Grant Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site

Cowboys and Cattlemen

Wide open spaces, the hard-working cowboy, his spirited cow pony, and vast herds of cattle are among the strongest symbols of the American West, especially in Montana. In 1972 Congress set aside Grant Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site as a working cattle ranch that preserves these symbols and commemorates the role of cattlemen in American history and the wealth attained by cattle barons.

Cattle were introduced to the American Southwest by the Spanish in the early 1500s. British colonists brought cattle to North America’s East Coast in the 1600s. Water and land made the difference between farming methods in the East and the open range methods of the West. In the East abundant rainfall created pastures that could support large herds of cattle. Some western lands received fewer than 10 inches of rainfall a year and required more than 100 acres to sustain each cow.

Before barbed wire, cattle barons couldn’t fence enough acreage to support their livestock. Instead, a system of open range grazing evolved in Montana. Cattle were turned out on public land and left to graze wherever they found grass. Limited in their roaming only by rivers, rough country, or waterless stretches, the cattle might spread over a million acres. Cattle from many owners mingled, leading to the establishment of roundup associations and grazing districts. As the open range system expanded north from its roots in the Southwest, American cowboys learned herding, roping, and other skills from the Spanish vaquero, even adapting that word to buckaroo.

Cattle Barons – a New Breed of Entrepreneur

In the mid-1800s news of mining, timber, land, and business opportunities brought a flood of immigrants and fortune seekers west. Completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 helped expand growing industries. Burgeoning towns in the West and East needed food, and a new style of businessman took hold – the western cattle baron. In 1859 Johnny Grant drove 400 head of cattle from Deer Lodge Valley to Sacramento, California. By the 1880s Conrad Kohrs was shipping 10,000 head of cattle annually by rail to the stockyards in Chicago. But the rapid expansion of the cattle industry had its problems. Harsh weather, disease, rustling, economic fluctuations, homesteaders, and fencing all took their toll on what had begun as a get-rich-quick scheme.

True cattlemen adapted. Each state had its stockgrowers association, and a national cattlemen’s association looked after their interests in Washington, D.C. Research determined the causes of devastating cattle diseases, and new vaccines decreased losses from blackleg, Texas fever, and other diseases. State and national legislation and programs came to regulate the cattle industry. Land management changed, too, and grazing on public land, which had been free in the boom years, became subject to grazing fees. As the West became settled, fenced, and farmed, many open range cattle outfits faded away. Yet, even today, cattle graze on hundreds of thousands of acres of public and private land in the West – and the American cowboy still rides.

Jesse Chisholm 1805-1868

Scot-Cherokee, renowned Indian interpreter, trader. Chisholm traveled to his trading posts on the trail that became his namesake. This trail carried nearly half of all cattle driven from Texas to Kansas.

Oliver Loving 1812-1867

Trader, pioneer of cattle drives. Loving sent longhorns to a Northern market in 1858. This venture a financial success, he traded for more cattle, building large herds for market.

Charles Goodnight 1836-1929

Cowboy turned cattle baron, founder of JA Ranch in Texas, inventor of the chuck wagon. In 1866 Goodnight and Loving, 18 cowboys, and 2,000 longhorns blazed a new trail from Texas to Denver.

Capt. Richard King 1824-1885

Livestock capitalist, founder of King Ranch in Texas. During the Civil War he supplied beef and provisions to the Confederates. Flush with war profits King amassed nearly one million acres of range land.

John Chisum 1824-1884

Capitalist. His empire extended 150 miles along the Pecos River in New Mexico. By 1875 more than 80,000 cattle bore his famous Jinglebob earmark – a notch that split the ear, causing a portion to dangle.

John Wesley Iliff 1831-1878

Merchant, cattleman, banker. In the 1870s his business sold beef to railroad crews, miners, and Indian agencies. At the peak of his empire he could ride all week (one way) without leaving his ranch lands.

Granville Stuart 1834-1918

Owner with partners of DHS Ranch. In 1883 Kohrs and Bielenberg bought a major part of DHS Ranch, the largest cattle deal to date in Montana. Stuart’s journals included drawings of Montana life.

Theodore Roosevelt 1858-1919

Roosevelt was 25 when he visited North Dakota in 1883 on a hunting trip. While there he was captivated by the open-range cattle business and invested in the Maltese Cross Ranch. He returned in 1884 and bought his own spread, Elkhorn Ranch.