User:Jwilsonjwilson/drafts/Montana Cattle Industry

Montana Cattle Industry

Branding Cattle, ca 1888

The presence of cattle is first recorded in the area which would later become Montana, in the western intermountain valleys in the 1840's. These cattle were used to supply many products and services needed locally. In addition, they were traded with immigrants traveling west, usually on the Oregon Trail. This constituted the first incarnation of Montana's cattle industry, which then became the latest instance of a regional cattle industry as were being established throughout the new world in the wake of the wave of immigration then sweeping over the Americas.

Cattle are not native to the western hemisphere. So far as is known, cattle were first introduced into the new world ancillary to the Spanish conquest. These cattle formed the basis for herds which roamed on the land-grant ranchos of the Spanish grandees, tended largely by slave labor derived from the conquered native americans. The cattle supplied meat, hides, candle-wax, milk and other products to the Spanish settlors and soldiers. They were also used for heavy labor in pulling loads, turning grist mills and other things. The resulting economic traffic evolved into a cattle industry, the first known example of that in the new world.

Over the next 400 years, cattle from these and subsequent importations in many places spread throughout most of the Americas, following European and Asian immigrants as they occupied the land. And as herds were established in areas, cattle industries emerged in those areas. So it was in Montana starting around 1850.

When the gold rush reached the Montana area in the early 1860's, a nearby market for beef quickly emerged. This drove rapid expansion of the western herds as well as expansion onto the eastern plains. Herds began to be imported from other areas, such as Oregon and Texas. With the advent of large trail drives, Montana entered the era of the cowboy. Rail transport in the United States began to penetrate what was by then Montana Territory in the 1880's, effectively opening distant markets for Montana cattle and marking the beginning of the end for trail drives. The Montana Stockgrowers Association was formed. The aftermath of the disastrous winter of 1886-87 sounded the death-knell for the open range and the trail drive era, and for the predominance of cattle on Montana's ranges.

After this, the Montana cattle industry settled into a long period characterized by large stable ranches and smaller ranches which came and went with economic cycles, in eastern and western Montana. After 1887, sheep and horse ranching became increasingly competitive for range space. Indeed in 1900 Montana was the nation’s number 1 producer of wool. 1900-1916 was a period of abnormally high precipitation in Montana. This coincided with a drive by railroads for more business and the advent of dryland farming techniques to trigger a homesteading boom in the state beginning in about 1908. Homesteaders took over prime lands from ranchers who had not established actual title to them, and employed the deep plowing techniques of dryland farming to these lands. When general drought set in in 1918 and crop prices plummeted following the conclusion of World War I, the lands ceased to be sufficiently productive to support the homesteaders and they staged a mass exodus. In their wake they left topsoil no longer bound by the deep roots of prairie grasses and the northern plains experienced their first dust bowl, into the mid 1920's. After a respite in the later 1920's, severe drought prevailed through most of the Great Depression. Established ranchers were usually able, with help from the government, to weather these adverse times. In the 1970's, large energy companies brought up mineral rights in eastern Montana ranches and reservations with the intent to strip mine for coal. In about the 1980's, various factors (taxes, children not wanting to run ranches anymore, the price of beef, advent of feedlots, etc.) began to make ranch ownership less attractive for the descendants of the original ranchers, and ranches increasingly were sold to outsiders of means, who wanted them for various reasons. This trend is ongoing. There is also a movement gathering momentum to return substantial tracts of land to their pre-ranching era condition.

What Went Before

Written histories of the land which was to become Montana really begin with the large-scale arrival of Europeans around 1860. Prior to this time, the land was the province of Native American tribes and the buffalo, with occasional Europeans passing through. However, once the Europeans came they transformed Montana in an astonishingly short period of time. This was possible because of development and events in other places and times which were then applied in Montana.

Beef and Englishmen

The association of humans and cattle goes back a very long time and has been of great importance to people. At Lascaux cave in France are prominent depictions of cattle in the Great Hall of the Bulls, which date from about 17,000 years ago. A great sweep of paintings across the cave ceiling has been interpreted to represent summer night sky constellations as seen in that time. The stars of the constellation Taurus are represented there by a bull, as in our own time.

The wild Aurochs were the main ancesters of modern cattle. Over time these were domesticated and utilized for many things, including milk, meat, hides, tallow, work animals and so on. As Montana's modern cattle industry is principally concerned with the production of meat, we concentrate on that.

Through most of history, meat from cattle (henceforth beef) was fairly lean. Cattle were fed mostly on grass. In about the 18th Century, Europeans began noticing that feeding grain to cattle enhanced the 'marbling' or fattyness of the resultant beef. The beef thus produced was considered to be tastier than the leaner cuts and hence more desirable.

The English were the most affluent Europeans of the time, with their far-flung empire and separation from the rest of Europe by the English channel. And the English were mad for beef. Even to this day the Yeomen Warders guards at the Tower of London are popularly called Beefeaters. To facilitate the availablity of beef, Scotland and Ireland had been substantially converted to cattle ranches and grain production farms.

The Durham Ox

Around 1800, as the English became aware of the taste superiority of marbled beef, it became fashonable among the landed gentry to compete in the production of the most desirable cattle. This roughly translated to the most weight of highly marbled beef on an individual cow. The Durham Ox was an early and famous example of this development, development which resulted in the Shorthorn breeds of today. The weight of the Ox was such that it could barely support itself and eventually had to be slaughtered after breaking its hip.

As the 19th Century progressed, the opening of western North American lands for agriculture coupled with technological advancements opened the possibility that North American beef might successfully compete on the English market. At the same time (starting in 1865), cattle herds in Britain and continental Europe were decimated by a plague of rinderpest, from which they would not fully recover for nearly 25 years. In Britain alone, losses were estimated at 420,000 head. Across Europe, loss estimates ran as high as 200 million.

Types of Cattle

From about 1850 onward, the cattle giving rise to stock in modern Montana were brought in. They were of 2 general types: European Shorthorns and Texas Longhorns. In Montana as in other beef producing states these were interbred to emphasize desirable characteristics while de-emphasizing undesirable ones.

European Shorthorns

Shorthorn calf

Shorthorns derived from the stocks preferred by the British for producing meat and dairy. They were imported mainly via the eastern seaboard of North America starting in the 17th Century. By 1640 substantial herds existed in Virginia and New York. They were large and docile as a rule.

Texas (Spanish) Longhorns

These were the descendents of Andalusan cattle imported to Mexico by the Spaniards, starting in 1521. They were much more wiry and aggressive than the shorthorns, which gave them a survival advantage but rendered them less desirable as beef producers. Also, they were prime carriers of Texas tick fever, to which they had acquired immunity.

Spanish Grandees and Their Cattle

Until 1836, the entirety of what is now the American Southwest was the territory first of Spain (New Spain) and, after 1821, Mexico. Yankee settlers arriving after about 1820 took up landgrants from the Mexican government, which wished to encourage immigration to the area. In 1836, those same settlers under Sam Houston defeated the Mexican government forces under Antonio López de Santa Anna and established the independent country of Texas. Mexican grandees abandoned their ranchos in Texas, leaving their cattle to the Yankee Texans. These cattle continued to multiply and were quite numerous by the time of the American Civil War. Great herds of them were driven north after 1865 to populate grazing lands as far away as Alberta, Canada. Many of Montana's original cattle came via these drives.

The Oregon Trail

The lands which today comprise the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, plus much of British Columbia and parts of Montana and Wyoming, were up until 1846 contained in 'The Oregon Country', jointly claimed by the United States and Britain. Likewise, what is now the American southwest (excluding Texas) including California was the territorial property of the then recently established nation of Mexico, until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo terminated the Mexican-American War. Starting in about 1840, Yankee pioneers began traveling by this route to the Oregon Country and California. At first they were a trickle, but by about 1845 they had become a torrent. The would-be settlers brought along their laden wagons, drawn usually by oxen. They often also had a milk cow or two and perhaps other cattle as well. These cattle were the original stock for herds in Oregon, Washington and northern California.

The trail was long and the horses and cattle brought by the settlers would often be worn out well before reaching their destination. This was a trading opportunity for enterprising mountain men and former fur trappers who lived in the area of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, who would exchange fattened cattle for the settler's worn out ones. In this way, herds of cattle were brought into being in Montana.

The California Gold Rush

1849, the days of gold! Gold seekers stampeded to California from far and wide, rapidly expanding the population. As placer fields in California played out, the hoards of prospectors fanned outward into the surrounding areas seeking new strikes. By 1860, gold seekers had begun to drift into the mountains of western Montana.

A Short Agricultural History of the Westward Expansion of the United States

In the year after the United States Constitution went into effect, 1790, the United States consisted of 13 states which had formerly been the 13 colonies, and various territories. Most of the population of European extraction lived on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountain chain. Much of the land of the newly-minted country was in the hands of the Federal government. The question arose of how and how much of this land was to be transferred into private hands.

United States Territorial Aquisitions

A Humid Land with Bountiful Forests

At the 49th parallel of lattitude (border with Canada), successful production of good harvests with crop varieties used in the United States of the 19th century requires at least 15 inches of precipitation during the year. Furthermore this moisture must be supplied at critical times in the growing season. In order to assure meeting these critera most years, the precipitation average should be at least 20 inches per year. This is adjusted upward as one goes south to account for increasing evaporation with higher average temperatures and varying average wind conditions.

The 98th meridian runs from the Canadian border in eastern North Dakota to the Mexican border near the southern tip of Texas. North to south, the adjusted 20 inch annual precipitation line very nearly parallels meridian 98. East of this line, farming can be done without worrying too much about rainfall in most years. As one proceeds westward from it however, this becomes progressively less certain.

Prior to about 1850, the United States was substantially an agrarian society. It was the land to the east of meridian 98 which established America's view of its world. In that world, you didn't worry much about water rights or crop failures. It didn't really matter whether your land abutted a stream or lake although likely it did. When the land in your area was taken up, you moved west, took up a new claim and continued with time proven practices. Much effort was taken in clearing forrested fields and building fences to separate crops from livestock. The 'Great American Desert' to the west was at worst a far off rumor.

Humid Country Land Practices

Jurisprudence in the United States owes much to its English progenitor, and nowhere more so than in laws pertaining to land use. American land laws in the 19th century were based upon English laws exported in the 17th century.

Riparian Rights

In a humid land, there is little need for irrigation. Landholders on (non-navigable) water courses in England own the rights of access to them. Generally nobody owns the water itself, which is considered equally the property of all by whom it flows. This renders irrigation usage virtually impossible, as one person's use abridges the rights of use of others.

What is a Homestead

In a humid land there is little need to consider 'the lay of the land' in allocating farms. Enough water falls from the sky just about everywhere. Land division in the original 13 states and states surveyed before the Land Ordinance of 1785, was done via the English system of metes and bounds. The land ordinance commission, under Thomas Jefferson's leadership, decided that all land subsequently surveyed would be divided into 6 x 6 mile townships, each subdivided into 36 one square mile (640 acre) sections, and that this would be the case for the United States wherever land division had not already been specified by other means, irrespective of the physical geography. Farms were then allocated as subdivisions of sections, as 80 acres (1/8 section), 160 acres (1/4 section) and so on. Acreage was set aside for townships, schools and other purposes, again from the same pattern. Survey teams were employed to mark the boundaries of the sections as the country advanced westward.

Fencing Problem

Before the invention of barbed wire in 1874, the fencing of land was expensive and labor intensive. In most of the eastern United States, cleared timber was used for fence segments, a laborious and time consuming practice. Of course, clearing forrested land for farming was itself a laborious and time consuming practice. As American farmers began farming the still humid but generally treeless praire plains, things changed. It was no longer necessary to clear the land but the accustomed fencing material, wood, was also missing. Substitutes evolved such as hedge rows, rock fences and even mud fences, but none were truly satisfactory.

The factors mentioned above, ample precipitation for crops, ample humid land for expansion, small farms being sufficient for support of most families, problems clearing and fencing land, all militated toward a preference for small farms without much concern for their physical geography or access to water. And so the land laws of the growing United States came to reflect this condition.

Crossing Meridian 98

"This," said the newcomer to the Plains, "would be a fine country if we just had water."

"Yes," answered the man whose wagon tongue pointed east, "so would h*ll.":

Grass Meets Grain

Well before Europeans took up agriculture in Montana, the westward push of their settlement began to encroach onto the eastern Great Plains. Vast areas opened up which were suitable either for grass-based grazing or production of grain. As early as the 1830's areas of Indiana, Iowa and Kansas began to be used in tandem for both the initial growth of cattle via grazing and for the finishing of them for slaughter by a period of intensive grain feeding. The English proclivity for marbled beef took firm root in North America. Thus when Montana's beef industry began to look beyond the local markets provided by placer miners, it had to conform to this existing system.

The Civil War, The Chicago Stockyards, Railroads, Refrigeration

The American Civil War slowed movement to and development of the western states and territories. In Texas, a part of the Confederacy, very many of the young men were in the army. Also commercial intercourse with the eastern Confederate states was blocked, particularly after the summer of 1863 when the success of the Union Army forces in the Vicksburg Campaign placed the entire Mississippi River in Union hands. So in Texas longhorn cattle multiplied and roamed half-wild until the soldiers returned at war's end. Suddenly there were lots of unemployed young men available and lots of cheap cattle. The era of the cowboy commenced.

The first railroads in the United States were built in the eastern States, starting around 1830. While starting out tentitively, development accelerated as the usefulness of the railroads became evident and they began to return profits. By the time of the American Civil War, there were numerous railroad lines east of the Mississippi River which were used extensively by the contending armies. Although the territorial acquisition of the lower 48 states was essentially complete by 1848, real progress in pushing the railroads westward was not accomplished until the Pacific Railway Act of 1862. The first transcontinental railroad to be completed was the Union Pacific/Central Pacific, when the golden spike was driven at Promontory Summit, Utah in 1869.

The Union Stockyards in Chicago opened for business in December of 1865. Here was the first great centralized market for cattle available to western ranchers. It was situated at a railroad nexus point which made it accessable from the transcontinental railroad lines then being built toward Montana. The most efficient way to deliver Montana cattle to eastern markets was to drive them to a railroad shipping point and then have them transported to Chicago. When Montana ranchers began this in earnest in the 1870's, trail drives of some distance were required, sometimes through territories still controlled by Native American tribes. High hopes for shipping points in Montana were temporarily frustrated by the bankruptcy of the Northern Pacific Railway transcontinental railroad line in the Panic of 1873, which stalled construction at the Missouri River in North Dakota until 1882. Construction then proceeded rapidly, with the final (gold) spike being driven at Gold Creek, Montana on Sept. 8, 1883 with former President Ulysses Grant in attendance. In 1889, James Jerome Hill consolidated several rail lines into the Great Northern Railroad. This was extended across Montana's high-line counties to the Pacific Ocean by 1893.

Technological advances in the 1870's included refrigerated railway freight cars and trans-Atlantic freighters with refrigeration. These innovations opened the way to the eastern United States and Europe for western beef and opened the eyes of investors in those places to the potential for great profits from the western cattle industry.

The Mountain Man Era - ~1850 to 1866

The presence of cattle herds in the area later to become Montana territory dates from before 1850. These were mostly small herds belonging to the mountain men who were then the only European inhabitants of the area.

Father de Smet was a Catholic priest who came to minister to the Flathead tribes of the Bitterroot Valley in 1841. De Smet oversaw the building of Saint Mary's Mission in the Bitterroot. At some time before the priests abandoned Saint Mary's Mission in 1850, Father de Smet secured a herd of cattle to replace buffalo hunting which had been a principal meat source for the Flatheads.

Louis Maillet recorded that he and his partner Neil McArthur ran cattle herds in the Bitterroot Valley for several years starting in 1852. John Francis Grant and his father had cattle in southwestern Montana by at least 1855. Several others who were prominent in the early history of the Deer Lodge valley were plying the Oregon Trail cattle and horse trade, including Fred Burr, Robert Dempsey, Thomas LaVatta and more.

John Francis Grant - Trader and Cattleman

Old Johnny Grant's Place, circa 1862

John Francis Grant (Johnny Grant) was a son of Richard Grant, a chief trader for the Hudsons Bay Company and from 1841 to 1851 in charge of Fort Hall on the Snake River. Fort Hall was a major trading post on the Oregon Trail. When the elder Grant retired from Fort Hall, the Grants continued trading with the emmigrants passing by on the Oregon Trail. Much of that trading dealt with horses and cattle.

By the mid 1850's, the Grants (Richard, Johnny and brother James) had established themselves in the Beaverhead and Jefferson valleys of Montana, where they were running their expanding herds of horses and cattle. Fellow mountaineer and trader Louis Maillet recorded the Grants at their winter quarters in theBeaverhead Valley in the winter of 1856-57. When the Stuart brothers Granville and James came north the following winter to avoid the Mormon troubles disrupting travel on the Oregon Trail, they found shelter with the Grants and a number of fellow mountaineers wintering in the same place. According to Granville Stuart, the Grants moved on up to the Deer Lodge Valley around Christmas time, with Richard Grant proceeding on to the Bitterroot Valley.

In 1859-60, John Francis Grant relocated permanently to the Deer Lodge Valley near the current town of Garrison, Montana where he gathered a number of mountaineer friends to form the shortlived town of Grantsville, Montana. By this time he reports having about 1000 head of cattle and numerous horses which grazed in the north end of the Deer Lodge Valley, which were marked with his 'G' brand - perhaps the first significant brand used in Montana.

In 1862, Grant left Grantsville, Montana and moved south to the town of Cottonwood, Montana, now Deer Lodge, Montana, where he built what was described at the time as being the most elegant house in Montana Territory. His house was a social center for the area where were held many dances and other events. The house today is preserved in the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. He lived there with his several Native American wives and numerous children until selling his holdings to Conrad Kohrs in 1866. During this time his cattle were increasingly used to supply beef to the placer miners in the numerous surrounding gold mining camps. Conrad Kohrs was a principal customer, using Grant's cattle and those of other Deer lodge Valley ranchers to supply his butcher shops in Bannack, Virginia City, Montana, Helena and other towns.

The Way of the Mountain Men

Montana's mountain men were remnants of the trappers and traders who had co-existed with the Native Americans since the early days of European colonization. In 1670, Charles II of England granted a charter for the Hudson's Bay Company, granting it jurisdiction over all the lands draining into Hudson's Bay. This very large land grant was called Rupert's Land after the company's first governor. Until it's dissolution in 1870, Hudson's Bay Company and its employees traded with the Native Americans all across the northwestern part of North America, including in what would become Montana Territory. Other companies competed with them, including the Northwest Fur Company and the American Fur Company. These trappers and traders (mostly men) were not usually concerned with displacing the Native Americans but rather with establishing working relationships. To this end they frequently took Native American wives. This practice became known as the custom of the country and gave rise to a subculture of mixed blood people, the Metis.

By the 1840's, fur trading had begun to wane in importance, in part because of changing fashions in Europe and eastern America and in part because over-trapping had depleted fur animals, particularly beavers. Also the advance of European settlement was rapidly decreasing the 'uncivilized' area still dominated by Native American tribes. So the mountain men and their families began to turn to other ways of making a living. Many established residence in the otherwise still unsettled valleys of western Montana and began to run small herds of horses and cattle. Conrad Kohrs first entered the Deer Lodge Valley in 1862. Coming up the valley from south to north he noted in succession herds of cattle belonging to Dave Courtaway, Robert Dempsey, Louis De Mar (Demers) and Leon Cannell (Quesnelle), and finally at the north end the herds of Thomas LaVatta and John Francis Grant. Kohrs also noted that Fred Burr had a herd at Cottonwood, Montana. There was at least one herd of cattle being run by mountain men in eastern Montana as well.Conrad Kohrs reported that in 1864 he tried to purchase a 'bunch' of cattle being run by the American Fur Company in the area of Sun River. Unfortunately for him, the herd had already been acquired by Buffalo Bill.

End of the Era

The Mountain Man Era effectively ended when John Francis Grant sold his Deer Lodge Valley holdings to Conrad Kohrs, in 1866. The following year, Grant moved with his large family to the Red River country of Manitoba, Canada. Approximately 160 families followed him in a mass exodus from the Deer Lodge Valley. This permanently changed Deer Lodge Valley society from one dominated by mountain men and their mixed-blood families to one composed mainly of immigrants from established regions of the United States.

The Gold Rush Era - 1862 to 1871

Gold seekers in large numbers began to crowd into what would be western Montana starting in 1862, when gold was discovered at Grasshopper Creek (Bannack). In rapid succession major finds were made at Alder Gulch (Virginia City, Montana), Last Chance Gulch (Helena), Silver Bow (Butte), and numerous other places. Overnight a rich market hungry for beef sprang up in the western mountains.

Conrad Kohrs - Montana's First Modern Cattleman

Conrad Kohrs, ca. 1885

Kohrs Ranch in Deer Lodge, Montana, ca. 1885

Conrad Kohrs arrived in Montana by accident, in 1862. His party was headed for California when events turned them north to the Deer Lodge Valley. Conrad Kohrs also became a cattleman by accident. He was headed south up the Deer Lodge Valley after prospecting at Gold Creek when news came of the strike at Bannack. Hank Crawford was heading to Bannack with 3 head of cattle purchased from Thomas LaVatta and hired Kohrs on as a butcher and to drive the cattle 120 miles to Bannack, on foot. Kohrs had some butchering experience working for his older brother Johann (Henry) Kohrs, in Davenport, Iowa. However he had no butcher tools with him but a skinning knife. So he borrowed a saw, a scale and a Bowie knife. With a lot of true grit and some help from passing horsemen, he got the cattle to Bannack in good time.

Hank Crawford started selling beef at Bannack, with Kohrs as his employee. At Bannack, Crawford had a falling out with Henry Plummer (later sheriff in Virginia City, Montana and hanged by the vigilantes) and found out that Plummer intended to kill him. So he got the drop on Plummer, but only wounded him. Certain that he would be killed if he remained, Crawford hurredly gathered all the money on hand and beat it out of Montana Territory, leaving the remaining assets of the business to Kohrs. At this point Kohrs had no money but managed to keep the business thriving by trading and borrowing. These abilities were to be invaluable in his later life as a cattleman.

By 1864, Kohrs had partnered with Ben Peel and started butcher shops in Virginia City, Montana, Helena, Deer Lodge and several placer mining camps in that area under the business name of Con & Peel. Con & Peel also supplied most of the competing butcher shops in the area, from their growing herds. During this time Kohrs was building up herds which were pastured at various locations including Benson's Ranch on the Stinking Water (Jefferson Creek). In 1865 Kohrs purchased a ranch at Race Track, Montana. Con & Peel also dealt with small numbers of sheep and hogs. His half-brothers Nick, John and Charles Bielenburg had by this time immigrated to the area and were running some Con & Peel butcher shops.

In 1865 Kohrs bought out Ben Peel's part of the business and Peel returned to 'the states'. Kohrs' command of both the wholesale and retail sides of the cattle business in western Montana of 1865 was such that he said in his memoir 'I was in entire control of the beef trade'.

By 1870, Kohrs was mainly involved with buying, selling and raising cattle. He did find time to pursue another passion, placer gold mining, and made good money supplying water to other placer miners, mainly at Gold Creek. The placer miners had largely moved on from western Montana by 1871 and local cattlemen had to look further for markets. Kohrs speaks in his memoir of 1876 trail drives to Cheyenne, Wyoming where there was a railroad shipping point to Chicago's Union Stockyards, and also of trailing a herd to Iowa which was sold directly to grain feeders for finishing. In 1878 he notes a dangerous trail drive though the Crow Nation reservation. By 1881, Kohrs had extended his 'CK' brand cattle ranges from the Deer Lodge valley through much of eastern Montana and into Wyoming, Idaho and southern Canada. In 1883 he bought a controlling interest in the DHS ranch, then run by Granville Stuart.

Very often, Kohrs acted as a middleman, buying cattle from western Montana and the states to the west and driving them to a railhead where he usually sold them for a profit. Referring to a buying trip he made to Idaho in 1889, Kohrs noted that "Stockmen there had never shipped east...".

Conrad Kohrs was active civically and politically, serving in many capacities in Deer Lodge County. He was an organizer and frequent vice president of The Montana Stockgrowers Association, where he became friends with Theodore Roosevelt. As he had significant interests in Wyoming, he belonged as well to The Wyoming Stock Growers Association. He also served a term as a state Senator.

Kohrs retired from ranching a wealthy man, winding down his operations in 1915-1918. Thereby he went out on top, avoiding the upheavals that began with the drought in 1919 and the post World War I crash of agricultural markets in 1920.

Dan Flowerree - The First Longhorn Drive

Rumor had it that Dan Flowerree had been with William Walker down in Nicaragua, in the abortive attempt to establish a slave holding state there. He turned up in Last Chance Gulch in 1864, where he co-owned an 'establishment' for a time. In 1865 Dan brought the first herd of Texas longhorns known to have reached Montana, from Missouri. He followed on in 1870 with one of the first long drives from Texas to get through after Nelson Story in 1866. In that year he joined Conrad Kohrs and Robert SS. Ford in running cattle in the Sun River country. Flowerree's grazing range eventually extended from the Canadian border east of the Rockies to Idaho although it was concentrated around Helena, Great Falls and Choteau.

Nelson Story - The First Drive from Texas

Nelson Story was another of the legendary Montana cattlemen. Like Conrad Kohrs and Granville Stuart, he came looking for gold. Unlike them he actually found lots of it. An early arrival in Alder Gulch, Story 'struck it rich' in early 1866 when he extracted some $30,000 worth from his claim in the upper Gulch before selling out to 2 brothers. He then determined to take some of the proceeds to Texas, buy a herd of cattle and drive it to the eastern markets then crying out for beef in the aftermath of the American Civil War. It seemed a slam-dunk way of making yet another fortune.

There is no indication that Story started out intending to mount a cattle drive to Montana. Although the gold miners assured a lucrative market for his beef, there was a formidible obstacle: the Sioux under Red Cloud. The only really satisfactory trail then available lay through the Powder River country over the Bozeman Trail. The trail's namesake, John Bozeman, would soon be dead along with a number of other unfortunates. The U.S. Army was in the process of building forts along the route but safety could not be assured. Prospects looked better to the east.

So Story went down to Texas and spent $10,000 for 1000 (or 3000 by some accounts) head of cattle. As it happened, 1866 was the first year after the end of the American Civil War and the economy of Texas, as in the rest of the former Confederacy, was devastated. However there were lots of cattle roaming around the state which could be had for very little money. Also there was great demand for beef in the northern states along with money to pay for it. So many returning Confederate soldiers begged or borrowed a stake to get a herd together. Many others signed on as trail drive cowboys. Give or take, about 260,000 cattle were driven north from Texas that summer toward the nearest rail shipping point at Sedalia, Missouri in hopes of selling them there for a quick profit. Nelson Story turned his herd in that direction.

Now in order to reach Sedalia, the cattle first had to be trailed through the territory which was to become Oklahoma, but which at this time was the Indian Territory. This was the domain of the remnants of the Five Civilized Nations who had survived the Trail of Tears. While the tribes previously had tolerated the passage of a few herds, an exodus of this magnitude threatened their ability to support their own grazing cattle. Rather than blocking the herds entirely, they decided to charge 10 cents a head for passage. The drovers mostly paid the fee.

During the Civil War, bands of Union Kansans known as Jayhawkers had raided east into Confederate Missouri. At the war's close, they remained as a force in Kansas. The crossing point for the Texas herds into Kansas/Missouri was at the town of Baxter Springs in the southeast corner of Kansas. And here the Jayhawkers stopped them cold, stealing some herds and generally forcing the rest to stay in the Indian Territory. This was the situation that Story found when he arrived at Baxter Springs.

What to do? Some found alternate routes to markets while others stayed stalled at Baxter Springs. Nelson Story decided to try for Montana and its lucrative market of gold miners. And so he pointed his herd north for the long drive. With a large measure of courage and a large measure of luck he brought his cattle over the Bozeman Trail to the miners at Virginia City, Montana with very little loss. The feat would not be duplicated for another 4 years.

Story founded a sizable ranch in the Gallatin Valley where he became a prominent citizen of Bozeman, donating in 1883 the land for Montana State University. Later in life he engaged in banking and real estate in addition to ranching. The movie Lonesome Dove is said to have been based in part on Story's 1866 cattle drive to Montana.

Life during the Montana Gold Rush

Before the Montana Gold Rush, Montana was the domain principally of Native Americans, buffalo, and mountaineers along with their mixed-blood families and livestock. Compared with the pace of events elsewhere, life remained relatively tranquil in the area.

Credit for Montana's first gold discovery has been much debated over time. The discoverers of placer deposits on Grasshopper Creek in 1862 noted evidence of previous workings of unknown provenence. Likewise at Butte an earlier prospect hole was discovered which had evidently been excavated using an elk horn. The first discoverer of record seems to have been a Metis prospecter named Francois Finlay who styled himself Benetsee, in about 1852 near modern Gold Creek. Although Finlay himself didn't follow up on his discovery, word of it reached the ears of others including James Stuart, Granville Stuart and their friend Rezin (Reese) Anderson, who prospected in the area starting in 1858. By 1861, Henry Thomas (Gold Tom) had begun serious exploration near Gold Creek, working with a sluice made from hollowed logs . At about that time the Stuarts and Anderson also began working in earnest, soon being joined by other gold seekers at their location which they had called American Fork, Montana, in part to distinguish it from the cabins situated at the future site of Deer Lodge, then called Spanish Fork, Montana.

In 1862, news of the major discovery at Grasshopper Creek (Bannack) triggered the first of many 'stampedes' in Montana. One or more towns grew up around each new discovery site. They were not built to last and only a few did, including Butte and Helena. However each stampede town was the mecca for miners and prospectors in the area surrounding. Businesses sprang up over night and fortunes were made by canny businessmen. James Stuart partnered with W. B. Dance in the Dance and Stuart Mercantile stores. Conrad Kohrs and Ben Peel ran Con & Peel butcher shops in most of the mining towns.

When the stampeders first arrived in an area they were able to feed themselves by hunting. Soon however the local game would be exhausted and a market for beef would spring up. Other cattle products were also in high demand. In Conrad Kohrs's memoir he said (in 1863)"Candles were very scarce in the country. Every bit of tallow...that could be spared was converted into candles...". Very many of the gold seekers had next to nothing, relying on striking pay dirt to pay their bills. Of course not everybody found gold. Conrad Kohrs noted in 1864-1865 "Our retail shops lost money...I told the boys not to turn away those who could not pay.".

End of the Era

The Montana Gold Rush dissipated almost as fast as it formed, like a thunder storm that had spent its fury. By 1871, the stampeders had largely rushed on to gold strikes in other places, including The Black Hills and Nevada. With the decline in the mining population came a decline in beef demand, and cattlemen began to look further afield.

With the passing of this era also passed the time when Montana's cattlemen truly controlled their own destinies. Ever after they would be at the mercy of events often far removed from Montana.

Looking East - 1869 to 1883

Cowboy, ca 1887

East of the Rocky Mountains lie the Great Plains. In Montana Territory of 1870 the Great Plains were the domain of buffalo herds and fierce Native American tribes whose mounted warriors armed with carbines constituted the dominant military force between the Rockies and Minnesota. Ranching on the eastern plains promised to be more problematic than in the sheltered valleys of western Montana, and few wanted to attempt it. But where some saw only problems, others saw opportunities. Vast oceans of lush grazing grass swayed forever into the distance with many streams and rivers coursing through the otherwise arid country, and barriers to the land had a way of disappearing.

The Cattlemen Encroach

East of Montana's Rocky Mountains, most all of the land north of the Missouri River to the Canadian border was reserved for the various Blackfeet tribes, whose reputation for belligerence was well-deserved. South of the Missouri was mostly Crow Nation and Northern Cheyenne territory, while the Sioux controlled the far east. These were daunting prospects in 1870. Also cattle would be competing with buffalo for feed, and the buffalo had had about 2 million more years to adapt themselves to the area.

Far to the east of the Rocky Mountains were the populous states of the recently repaired Union, hungrily expanding. That potential market wasn't going away any time soon. And beyond them beaconed Europe, especially the beef-addicted English. Here was enormous room for expansion. And here was the opportunity. But to seize that chance meant expanding to the east as well as opening routes to deliver the resulting cattle yet further east.

In 1869, Conrad Kohrs moved 1000 head with his 'CK' brand into the area of Sun River. A year later, Robert S. Ford and Dan Flowerree followed with drives of their own to that region. And so the move east began.

Defeat of the Native American Tribes and Removal to Reservations

It is arguable whether Native Americans were a permanent presence on much of the great plains previous to the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Dogs are the only animals in the new world known to have been domesticated prior to that time, and by the time that Europeans encountered the plains tribes they had been in possession of horses for at least one hundred years. Horses greatly enhanced the ability of the tribes to adapt to life on the great plains. Also, tribal legends and other evidence suggest that most plains tribes migrated there from places to the east or southwest, under pressure from advancing Europeans.

Clearing Out Those Final Pesky Buffalo

The great plains of North America have provided prime grazing for large herds of herbavores since emerging from inundation by the Western Interior Seaway near the end of the Cretaceous period, some 65-70 million years ago. Many fossils of grazing animals have been unearthed including tricerotops dinosaurs, horses, camelids, morpus, tapirs and North American Bison. By the time of the Spanish conquest, only the bison (also called buffalo) remained. In 1860, their numbers were estimated to be between 30 and 60 millions, more or less divided into northern and southern herds. There were also a few forest buffalo.

The buffalo were a principal food source for those Native American tribes whose territories either included or bordered on the great plains. They were also the principal food source for other predators, including gray wolves. John Francis Grant noted the passage of Lemhi, Shoshone, Blackfeet, Flathead and other tribes past Grantsville, Montana, going through the Deer Lodge Valley on their treks to and from the buffalo hunting grounds to the east.

Important as the buffalo were to great plains ecology and Native Americans, to European settlers and the U. S. Army they constituted a nuisance and a threat. After the conclusion of the American Civil War, a task set for the U. S. Army was the pacification of the plains Native Americans. In an address to the Texas legislature, General Philip Sheridan, then commandant of the U. S. Army Department of the Missouri, observed that the buffalo were the Native Americans' 'commissary' and pacification of the tribes would succeed only if that food source were removed. Sheridan spoke before the Congress of the United States (referring to buffalo hunters): "For the sake of lasting peace, let them kill, skin and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated". Likewise as ranchers and settlors increasingly desired those lands for their own uses, they began to pressure the U. S. government to remove the buffalo.

A pile of bison skulls in the 1870s.

The beginning of the end of the great herds coincided with the arrival of the railroads, which delivered large numbers of buffalo hunters to the vicinity of the herds and provided the means to ship the accumulated buffalo hides back to eastern markets. This also coincided with the introduction of large numbers of cattle onto those ranges. Extermination began first with the southern herd starting with the arrival of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869. The northern herd was spared for another 7 or 8 years. For all the ferocity with which the buffalo hunters pursued their quarry, Malone et. al. note that the toll they took on the herds shouldn't have been sufficient to destroy them. The primary agent was more likely diseases carried by their fellow bovines, the cattle.

After the buffalo hunters extracted the hide, the rest of the buffalo's body was usually left to rot. In the wake of the extermination the great plains was strewn with buffalo bones. Shipping these bones east to be ground up for fertilizer was a lucrative industry by itself for a number of years. At the nadir there were by some estimates fewer than 100 buffalo left alive.

The predators of the great herds, Native Americans, gray wolves and others were suddenly bereft of their accustomed food supply. At the same time the great plains were being flooded with another bovine, cattle. So it was only natural for these predators to turn to cattle as a food source. This became the crux of much misunderstanding between ranchers and Native Americans. It also gave rise to the occupation of wolver, who were people paid to decrease the now surplus population of gray wolves.

Montana Cattle Ranching in the 1870's

Cattle ranching in the valleys of western Montana had become well established during the mountain man and Montana gold rush eras of ~1850 to 1870. As markets local to Montana diminished in the 1870's, ranchers began marketing their cattle increasingly to the eastern states. This necessitated either driving herds directly to markets or trailing them to railroad shipping points. Also during this period the great plains grasslands in central and eastern Montana became increasingly accessable and cattlemen utilized these ranges for their stock. Cattle shared the range with some sheep and in the east, buffalo. In 1870, most of eastern Montana was the domain of Native American tribes, but this share steadily diminished as the decade progressed. During this period the ranges were not considered to be overstocked with cattle.

Montana over this time period became a place where cattle, whether home-bred or driven in from elsewhere, were fattened on the native grasses for some years and, except for some kept for the local markets and cows needed for producing calves, then driven to other places. Some cattle were driven to Iowa or Kansas to be further fattened on grain prior to slaughter. Others were driven to railheads for direct shipment east, usually to theUnion Stockyards in Chicago where the meat packing cartel was centered. Popular railheads were located in Cheyenne, Wyoming and, after 1873, at the Missouri River in North Dakota where the Northern Pacific has paused its construction.

During this period refrigeration became available in railroad cars and ocean-going freighters. This greatly enhanced the meat demand as it was no longer necessary to bear the added expense of shipping live cattle east. Also American beef could begin to fill the void left in the European markets by the cattle epidemic of 1865-66.

The Eastern Montana Stockgrowers Association was formed in ??? at Miles City largely by cattlemen of central and eastern Montana and western North Dakota, as a counterweight to the Montana Stockgrowers Association, formed in ???, which was dominated by cattlemen from western Montana. These organizations merged in 1885 as the Montana Stockgrowers Association which was more fully representitive of all Montana cattlemen. The Cowboy Legislature of 1885 chartered the Montana Board of Stock Commissioners with broad regulatory powers over the Montana cattle industry. Granville Stuart served as that board's first president.

End of the Era

1883 marks the last year in which substantial numbers of buffalo hides were shipped from Montana Territory. To all intents and purposes the buffalo had been exterminated. With the Native Americans now entirely forced onto (diminished) reservations, most of eastern Montana was cleared for (European-American) ranching and homesteading. Of course the land had mostly been ranched and settled by this time anyway.

The Speculative Bubble - 1879 to 1887

In 1879, Granville Stuart, Samuel T. Hauser and the Davis brothers of Butte formed a ranching partnership. Hauser and the Davis brothers were mainly supplying capital while Stuart was put in charge of the operations. Granville's first task was to find a place for the ranch. This was to be in eastern Montana where vast areas had recently opened up in the wake of Native Americans being forced onto reservations and the on-going slaughter of the buffalo. After enviously eying lands still part of the Crow Reservation, Stuart decided on a large non-reservation tract in the Judith Basin. Thus was established the DHS Ranch. At the time, Stuart noted how little of the range was taken up. This was about to change dramatically.

Granville Stuart - Mr. Montana: A Man For All Seasons

Writing about the life of Granville Stuart strictly in terms of the cattle industry would be very limiting as the man staddled most of the significant evolution of Montana from 1858 til at least 1890. At the same time it is as a cattleman that he is perhaps best known and that is the emphasis of this article.

Storm Clouds Gather

The winter of 1885-1886 was a difficult one in Montana, but most ranchers came through it okay. However that wasn't true down Texas and Oklahoma way. All up and down the Great Plains the range was overstocked. The years 1880 to 1884 had had unusually wet spring/summer seasons and mild winters. So there was abundant feed, beyond what would have usually been available. Also cattle from warm climates recently driven north to colder ones could aclimatize gradually. But '85-'86 was harsh down south. The spring and summer of '85 were dry and the winter was cold. And then there was the reservation problem. It seems that the cattlemen had for some time been getting away with running stock in the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma), in defiance of federal Bureau of Indian Affairs regulations. In 1885, the Cleveland administation had had enough and forced the removal of said stock from the Indian Territory. And suddenly 200,000 extra cattle were forced onto the already over-stocked and dried out range. Then on January 1, 1886 came a great blizzard which howled from the Dakotas down to Texas. It lasted 10 days, freezing hundreds of people to death and killing many many cattle.

By spring the surviving cattle were in poor condition. Calves were far fewer than expected. And the 1886 spring and summer were even dryer than the previous year. Suddenly the profits which were being expected by the southern cattle speculators turned into sizable loses. Many just pulled out, dumping their poor-grade cattle onto the 1886 autumn markets. This depressed cattle prices to such an extent that the less affected ranchers further north couldn't sensibly market their cattle at all. So they mostly held onto them, hoping conditions would improve the year following.

The Perfect Storm - The Winter of 1886-1887

In retrospect it seems just too obvious. Dry conditions in '85, a cold winter followed by drought in '86, ranges very much over-stocked, with cattle being driven to eating sage-brush and worse. But in the words of the poet "...that hope that springs eternal in the human breast...". As we noted above, the autumn '86 cattle markets were glutted with poor-grade cows being dumped. So Montana ranchers were hoping for a mild winter and a wet spring to recoup. And what they got...

In the autumn of '86 in Wyoming, 32,000 cattle were turned out onto the already overstocked and bone-dry range by one outfit alone. Thousands more were similarly dumped in Montana and Wyoming by other groups. These mostly had been brought in from milder climates where there wasn't enough to eat already and they were very vulnerable. One writer has called these acts 'simple murder'.

In Montana, preparations for the winter varied from ranch to ranch. Some of the old-timers saw trouble coming and did what they could. Rancher Conrad Kohrs owned a large percentage of the DHS as well as his own CK herds. He secured grazing permits in Alberta, Canada intending to drive the CK and DHS herds north along with Granville Stuart. Due to the lateness of the roundup the plan was modified to just north of the Missouri. Teddy Blue Abbott was a cowhand for the DHS on that drive and gave a first-hand description in his memoir. As we noted, there was a severe drought in progress. When the combined herds neared the Missouri, they smelled the water and started to stampede. At the river bank was an area of quicksand. Many cattle got bogged down in the sand. Luckily there was a boat with a winch there which was able to pull a number of cattle out. Even so, some 70 head were lost. Most of the herd never got across the river.

Many ranches were being run as speculative investments, often by cattle-savvy managers working for absentee owners. The speculators had often been drawn to cattle investing by inflated expectations based on hype and a string of years in which wet summers were followed by mild winters, a cyclical weather pattern in the northern great plains which alternates with periods of drought and severe winters. From their distance, these owners could see no reason why the wet and mild pattern shouldn't continue. Also they often were most interested in a quick profit for minimum investment. Their managers generally didn't argue. And so, many outfits took no precautions at all.

Nowadays, ranchers lay in hay to feed their cattle over the winter. But things were different in 1886. The combination of drought, overgrazing on overstocked ranges, spring frosts, prairie fires and a bumper crop of grasshoppers greatly reduced any possible hay crop. Further, the wet and mild years coupled with the difficulty of feeding cattle scattered all over an open range had provided no incentive for forming the habit of winter feeding. Also ranchers didn't keep many cowhands on in the winter. The cattle were expected to get through the winter on their own.

To an already hungry and thirsty cow facing the winter, things must have seemed bleak indeed. Snow started falling in late November and lay deep in Montana, blocking the roads. In Wyoming, snow lay 4 feet deep on the flats, while the drifts were 'bottomless'. Then in late January, a chinnook wind blew in for a couple of days. It blew across most of Montana and Wyoming and lasted just long enough to melt the top layer of snow. Then new storms blew in from the north, plunging temperatures to 60 below in many places. This formed a veneer of ice on top of the snow, effectively blocking attempts by livestock to paw or nuzzle their way to any possible grass. Furthermore the watercourses were frozen so deeply that cattle could find nothing to drink and, contrarily, air pockets often formed on the underside of the ice such that thirsty cows would break through and be swept away under the ice. Things continued in this way until the beginning of March.

A Slaughter Second Only to the Buffalo

Helena Huntington Smith included in her book the following verse, author unknown:

I may not see a hundred before I cross the Styx,

But coal or ember, I'll remember eighteen eighty six.

The stiff heaps in the coulee, the dead eyes in the camp,

And the wind about, blowing fortunes out, as a woman blows out a lamp.

Stories of that winter abounded in Montana and Wyoming. Helena Huntington Smith recounted a story from the plowed Union Pacific railroad line near Ogallala, Nebraska, where trains coming from the east encountered a large herd which had come onto the tracks seeking out the only open area available. For about seven miles, male passengers and trainmen armed with sticks and chunks of coal went in front, driving the cattle before them. The cows couldn't climb out of the way because the snow walls were too high and steep. As Smith described it: "two hundred well-dressed gentlemen driving 50,000 head of dying cattle... to lift the 'beef blockade'". There was no forage available and it is presumed that most or all of the cattle died.

"One morning the residents on the outskirts of Great Falls looked out through the swirl of snow to see the gaunt, reeling figures of the leaders of a herd of five thousand...Inhabitants of ranch houses tried not to hear the noises that came from beyond the corrals.".

The coming of spring was not cause for rejoicing. As the coulies, plains and rivers melted, the cattlemen's worst fears were realized. Heaps of dead cattle were stacked in the coulies. Cattle were found frozen standing up or drifted against barbed wire fences. Theodore Roosevelt's neighbor, Lincoln Lang, described the breakup of the ice on the Little Missouri River in North Dakota: "The river was out of it's banks...huge grinding ice cakes...Countless carcuses of cattle...rolling over and over...sometimes with all four stiffened legs pointed skyward...".. Teddy Blue Abbott noted the stench of decaying bodies wherever he rode. One roundup day, one of Teddy Blue's fellow cowboys looked up at the sun and exclaimed "Where was you last January?".

Spring roundup in 1887 was a depressing affair. Teddy Blue talked about riding all day amidst the stench and returning with one or a few half-dead cows. There were very few calves, perhaps a tenth of the previous year's crop. Losses in eastern Montana were estimated to be between 60 and 90 percent. In Wyoming, entire herds virtually disappeared. Very many of the speculators pulled out, recouping what they could. Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores left, never to return as ranchers. Those who remained were a more sober group, who had seen the dangers of excess.

Pierre Wibaux was one who came out on the other side. He was off in France that winter, raising investment cash and returned with half a million dollars which he promptly used to take advantage of the fire sale prices. Conrad Kohrs took a big hit on both his CK brand stock and on his investment in the DHS Ranch. However, that winter he had seen a doctor in New York who was able to cure a debilitating condition from which he was suffering. So Con was in the mood to overcome adversity and move ahead. Right at that point, A. J. Davis of Butte offered Kohrs a large loan on favorable terms, which he made use of in the following year. So he also was able to take advantage of the speculative crash to come out ahead. Upon hearing Kohr's positive attitude, his friend (Charles Broadwater, magnate of the Montana Central Railway) remarked "Con, you have more nerve than any man in Montana!".

For those who came through, things got better in succeeding years. Indeed by 1890 some observers reported that the ranges were again overstocked. But the heyday of grandiose speculation in Montana cattle was past. The 20th century was to see surges of excess of other kinds. Granville Stuart finally left the DHS ranch and the cattle business in 1890, following the death of his wife of 30 years, Awbonnie Stuart, and his oldest daughter Katie. He remarried and became the chief librarian in Butte, Montana. Teddy Blue Abbott continued one of Montana's great love stories by marrying Granville's second oldest daughter Mary. Teddy Blue and Mary Stuart Abbott also left the DHS and took up small time ranching on a nearby homestead plot, which became the 3-Deuce ranch. In Montana there was no problem with a former ranch hand owning some cattle and participating in yearly roundups. This was most decidedly not the case in Wyoming!

Epitaph for an Era

John Clay was a long-time rancher, banker and, finally, author in Wyoming, who left us his assessment of the period: "Three great streams of ill-luck, mismanagement and greed came together...From the inception of the open range business in the West and Northwest, from say 1870 to 1888, it is doubtful if a single cent was made if you average up the business as a whole...when you bundle up, strike an average...the story with its flavor of romance ends in hollow failure."

And again, Granville Stuart in Forty Years on the Frontier: "A business that had been fascinating to me before suddenly became distasteful. I never again wanted to own an animal that I could not feed and shelter."

Mavericks and Cattle Country Justice - 1880 to 1892

Montana's economy was brought into being by mining. Agriculture, including cattle ranching, grew up in the miners' shadow as a necessary but ancillary enterprise. Montana politics and power revolved at first around the many mining activities scattered around the southwestern mountains, and later became increasingly consolidated in fewer and fewer concerns, finally coming to rest substantially with 'the Company' as the Anaconda or Amalgamated was commonly called. It is true that other forces had their day from time to time, as with the Cowboy Legislature of 1885 which enacted legislation of importance to the livestock industry.

The case was very different in Wyoming, where cattle ranching was foremost in forming the territory and state. Here power was firmly in the hands of large cattle interests. In about 1871, while Montana's cattlemen were beginning to expand outward from the western valleys onto the eastern plains, Wyoming's nascent cattle industry was coalescing in the southeast corner of the state in newly formed Laramie County, where in 1873 the Laramie County Stock Association was formed. In 1879 this became the powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association, the dominant political force in Wyoming throughout this period.

Moreton Frewen - The First British Cattle Baron of Wyoming

Moreton Frewen and his brother Dick came to Wyoming in 1878. After some rather hair-raising adventures, they decided in the next year to try their hand at cattle ranching in the Powder River country, building a 2-story log cabin (Frewen's Castle) and buying the existing '76' brand from Sweetwater rancher Tim Foley. In 1879 the Powder River country appeared limitless and unpopulated, much as did the Judith Basin to Granville Stuart.

The '76' purchase included Mr. Foley's cattle, which were driven from the Sweetwater over to Powder River thereby becoming the first significant herd in that area. There was a story, denied by Frewen, that Foley had tricked him into buying his herd twice. Such stories gained credence in part because the spectacular profits promised by western cattle promoters during this period rarely materialized. One of several possible reasons for this under-achievement could have been that the size of cattle herds had been over-estimated. Moreton Frewen was noted for being absent from his cattle enterprise more often than he was present and relied on others to keep track of his cattle.

Moreton Frewen's career as a cattle rancher paralleled the rise and fall of great plains cattle ranching speculation. During 1880-1884 the guest book at Frewen's Castle was filled with the names of the social elite. In 1882, Frewen raised 1.5 million dollars in London to expand his operations, forming the Powder River Cattle Company. For this he also passed control to a board of directors composed of his investors. He served on the board as the largest shareholder as well as remaining the manager. By the spring of 1885, the Powder River Cattle Company board had become fed up with the lack of promised profits and ousted Frewen as manager. It may have been just as well as thereby he was not manager during the deflation of 1885, the depression of 1886 and the disaster of 1887. In the aftermath of 1887, the Powder River Cattle Company finally was disolved. Moreton Frewen never returned to Wyoming after taking his leave in June of 1885. By 1905 Frewen's Castle had ceased to be, the spot being marked only by the bones of a slain buffalo.

Culture Clash

Moreton Frewen was but the first of many socialite investors who came to Wyoming and Montana during the speculative boom hoping to make fortunes without having to work very hard at it. They tended to remain aloof from the more numerous frontiersmen who had come to work in hopes of a better life. This schism was more pronounced in Wyoming where the large cattlemen wielded much more power than in Montana and . There certainly were exceptions, like Theodore Roosevelt (old 4-eyes) or the Marquis de Mores in North Dakota who in spite of his aristocratic pretensions would stand a round of drinks at the saloon to the delight of the commoners.

A Maverick is a Motherless Calf

The term maverick as applied to cattle derives from the name of Texan Samuel Maverick. Samuel Maverick was politically quite notable in Texas history, but this usage of his name derives from his refusal to brand the cattle in a herd which he owned in the 1840's and 50's. By the 1880's the usage had become established all over the west.

End of the Era

Fred G. S. Hesse came to Wyoming as Moreton Frewen's range foreman on the '76' spread.

Dry Land Farming and the Homestead Boom, World War I - 1900 to 1918

In the words of historian Mary Wlma M. Hargreaves: "Dry farming may be generally defined as agriculture without irrigation in regions of scanty precipitation." At the turn of the 20th century in western America, the name most associated with dryland farming was that of Hardy Webster Campbell, a South Dakota farmer who popularized the Hardy system which emphasized deep plowing, subsurface compacting and planting in alternate years in order to retain and conserve the scanty rainfalls characteristic of the great plains.

In Montana prior to about 1900, crop farming had been largely confined to areas with either higher average precipitation than generally available in the great plains or readily available sources of irrigation. A few hardy souls had experimented successfully with dryland techniques, including sheep baron Paris Gibson, the founder of Great Falls.

As the 20th century progressed, homesteaders began increasingly to take up land in eastern Montana, usually under the Homestead Act of 1862 which granted 160 acres for free provided they worked the land for at least 5 years. Now the 160 acre figure had been derived from experience with farming in the relatively high precipitation areas of the eastern states. It became rapidly clear that this was too small an acrage to support a non-irrigatable farm in the much more arid great plains. The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 attempted to redress this by doubling that value to 320 acres. Congress followed in 1912 with the Three-Year Homestead Act which relaxed occupancy requirements.

Circa 1908 - The Bandwagon Takes Off

Dryland farming techniques and free land was the great promise of Montana this time around. Here were the means to make your fortune. Some very persuasive voices began to advertise this theme far and wide, and the would-be homesteaders responded in droves. They came in wagons, in cars, on railroad trains.

Epitaph for an Era

The following quote comes from an anonymous Fort Belknap Agency, Montana resident circa 1920: "White man make big tepee. White man plow hill. Water wash. Wind blow soil. Grass gone, land gone, window gone, buck gone, squaw gone, whole place gone to h*ll. No pig, no corn, no cow, no hay, no pony. Indian no plow land. Great Spirit make grass. Buffalo eat grass. Indian eat buffalo. .... Indian no waste anything. Indian no work. White man work all the time. White man heap loco."

The Great Depression: Incarnation #2 - 1930 to 1940

Ups and Downs of the 50's and 60's. Good Times in The 70's (?)

The Montana Cowbelles, the women's auxilliary of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, was founded in 1952, with Mrs. Jack Hirschy of Jackson, Montana as president. They became very active in promotion of Montana's beef industry. Montana's cattle women remain active in the present time as Montana Cattlewomen Inc. led by (as of 2011) president Vicki Olson of Malta, Montana.

Great Cattle Bust of 1953

President Nixon also played a big role in beef industry economics in the early 70s. He imposed the first peace-time wage and price controls in U.S. history. His 1973 price freeze on beef inadvertently caused "The Wreck" -- a severe crash in the cattle market and dramatic herd reduction.

Coal and What Comes of It

Colstrip - now there's an interesting name for a town.

Current times

A cattle operation in modern-day Montana must be of a certain size, hence a certain minimum number of cattle, to sustain a family solely through its operation. The number of cattle in any given operation may number from a few to thousands. However to have a chance of being self-supporting, a ranch must run at least 400-500 head. The number of acres required for this varies from place to place. In relatively moist western Montana, Evan Johnston manages with about 3000 acres. In more arid far eastern Montana, Jimmy Collins and his dad together require about 11,000 acres.

A Western Montana Cattle Ranch circa 2011

Evan Johnston and his family ranch in the Deer lodge valley, Powell County, Montana. It's a cow/calf place as are most of Montana's 11,000 beef cattle ranches. Evan runs 500 to 600 head depending on the year, on about 3000 acres. He owns most of it but some is leased from the U.S. Forest Service and some over in the Big Hole valley is shared cooperatively with other ranchers. Evan also hays on some 500 acres although as he says he "has to buy a lot" of hay as well. In times of insufficient rainfall the fields are irrigated using water rights which Evan holds on Race Track Creek, a stream which is fed by the snows of the Flint Creek Range. When that is not sufficient, his water right on the Clark Fork River can also be invoked.

His cattle are Simmentals, a European breed which originated in highland areas of Switzerland and surrounding countries. Evan notes that these cattle are not as commonly ranched in Montana as Black Angus and some others. However he believes they are better suited to mountanous Western Montana than many other breeds. He does breed in some Black Angus as well, to blend the superior qualities of both stocks.

When Evan speaks of running 500-600 cattle, he is referring to his adult heifer population, plus about 30 bulls he keeps for breeding purposes. If a heifer has a calf, the heifer and calf count as one 'head' only. Calves destined for market graze on grass only by coincidence. From birth around the first of February to weaning, which happens usually in October, they suckle their mothers. From weaning until they are sold, around November 20th, they are 'background fed' on processed corn-based pellets and some hay. At the time of sale the male calves will weigh around 725 pounds while the females will be about 50 pounds less. The calf sale will be done on one day via video auction. In addition to weighing less the female calves sell for less per hundred-weight than the male calves.

The productive life expectancy for a heifer is 9 to 10 years, although Evan has a few 15 and even 16 year olds. The peak productivity of a typical heifer happens around 5 to 7 years old. Each year the choicest female calves are kept on the ranch to replenish the declining adult heifer population. The yearling heifers must prove themselves productive in the next year or they are sold at the Montana Livestock Auction in Butte, Montana along with the adult heifers whose useful productivity has passed.

An Eastern Montana Cattle Ranch circa 2011

Jimmy Collins owns a spread down south of Broadus, Montana, near Biddle, Montana. His father ranches nearby. For most purposes the two of them share in one operation. As with Evan Johnston, Jimmy and his dad run a cow/calf operation. Between them they run about 500 head most years, on some 11,000 acres with a lease on yet another 5500 acres. Their ranches have been cobbled together over time. Jimmy's dad retains about 2200 acres from the ranch his granddad bought in 1945 along with 6000 acres acquired later. Jimmy bought his own ranch in 1990, which borders granddad's original spread.

They have a water right on the Little Powder River which is seldom used. Summer water comes from wells and runoff into onsite reservoirs, for which they likewise have water rights. In winter the well water is used to fill stock tanks.

500 cattle refers to the adult heifers only. Jimmy tells me that 'heifer' refers to the year old females who have yet to prove themselves in producing healthy calves. After that, they are simply 'cows'.

The Cattle Industry of Today

Beef production has become a thoroughly modern industry, which bears a declining resemblance to the cattle ranching of old:

Feed Lots

Hormones and Pesticides

Slaughter of the Very Young

Predominence of the Packing Cartel

Movement to Fewer and Larger Operations

Cheap and Transient Labor

Importing Cheap Cattle from Canada and Mexico

Impediments to building a cattle counterculture

Laws Affecting the Montana Cattle Industry

The Homestead Act of 1862

The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 and subsequent amendments

The Desert Land Act of 1877

The Dawes Act of 1887

The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909

The Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916

The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921

The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934

See also

• Ranch

Sources

• Abbott, E. C. and Helena Huntington (1939). We Pointed Them North : Recollections of a Cowpuncher. Farrar & Rinehart.
• Atherton, Lewis (1962). The Cattle Kings. Indiana University Press. LCCN 61-13722.
• Clay, John (1924). My Life on the Range. private printing, Chicago.
• Cushman, Dan (#1) (1966). The Great North Trail. McGraw-Hill Book Company. LCCN 07-014984-4. {{cite book}}: Check |lccn= value (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Cushman, Dan (#2) (1973). Montana-The Gold Frontier. Stay Away Joe Publishers. ISBN 0-911436-03-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Fletcher, Robert H. (1960). Free Grass to Fences. University Publishers Inc. LCCN 60-12710.
• Grant, Johnny and Lyndel Meikle (1996). Very Close to Trouble: The Johnny Grant Memoir. Washington State University Press. ISBN 978-0874221398.
• Kohrs, Conrad ed. Conrad K. Warren (1977). Conrad Kohrs An Autobiography. Gull Printing, Polson, Montana.
• Malone, Michael P., Richard B. Roeder, William L. Lang (1991 rev). Montana: A History of Two Centuries. University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97129-0. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Milner II, Clyde A. and Carol A. O'Connor (2009). As Big as the West: The Pioneer Life of Granville Stuart. Oxford University Press Inc. ISBN 978-0-19-512709-6.
• Mockel, Myrtle (1969). Montana:an Illistrated History. Swallow Books. LCCN 79-75652.
• Rifkin, Jeremy (1992). Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-452-26952-0.
• Rimas, Andrew and Evan D. G. Fraser (2008). Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World. HarperCollins e-books. ISBN 978-0-06-170785-8.
• Schoch, Robert M. (1999). Voices of the Rocks: A Scientist Looks at Catastrophes and Ancient Civilizations. Harmony Books. ISBN 0-609-60369-8.
• Sheridan, Philip H. Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan. 2 vols. New York: Charles L. Webster & Co., 1888. ISBN 1-58218-185-3.
• Speck, Virginia Lee (1946). The History of the Deer Lodge Valley to 1870 - Masters Thesis. Montana State University.
• Stuart, Granville (1925). Forty Years on the Frontier, as seen in the Journals and Reminiscences of Granville Stuart, Gold Miner, Trader, Merchant, Rancher and Politician. Cleveland:Arthur H. Clark.
• Thayer, Ernest (1888). Casey at the Bat. San Francisco Examiner.
• Toole, K. Ross (1959). Montana: An Uncommon Land. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1890-3.
• Toole, K. Ross (1976). The Rape of the Great Plains:Northwest America, Cattle and Coal. Little, Brown and Co. ISBN 0-316-84990-1.
• Webb, Walter Prescott (1931, 1959). The Great Plains. Boston: Ginn. ISBN 0-8032-9702-5. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Wellman, Paul I. (1939). The Trampling Herd. Quinn & Boden Co. Inc.

External links

• Montana Stockgrowers Association
• Montana Cattlewomen Inc.
• Montana Beef Council
• National Cattlemen's Beef Association
• Montana Cattlemen's Association
• R-CALF USA