Grant-Kohrs Ranch: From Johnny Grant's House to Montana's Cattle King

Who Was Johnny Grant?

The ranch began as a trading post and cattle-recovery operation. The Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame entry says Johnny Grant was born at Fort Edmonton, Alberta, in 1831, settled in Montana in 1859 and began the large house at the ranch's core in 1862. The National Park Service notes that in 1859 about 400 head of his cattle were driven from the Deer Lodge Valley to Sacramento. Grant sold the ranch to Conrad Kohrs in 1866, moved to Canada and died in 1907 near Edmonton.

How Did Conrad Kohrs Build a Cattle Empire?

Kohrs arrived in Montana Territory in 1862 at age 27 as a German immigrant. The Hall of Fame page says that in 1866 he bought Grant's land, herds, buildings and equipment, reported at $19,200. He took a $1 million loan from a Butte bank and repaid it by 1890. By the 1880s he shipped 10,000 head a year by rail to the Chicago stockyards, according to the National Park Service's cattle barons page.

His half-brother and partner John Bielenberg managed the ranch work. The Hall of Fame page credits Kohrs with managing a ten-million-acre cattle empire across four states, a figure that should be read as a reported estimate. The NPS puts the acreage around the home ranch at 22,307 in 1908.

The Hard Winter of 1886 to 1887

The harsh winter of 1886 to 1887 killed most of Kohrs's open-range cattle, and only one herd of purebred Shorthorn bulls survived, per the Hall of Fame. The NPS landscape history says Kohrs saved the ranch by leveraging his assets. He sold all but the Deer Lodge property in 1918 and died in 1920. By the late 1920s his grandson Conrad Warren managed the ranch and rebuilt herds that had dwindled.

Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site Today

The ranch became a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960, and Kohrs's family sold it to the National Park System in 1972, when the park was created. It holds about 1,500 acres, 90 structures, 26,000 artifacts and 100 shelf feet of business records kept since 1866. The Park Service runs it as a living museum with a working ranch, a herd of Hereford, Shorthorn and Longhorn cattle and Belgian and Percheron draft horses, and visitors can tour the Grant-Kohrs House, built by Grant in 1862 and expanded by the Kohrs family.

The Bar U at Its Peak

At its peak the operation covered about 160,000 acres with 30,000 cattle and 1,000 Percheron horses, according to Wikipedia. The part that survives is much smaller: the Parks Canada site covers 148.43 hectares, or 367 acres, and is the central remnant of the original ranch. From 1927 to 1950 the Bar U was part of a group of Burns ranches totaling 700,000 acres, which grew grain as well as cattle and remained among Canada's largest ranching operations.

Buildings and Living History

The buildings are the main draw. The Grant-Kohrs House was one of the finest and largest houses in Montana Territory, and the red barn was added during Conrad Warren's tenure. Bunkhouse Row holds low buildings built for seasonal ranch hands, and the lower ranch yard held fattening pens, haystacks, sheds and granaries. Demonstrations use horse-drawn mowers, rakes and the Beaverslide Hay Stacker, equipment typical of the late 1800s, and a museum storage facility on site holds artifacts and records on ranch and Montana history.

Visit or Learn More

The ranch was inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2008. For more ranching history see the farm.FM ranching section and a farm.FM story about Conrad Kohrs and Montana ranching.