Con

resorted to trading. From Dempsey and Bentley I bought on credit eight yoke of work cattle that had come across the plains from Minnesota. These I took to Deer Lodge and traded to Lewis De Mar and Leon Cannell for fat steers, giving @ two head of cattle for one fat steer. [16]

The business prospered enough that Con Kohrs picked up partners to operate the shops he opened in the various gold camps in western Montana. In Bannack "Kohrs and Myers" sold meat from at least February to June of 1863. [17] By early 1864 Con had formed a partnership with Ben Peel. [18] All the while, Kohrs was building herds on credit, and paying the creditors off as butcher shop proceeds came in. The process experienced some reverses, such as the loss to Indians of a herd Con Kohrs had purchased on credit. [19] While Kohrs's technique was classic, it still required no little business courage and a fine touch for knowing just what debts to pay off and how much money to apply to increasing his growing herds. As he put it in describing one deal, "As usual, I carried quite a sum of money, a part to be applied on my indebtedness and the remainder on another purchase..." [20]

By the summer of 1864, "Con and Peel," the name by which his partnership with Ben Peel was known, owned about 400 head of cattle and some workhorses. They grazed in the Deer Lodge Valley, on a ranch at Race Track, about eight miles south of today's Deer Lodge. (Possibly this ranch was one purchased not much later by Kohrs.) In August Con and Peel augmented their holdings with some "Utah Steers" and then some sheep. [21] Con Kohrs's wealth in cattle and his understanding of the cattle trade kept growing during these first two years of his life in Montana. Significantly, he built his herds and businesses while others prospected for gold. He saw that the money to be made was in the constant demand of the miners for beef, and not in the speculative 'diggings' that could, with apparently equal chance, enrich or impoverish a miner overnight. Not that he had dismissed his earlier desires to mine—his later ventures into mining on a major scale testified to a continued love of mining. But Con Kohrs sensed where the money could be made at the moment, and carefully, industriously, and faithfully stayed with the butcher business and concentrated on building herds to supply it. [22] These animals became the basis of his future cattle business.

During Kohrs's busy gold rush career, his half brothers—John, Charles, and Nick Bielenberg—journeyed to Montana. Kohrs had his brothers running some of the butcher shops. John supervised the shop at Last Chance Gulch (today's Helena), and Nick ran the Blackfoot City shop. Charles, known as Charley, managed the Silver Bow shop first and then moved to Deer Lodge to manage the shop there. [23] Kohrs would remain close to them for the rest of his life in Montana and enter partnerships in mining, sheep, and cattle deals with them from time to time. Yet only John Bielenberg became a full-time Kohrs partner in the cattle business and mining activities and lived with Kohrs and his family. The John Bielenberg-Conrad Kohrs association would encompass the great Kohrs cattle holdings and mining interests, and would last until both men died. It began in 1864, during the gold rush operations of the butcher shops at the mining camps.

Also in 1864 Kohrs met Tom Hooban, "a herder," who helped restore a thoroughly chilled Conrad Kohrs to health after Kohrs fell into the Big Hole River while moving some cattle towards Deer Lodge in the winter of 1864-65. The relationship between Hooban and Kohrs quickly matured into one stronger than that usually found between cattle owner and cowboy. Hooban soon became a most trusted cattle handler, a man who took big herds long distances and sold them without supervision.

By 1865 the various cattle herds in Montana had become a real factor in the infant territory's life. A law regulating marks and brands became effective in January 1865, [24] and Con Kohrs began branding then. His first brand was a "CP" for Con and Peel. [25]

The herds kept growing, both by natural increase and purchase. Years later, Kohrs laconically recalled one major transaction:

I saw in the Spring of '65 that cattle were going to be scarce and I borrowed $12,000 of George Forbes in Virginia City and with it bought $85,000 worth of cattle, buying from different parties and paying enough down to make the trade good. In the Spring of '65 I had all the beef in the country in my hands. [26]

Kohrs kept quite busy during 1865. He ran the busy field aspect of the cattle and butchering business, "selling and collecting through the district where we sold our cattle." He rode so much that he had to assemble a string of twelve horses to meet his needs. The business grew to such an extent that Con and Peel sold their meat shops in Summit, and Peel took charge of the Race Track Ranch, now owned by the partners. They bought seed from Johnny Grant and planted oats and barley. For the crop, put in late, Kohrs and Peel dug an irrigation ditch, the first of many, large and small, that Conrad Kohrs, usually in partnership with others, was to build in the coming years. [27]

The next spring the partners brought in 300 to 400 head of "fine steers" from Walla Walla—purchased in February. Kohrs's description of them, "in fine condition and heavy," attests to the good qualities of the Oregon and Washington cattle even in winter. That same spring Conrad Kohrs dissolved the profitable partnership with Ben Peel, buying out Peel's interests for $17,500 in gold brick. Ben Peel had fallen in love and pursued this interest when its object moved east. [28] Bachelor Kohrs remained.

Later in August 1866 Kohrs purchased the John Grant ranch, whose owner he had known for a good while. In 1864 Kohrs had purchased a horse for $250 from Grant and had enjoyed a good business relationship with him. No doubt Conrad Kohrs saw the Grant ranch as a potential headquarters. In the spring of 1865, a year prior to the eventual purchase, John Grant recalled that

Conrad Kohrs offered me thirty thousand dollars for my place and cattle, but I refused it. But if I had known of a place where I could have moved with my family I would of sold out then for I was very anxious to take my children away from such a rough country as Montana was then. [29]

The death of Grant's wife Quarra, in early 1866, no doubt changed his mind, and a year after the first offer he sold the ranch to Kohrs for $19,200 with $5,000 down. The land was not surveyed, and the title described the property as "my ranch situate on Cottonwood Creek." The herd, by then reduced to about 350 head, probably through Kohrs's earlier purchases, went with the ranch, as did all the equipment, corrals, and haystacks. Grant retained his horses, taking them out of the country in September, and then, Kohrs wrote, "I took possession of my property." [30]

The ranch house (described in more detail in Chapter 2) was described in 1865:

The dwelling house, which is large and two storied, is by long odds the finest in Montana. It appears as if it had been lifted by the chimneys from the bank of the St. Lawrence, and dropped down in Deer Lodge Valley. It has twenty-eight windows, with green-painted shutters, and looks very pretty. [31]

The former Grant Ranch also had corrals, a threshing machine, and outbuildings. It was the largest ranch headquarters in the Deer Lodge Valley. With its acquisition, Kohrs, already the major cattle grower in the valley, became the most prominent rancher in the settled portions of Montana. For the rest of his life he remained as one of the largest and best known stockmen in the territory and State. In August 1866 the purchase of the Grant Ranch provided Kohrs with an operating base. From the ranch house just north of Deer Lodge, in name and fact the "home ranch," he would supervise the varied and dynamic Kohrs and Bielenberg cattle operation and mining activities.

But his ranch purchases were not yet complete. In September, just a month after purchasing the Grant Ranch, he paid $1,000 for "160 acres near Dempsey Creek, west side of Deer Lodge River . . . and known as the Louis Demers Ranch one light horse wagon and all the farming implements and other tools." [32]

The John Grant era in the Deer Lodge Valley had ended. Con Kohrs had come to the area in 1862, broke; yet four years later he owned most of the cattle in the valley, the Race Track, and the Demers and Grant ranches. The era of Conrad Kohrs, or more accurately, Kohrs and Bielenberg, had begun.

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