Grant-Kohrs Ranch Administrative History

With stabilization work underway on the historic buildings, Superintendent Peterson and his staff coordinated the construction of the new parking lot in the southeast corner of the Site, on Tract E. This called for an archeological investigation of that area, since it was already known that a historic habitation [the Stuart cabin] site lay in the vicinity of the proposed visitor facilities. A preliminary survey had been conducted in 1973 as part of a statewide inventory conducted by the University of Montana. This cursory walk-over had detected four prehistoric sites within the park boundaries, only one of which lay on the NPS fee land.

Of greater concern was the "Tom Stuart cabin site," alleged to be the location of a small ranch occupied by the younger brother of Montana's eminent pioneer, Granville Stuart. Little was known about the site, except that Stuart resided there sometime prior to 1883 and sold the place to Con Kohrs the following year. Park Historian Paul Gordon thought that the site might offer an opportunity for park interpreters to contrast ranchers "not as rich and fortunate as Kohrs [11]

A DSC archeologist, Winifred Brown, traveled to Deer Lodge in the spring of 1975 to conduct a reconnaissance of the area to be impacted by the installation of the visitor parking lot and contact station. It was her opinion that the lot, as designed, would indeed intrude on the Stuart site and that the construction zone should be archeologically tested prior to any grading. Wilfred D. Logan, Brown's supervisor in the Denver Service Center, concurred with her recommendations and urged management to allow Brown to further investigate the area before the July 1 start-up of construction. Brown's initial observations influenced an alteration in the parking lot design to skew it somewhat so as to avoid the Stuart site, as well as provide a protective buffer for the resource. Archeologist Brown arranged a site visit virtually on the eve of construction to further test the area. She discovered what appeared to have been a barn location near the house site, but fortunately neither feature would be disturbed by the construction work. [12] This accomplished, installation of the visitor facilities proceeded on schedule, although no one could have foreseen that other factors would delay opening the park for another two years.

One of these was the persistent problem of high ground water on the flood plain below the ranch house. Actually, the choice of location had been a poor one for construction purposes. That slope was a natural aquifer, evidenced by several nearby springs, and Johnson Creek flowed just beyond the corrals. The accumulation of water in the "lower yard" had plagued Kohrs and Bielenberg, too, during their tenure at the ranch. Regardless of their efforts over the years to construct wooden French drains and rock-lined sumps, dozens of them in fact, nature continued to defeat the ranch men. By the time the National Park Service first arrived on the scene, the area was underwater most of the time. "That whole lower yard was a swimming hole," Historian Gordon recalled in a 1996 interview. Both he and Wheaton remembered seeing ducks paddling through the corrals. A new system of drain tiles was installed during 1975-76 to alleviate this inundation. Gordon commented that the area eventually was "high and dry" by the time he left the park early in 1977. [13]

Rodd Wheaton's enthusiasm for the ranch and his strategic position in the Rocky Mountain Regional Office continued to benefit the Site in subsequent years. As a key player in establishing historic preservation priorities for the Rocky Mountain Region, he was successful in funding project work at Grant-Kohrs several years running. This, he later revealed, was sometimes to the detriment of other parks having similar, but less critical, needs. [14] All of this ongoing work required the presence of a professional to supervise the work. Architect Peter Snell from the Denver Service Center initially was charged with preparing a Historic Structures Report to accompany Albright's Historic Resource Study. Since Snell was already spending so much time at the ranch, was assigned to the project full-time to conduct fabric and construction research, as well as on-site guidance.

If the Deer Lodge community wanted to see action at the Site, they certainly had no grounds for complaint now. Fiscal year 1976 saw more money flow into the rehabilitation of various buildings. The amount was not great when weighed against the job at hand, only about $40,000.00 annually, but it seemed like a fortune to a park that had nothing. Besides the reglazing work that continued on the hundreds of windows, new jack-leg fences went up to replace those fallen down years before. Wheaton also identified eight more buildings that would have their exteriors repainted, including bunk house row (HS-2), the icehouse (HS-5), old granary (HS-18), and the Bielenberg barn (HS-19). The stallion (HS-14), thoroughbred (HS-15), and Leeds-Lyon barns, along with the buggy shed (HS-17), were to be whitewashed. [15]

(left to right) Dave Butler, Bill Lingenfelter,
Arnold Larson (hidden), and Rodd Wheaton with new park entrance sign.
(Courtesy of Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS)

Having park personnel living on-site was a measure of night-time protection, but was limited by their actual presence and vigilance. It was unreasonable, if not unrealistic, to expect employees to remain on-site twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There would be those occasions, too, when no one would be there. With a new roof on the main house and work underway to restore the ceilings in several of the rooms, the next logical step was to provide electronic security systems to help safeguard the valuable contents. In October 1975, an electrical engineer specializing in such systems was sent to the park to design both fire detection and intrusion alarm systems employing a telephone dialer to alert designated officials in the event of emergency. These systems, were installed in the ranch house (HS-1) about four months later. [16]

Good times had come to Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. These were the years of plenty as the ranch found advocates both in the political arena and within the Park Service. There was action on all fronts as Superintendent Peterson dedicated himself to pushing the all-important pedestrian underpass to completion, while Gordon supervised the research, design, and installation of the exhibits at the new contact station. The architects and contractors, along with the park maintenance staff, combined forces to save the many ranch buildings and return them to a semblance of their former conditions during the ranch's prosperous times. Momentum increased as Wheaton and Snell pursued a strategy of placing the greatest importance on replacing roofs and foundations, with exterior painting to preserve siding as the next order of importance. Several projects were packaged in a $50,000.00 request in 1976 to replace the roofs on a number of buildings. Only the thoroughbred barn (HS-15) was actually completed that year, but temporary roofing was placed on both the 1935 granary (HS-6) and the chicken house (HS-22). This work was deferred because several of the 1930s structures required special hexagonal composition shingles that proved difficult to locate on the modern market. These had to be special-ordered to replace the roofs on the blacksmith shop/garage (HS-3), granary (HS-6), dairy barn (HS-9), brooding house (HS-21), and the chicken house (HS-22). However, the singles were procured in time for time work to resume in the spring, 1977 and by the end of the season all five structures had been re-roofed and galvanized iron sheeting was laid on the roof of the buggy shed (HS-17). That same year the ice house and two feed storage houses were repainted. [17]