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

A. The Stock

The home ranch served as the headquarters for the range cattle herds, and supported the purebred stock that was used in upgrading the range herds. The equine stock at the home ranch served as the core of the remudas used in the range operations and provided both race and draft horses for the ranch and for public sale. The bull business, run carefully by John Bielenberg almost to the moment of his death, [1] also accounted for much of the daily stock raising routine. The ranch always had cattle and horses (with varying breeds among each often present), as well as the normal complement of dogs and chickens. It was somewhat different from many Montana ranches in that it also fostered a sizeable turkey population. [2]

Kohrs and Bielenberg are well known in Montana cattle history for their early efforts to introduce purebred stock into the territory. Many credit them with being the first; surely they were among the first. [3] The Kohrs and Bielenberg Short Horn Breeding Journal (reproduced in condensed form as Appendix 9) carries numerous entries noting cattle born to the herd in 1871. Other entries, most heavy in the decade of the 1870s, show that the herd's numbers grew by importation, mostly from Iowa and Illinois, and that animals were added to the herd until the mid-1880s. The Short Horns were a major source of upgrading stock for the range cattle herds.

An 1881 letter from Con Kohrs to his daughter (Appendix 10) is written on Stationery with the letterhead "Kohrs and Bielenberg, Breeders of Short Horn Cattle, Thoroughbred, Clydesdale, and Coach Horses." Assuming that this accurately reflected the types of animals at the ranch in 1881, then there were one kind of purebred bovine as well as racing, riding, coach, and draft horses. By 1884 the ranch enjoyed milk from Ayrshire cattle as well. Kohrs and Bielenberg even entered Ayrshires in the 1884 Territorial Fair.

Within a matter of only two to four years, more blooded stock had been added to the home ranch. M. A. Leeson"s History of Montana, published in the late 1880s, contains an illustration of the home ranch carrying the caption "Residence of Conrad Kohrs, Deer Lodge, Mont. Kohrs and Bielenberg, Breeders of Short-Horn & Hereford Cattle, Thoroughbred, Clydesdale, Percheron-Norman, and Coach Horses" (see Illustration 3). Dating this view at about 1885—and it is probably no later than that—it is inferable that Kohrs and Bielenberg had imported some Hereford cattle and Percherons (draft horses). By this date, the home ranch housed two distinct breeds of cattle of English origin and one breed of riding/racing horses (thoroughbreds), two types of draft horses, and coach horses. Presumably at this time the western quarter horse also formed part of the equine stock at the ranch. It is almost inconceivable that it did not, but no definitive proof has yet been noted—except the comment in a letter dated 1887 that "we have got twice the number of cattle Con Kohrs has here [on the DHS ranges] & our expense has not been twice as much. We have had to buy horses & he has raised his." [4] The horses in use on the range would have been quarter horses, possibly with an additional thoroughbred strain. Both John and Con, but most especially John Bielenberg, were devoted animal breeders and it is likely that the horses they raised at the home ranch for the ranges represented the best mix of horse breeds they could blend.

An advertisement in The New Northwest is the next piece of definitive evidence that has surfaced dealing with stock at the ranch. The notice, posted in May and June of 1887, just as the full extent of the disaster of the previous winter was making itself known, listed a third type of English-origin cow at the ranch. It offered

About 40 head of cross-bred Polled Angus and Short Horn Heifers. Also a lot of cross-bred Hereford and Short Horn Heifers. It being a condition of such lease that the lease shall have good range, sufficient hay and facilities to keep the breeds distinct. [5]

Obviously, then, Kohrs and Bielenberg had Polled Angus cattle on hand, at least in limited numbers, by 1887. Yet the Polled Angus has not been commonly associated with the ranch in family tradition or in the many references to Kohrs and Bielenberg in publications about the cattle empire. Presumably, then, the strain did not represent a major Kohrs and Bielenberg effort, although it was present at the ranch in the spring of 1887 along with the Short Horns and Herefords.

The 1893 Kohrs and Bielenberg Stock Farm Catalog (Appendix 6) lists thirty one thoroughbred horses. Whether all were for sale, or whether they were advertised for breeding only, was not stated. The number of horses advertised, however, shows the considerable size of the thoroughbred business at the ranch.

No other types of cattle were introduced by Kohrs and Bielenberg, but another type of draft horse, the Belgian, was added. The exact date it was brought in is not known. Belgians were there during the caretaker period of the 1920s along with the Hereford herd. Most of the Short Horns had long since blended in with the commercial herd or had been sold, so that when Con Warren took over active management of the ranch in 1932, only two distinct breeds—Hereford cattle (the Helena herd) and a few Belgian mares—were present. No doubt the appropriate number of utilitarian riding and work horses were there too. Warren introduced no new breeds, but, as noted in Chapter VI, upgraded the quality of the existing herds.

Family tradition adds another breed of draft horses to the ranch -- Shires, [6] a large English draft horse originally from central England. They arrived after 1885, the approximate date of the M. A. Leeson illustration. Apparently Shires formed part of the ranch's equine stock in 1906.

The stock-carrying capacity of the home ranch at the height of its productivity is not known exactly. Because portions of the pastures included in the ranch were naturally well watered, while others were somewhat dry and still others were richly irrigated, the usual figures of acres-per-cow do not apply very well. Con Warren suggested that the home ranch never carried more than 1,500 cows in its pastures. Using this figure, and recognizing that Kohrs and Bielenberg had breeding stock, both horses and cattle, for sale at all times, an accurate estimate might be that the home ranch held possibly 2,000 cattle of all types and perhaps 150 to 200 horses.

Until the Warren era, the ranch did not primarily raise commercial cattle, but instead sold horses and cattle for breeding purposes—the cattle to upgrade the range herds and the horses to be used in range cattle operations. During the Warren era, both commercial and breeding cattle and draft horses added to the economic base of the ranch. And for most of the 1930s a small dairy herd of Guernseys and Durhams even formed part of the stock assets of the establishment.

The development of the herds at the home ranch paralleled the changes taking place throughout the West. Short Horns, the first of the purebred cattle, were introduced after the breed had established itself as the dominant one in America. (While Con Kohrs can be called a pioneer because he was among the very first to bring Short Horns into Montana, the breed was quite well established in the midwest and Canada when he decided to upgrade his Montana herds.) Herefords had proved their value in Kansas in the late 1860s and early 1870s, but did not be come nationally important until the 1880s, the years Kohrs and Bielenberg introduced them into Montana. Like the rest of the serious breeders among American stock-raisers Con and John experimented with crossbreeds -- Herefords and Short Horns—and with some of the lesser known types, such as Polled Angus, during the 1880s.

By the turn of the century, and certainly by the end of their first decade here, the Herefords had established their supremacy in the American West. By then the number of Short Horns at the home ranch had dwindled and the Helena herd of Herefords had become the largest prime quality herd. A few Short Horns remained, however, until as late as 1919, when they were sold off. As the 20th century progressed, and ranchers throughout America strove to strengthen the good qualities of their Herefords, Con Warren moved in exactly the same direction. His Herefords gained national recognition as one of the Northwest's finest herds, firmly establishing Warren's position in the mainstream of stockraising in America in mid-century. Con Warren's cattle were among the very best of the standard breed, emphasizing his link with John Bielenberg and Con Kohrs, who also succeeded in building herds of the very best quality. There is another trait common to these three stockmen, and that is the pride that both generations took in their animals beyond the mere recognition that the herds formed the core of the ranch's economic life. That pride was also the result of hard work with the animals, the great amounts of capital lavished on them, and the closeness to the animals brought about by intense daily contact.

"Regent," "Strideaway," and "Leeds-Lion" lived in memory at the home ranch long after they had ceased their active lives there. "The Duke of Deer Lodge," "Horace Greely," and "Cambridge Wild Eyes" received both economic attention and real devotion from Conrad Kohrs and John Bielenberg.

Con Warren's attachment to his fine stock is apparent as well in his reminiscences of "Bloc II de Nederswalm of Antwerp" and his other fine Belgian horses. "Prince Blanchard the Fifth" and other Herefords remain an important part of the legend, as strongly remembered today as they were precisely and energetically cared for in their lifetimes.

The particular mix of feelings towards the animals was an individual thing with each man. But each rancher was cognizant of the same two truths: That the animal must pay and be economically worthwhile, and, equally important, that working with them was an immensely satisfying experience.

Ranching is hard and chancy work. It requires strong determination from its participants. And that devotion is inextricably tied up with the stock that forms the core of the ranching effort. This was as true at the ranch in Deer Lodge as anywhere else. Indeed, both generations at the home ranch led their peers in animal development and improvement, and their closeness to their herds might well have been correspondingly stronger than that felt by their contemporaries.

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