Grant-Kohrs Ranch Historic Resource Study/Historic Structures Report/Cultural Resources Statement

B. Old Ranching and New

The question of old ranching methods versus the new, when put to Conrad K. Warren, elicited a somewhat laconic response. Size was the difference, he reasoned, "the scale they operated on in comparison to the scale that I operated on." [7] And size is the key to a comparison of the Kohrs and Bielenberg period and the Warren era. Cattle ranching in the open-range days involved thousands and thousands of cattle grazing over the public domain of the West as the Indians went onto reservations and the numbers of buffalo dwindled. The herds grazed freely, were only loosely controlled, and were gathered twice a year for branding, culling out, and shipping. Vast distances and huge numbers of cattle characterized the business.

But the passage of time brought the bad winter of 1886 and 1887. Then close on its heels came the influx of homesteaders onto the dry lands that had supported first the buffalo and then millions of cattle. By the 20th century even the large sections of public domain that had escaped the plow of the homesteader were privately owned and fenced, so that the technique of throwing cattle onto free grass for five or six months, branding the offspring and shipping the fat ones off to market simply could no longer be applied. By then the changes in the industry and the shape of things to come could be summed up well in one word -- "smaller." The cattle themselves improved as breeders learned to emphasize weight gain and marketability, while the ranches grew smaller, more self contained, and self sufficient. [8] Stock growers began to raise some of their own feed and to cut hay for the winter months. With smaller land areas and fewer cattle came the need to make more money from each cow or steer. Breeding became important, and the growing of economical and nutritious feed for the animals paramount.

Kohrs and Bielenberg moved with the rest of the cattle-growing West, and the development of their herds and the modification of their operation was indicative of what was happening in the rest of Montana and in the western stock industry. Sequentially, the growth of the home ranch in the late 1880s through out the 1890s and up to about 1906 meant that less and less public land stood open to take the herds. In order to keep the profitable open-range cattle-growing operation afloat, Conrad Kohrs purchased large amounts of land. But he purchased the land instead of simply appropriating it. That could not be done any more, because the demands on the range no longer allowed it. The halcyon days of grass for the taking had passed with the end of the century. Large herds of cattle still grazed, but on leased or owned land, not on the public domain with squatter's rights as the procedure. This gradual winding down of open range and public domain grazing beginning in the 1890s (1899 for Kohrs and Bielenberg, when they purchased the N-N) was the first change from the old ways to the new.

The second major change, a result of the first, was the development of smaller ranches with more ranchers raising fewer cattle. For two reasons this step came a little later for Kohrs and Bielenberg than for most of their contemporaries: first, they had been able to purchase the large acreage of the home ranch (just under 27,000 acres) by about 1900, and secondly, they owned the N-N and water rights over possibly a million acres contiguous to the new ranch. This situation passed by 1919 when The Kohrs and Bielenberg Land and Livestock Company, The Conrad Kohrs Company, and The Rock Creek Ditch and Mining Company began to sell off the land carefully accrued since 1866. Had Con and John not been very old men at the time, it is possible that they would not have sold. But it is almost certain that the grand empire of land and cattle that they had created would soon have had to face the realities of greater taxes and rising land values, and before too long, would have yielded to the pressures that many other large outfits had already felt. But chronologically this second step, ranch size shrinkage, did not come for Kohrs and Bielenberg until about 1918. But then it came with a vengeance, the home ranch shrinking to miniscule proportions compared to its earlier size.

After a hiatus in the twenties the resurrection of the ranch began under Con Warren, as it grew again and served new cattle marketing procedures and a new cattle business. This step, the third one, brought the ranch into the modern mold with carefully managed and planned herd of one dominant breed (Herefords). Warren's techniques, like those of his contemporaries, combined all that had been learned in the business to date, plus all the burgeoning knowledge the new land grant colleges, their animal husbandry schools, and the experimental stations could provide. Medicines abounded, as did new genetic knowledge to use in breeding concerning size, handling, meat production and resistance to disease. Ranching had come full swing in at least one arena. It had been gloriously informal, but now operated under strong control, with each step taken based on an almost certain result in an almost exact given period. Testing scientifically for disease and pregnancy replaced the practiced eye of the line rider, trained only in the school of the drive, the roundup, and the branding fire. The process continued as the 20th century progressed, and by the early 1970s, when Con Warren sold his Hereford Ranch to the National Park Foundation, breeding had progressed even beyond the state of the art he had practiced from the 1930s almost to the 1960s. Cattle feed, too, had developed from the grains grown by the ranchers and fed not long afterward, to programmed feeding of blended feeds prepared in distant mills, feeds supplemented by minerals, growth-inducing chemicals, and antibiotics to ensure fast and sickness-free growth.

Great differences had taken place between the Kohrs and Bielenberg era on one hand and the Warren era on the other. These changes—the closing of the open lands resulting in smaller ranches, the growth of supplemental feed, and the dominance of the Hereford—showed clearly in the operations of the Warren Hereford Ranch as opposed to those of the earlier home ranch of Kohrs and Bielenberg.

The Wilson article, "6,000 Acres and a Microscope," dwells at some length on the differences that could be discerned in 1937. Con Kohrs, Wilson noted, could figure on hiring three cowboys for every thousand cattle, but modern ranching, with its attendant care of the animals, required three times that many. Kohrs and Bielenberg raised cattle "to be butchered and eaten," while Warren raised them to become "parents and grandparents of cattle to be eaten." The old system certainly focused on raising the fattest, fastest growing, and strongest cattle possible. The new style continued this emphasis, but "as a student of cattle eugenics Con Warren is now more ambitious, better primed with details." [9] So even in the similarities, differences existed.

The cattle drover, that folk hero of many a Saturday afternoon matinee and, more recently, the center stage character of the adult psychological western, changed as well:

A cowboy is an agricultural laborer who has been fantastically romanticised. In the movies he still rides a bronco at breakneck speed and waves a ten gallon Stetson. But the demands of modern ranching are more mundane and practical. As soon as late snows thaw, they man the two tractors, tear into the fields for spring planting. [10]

Yet the new and old ways still converge at certain basic points. The cattle must still be raised as economically as possible. They must still be watched, helped as needed, shipped, and sold. The investment in them now, as before, is based on hope and chance. The money must be spent for two, sometimes three, years before it can be recouped, hopefully with a profit. Cattle bought cheap might sell cheaper, or they might sell at considerable profit. But just as the old cattlemen watched so do the new -- the market at sale time, both equally vulnerable to its gyrations. Likewise, weather, then as now, played an unpredictable game. So some things in the cattle business have not changed much, and it is likely that they won't change in the future, either.

Con Kohrs lived a long life spanning both these eras. In 1913 he and many of his contemporaries began closing down the vast cattle growing businesses they had long directed. Kohrs saw the new times coming and addressed the challenges that faced future generations of cattle growers:

The principal actors of the early periods have nearly all passed away. They were a rugged set of men, these pioneers, well qualified for their self-assumed task. In the pursuit of wealth a few succeeded and the majority failed, as in all other spheres of activity. The pioneers ousted the aborigine, utilizing the country for what it was best adapted at that period, and the range cattle industry has seen its inception, zenith, and partial extinction all within half a century. The changes of the past have been many; these of the future may be of even more revolutionary character. What was the beef-producing ground of the nation a few years back is now being used for other purposes, whether practically or not, time will tell.

The cattle industry as it existed a quarter of a century ago is no longer possible. Eventually the problems now confronting the West will reach the self-solution state. It is destined to be a populous and wealth-producing country. The pioneers did their part and it is reasonable to assume that posterity will successfully solve each problem as it presents itself. Nature, while imposing some handicaps, has done much for humanity in this vast region, and humanity have ever manifested an ability to make the most of nature's lavishness. [11]

Introduction
Historic Resource Study | Cultural Resources Statement | Historic Structure Report