Alaskan Adventure: Days 15 &16. Two days with a lot of Montana driving and beautiful scenery. June 15th we left Hardin early for a long drive to the town of Deer Lodge where we were staying at a campground called Indian Creek and visiting a National Historic Site called Grant-Kohrs Ranch. Then on a really windy June 16th we drove from Deer Lodge to the town of Saint Mary’s which is adjacent to the East Entrance of Glacier National Park.

Grant-Kohrs Ranch was a place to get a National Parks Passport stamp. It happened to be about halfway between Little Bighorn and Glacier so we visited a place we had not heard of. The “Visitors Center” is the porch of that log cabin in the background. Two cats and a park ranger welcomed us and pointed down a path. “About an 8 minute walk to the ranch, go inside anyplace with the door open”. At first disappointment, it’s just an old ranch… but learning more it became more interesting.

Parked at the “Visitors Center”. Behind the RV is an old Farmall tractor. Becky’s dad had an old Farmall tractor that he loved and used for many farm chores.

Ranch on the wide open Montana high plains. It is still a working ranch, not just a tourist stop.

This building had horse stalls.

This is an abbreviated story and why it is a National Historic Site.

Canadian fur trader John Francis Grant was born at a Hudson Bay outpost in Alberta. The fur trade was waning and cattle ranching was becoming more profitable. He came to the area because it would allow him to graze cattle all year long. He built the first house in the area which he finished in 1862 (see pic below). He traded with emigrants on the Oregon Trail. He would trade one fresh head of cattle for two of the emigrants worn out cattle that would not survive the rest of the way to Oregon. The cattle would rest and graze on his ranch and he quickly grew the herd. Four years later, in 1862 he (and most others that had settled there and created a town they named Deer Lodge) became frustrated with the poor character of gold rush emigrants and sold the house and ranch to Carsted Conrad Kohrs who had left Germany at age 15.

Conrad Kohrs built the ranch up to 10 million acres shipping 10,000 cattle to Chicago stockyards a year. His ranch is still so large it is part of 4 States and 2 Canadian Provices. He lived here until he died in 1920. His family has kept the ranch and it’s legacy and want to share the story of western ranching in America.

The house that Grant built then sold to Kohrs

The stamp.

Indian Creek Campground in the town of Deer Lodge was a clean, well kept campground where we stayed the night. Next morning we headed north toward Glacier.

Mountains on the horizon.

Snow capped mountains! Getting closer.

Almost to Glacier National Park. This is the earliest we have visited and excited to see more snow on the mountains,

St Mary’s River. We crossed a bridge to get to our campground very near this picture.

Crazy windy drive from town of Deer Lodge to St Mary’s but glad to be settled in beside the mountains for a couple days.

After settling into camp we did a quick visit to the East Glacier Visitors Center. This short video show how windy it was!

View from the Visitors Center as the sunny day started turning cloudy and rainy.

View from near our campground. Tomorrow we will visit Glacier National Park.

Today’s favorite Bible reading: Zechariah 8:16-17

“These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.”