Grant-Kohrs Ranch Historic Structures Report

A. Introduction

Numerous aspects of the ranch defy clear classification. For the most part this is due to a lack of data. An example of this is the water drainage system that existed at the ranch. A little is known about it since many of the drainage lines have been cut at various places by excavations during the later active years of the ranch. But the complexity of the system in its entirety has not yet been determined. Another example is land use. The exact placement of animals by breeds or by use (registered breeding cattle vs. commercial cattle, for example) on the extensive lands of the ranch is not yet fully understood. The uses and extent of the many irrigation ditches are not totally apparent yet, although they may become more clear as more research is completed. This section will discuss these aspects of the ranch and others.

B. Fence Lines and Pastures

Miles of fences bounded the ranch. Many of them were barbed wire, enclosing lands not now included in the park. The barbed wire fences enclosed pastures northeast of the ranch house but separated from the lands immediately surrounding the buildings. The section that was so fenced closest to the ranch house was generally referred to as the "Humber Ranch," and included Section 23 and parts of adjacent Sections 23, 26, and 27 of Township 8 North 9 West. In the southwest Corner of this area Kohrs and Bielenberg put up hay. [1] These lands slope gently upward to the continental divide, visible from the ranch to the east. Somewhat further east is a large chunk of land including over nineteen full sections. Some of it was leased, most of it owned. The most southerly full section, Section 21 of Township 8 North 8 West, was the "Bull Pasture," fenced separately from the others and housing the bulls at the ranch.

Eighteen of the nineteen sections of land, which collectively bore the title "Dog Creek Pasture," were all enclosed by one single fence. The only section not included was 17, which for some unknown reason was fenced separately. The area supported perhaps 700 steers during the last decades of the home ranch under Kohrs and Bielenberg. [2] In some of the pastures were jack-leg fences, usually closing off a corner or two where cattle could be controlled during roundups or prior to shipping. A few corrals stood out in the fields of the Dog Creek and the Humber Ranch areas. During World War I, much of the Humber Ranch area was plowed up and planted in wheat. [3]

For the most part the remainder of the fence lines were of the jack-leg type. This is particularly true of those surrounding the land in the immediate vicinity of the buildings, fences that are included in today's national historic site. Small corrals (like the ones north of the bunkhouse) were marked by post and pole fences, but lanes, pastures, the west feedlots, and the west corrals utilized jack-leg fences.

A picket fence about three feet high, painted white, surrounded the yard of the ranch house; this was the only such decorative fence at the site.

The "Upper Ranch," a separate piece of the home ranch south of Deer Lodge, had a complex of buildings at its center that were associated with small corrals. Like the fences at the ranch house north of town, these were post and pole for small corrals, jack-leg for most pastures, and barbed wire for a limited number of pastures. (See Map 3. The "Upper Ranch" is in Township 7 North 9 West at the bottom of the map.)

C. Water and the Home Ranch

Since water is the key to any agricultural enterprise, whether it is stock raising or farming, the uses of water at the ranch and the water systems played an important role in the daily activities of the operation. Remnants of the various water facilities in use throughout the 110 years of the ranch's active existence abound. Yet much of the various systems remains underground, in the wet, gravel-strewn ground adjacent to the Clark Fork River. The structural history of the ranch will not be complete until we fully understand the various water systems. But at this stage of research and knowledge, much remains to be learned. Accordingly, only an introduction to the various systems will be at tempted here.

1. The Front Lawn Watering System

This system provided the front lawn with water, and no doubt served to keep the cottonwoods or poplars that shaded the front of the house watered as well. It began about eight hundred yards east of the ranch house, east of where the main street of Deer Lodge (U.S. Highway 10) crosses Fred Burr Creek, and just west of the berm supporting Interstate 90. There a ditch tapped Fred Burr Creek. This ditch generally ran along the edge of the higher ground just before it slopes down to the creek. It flowed behind Con Warren's present home, on the south edge of his backyard. It crossed under the Burlington Northern line in a culvert, emerged back into the open, and then passed under the Milwaukee line through a "siphon". This siphon was a large U-shaped system comprising a hollow cement shaft on the upstream side of the track connected to a tunnel under the track through which the water ran, and a slightly shorter hollow shaft on the other side. The water would seek its own level on the downstream side of the shaft and overflow into the ditch heading toward the front yard. The siphon still exists. The direction from the Burlington Northern to the front yard prior to 1907 when the Milwaukee came through is not known. At the west end of the siphon the water flowed into a ditch along the south side of the east-west fence at that location today. It crossed under the white picket fence outlining the front yard and connected with a wooden surface box about 8 inches wide and 5 inches deep with plugged holes about 2 inches in diameter spaced along its west side. When watering the lawn, the plugs were removed, as was the brick diverting the water from the junction of the ditch with the watering box. The lawn sloped gently down toward the front of the house to a point about eight feet in front, where it sloped sharply up to the brick walk in front of the lower clapboards and the foundation. Thus the water flowing from the box was prevented from wetting the foundations, lower logs, and clapboards. The ditch continued from its junction with the watering box parallel to the south side of the house, carrying water to two half barrels sunk into the ground between the parallel rows of lilac bushes, which today have joined into one large mass. The water caught there could be used for watering the flower garden, plants, and vegetable garden.

The ditch then continued west, over the bluff and down into the lower ground at the back (west) of the brick addition, where it joined the drainage system heading west to the creek. The system was used until 1934. It was in operation quite early, because the M. A. Leeson drawing (History of Montana, 1885) shows the thick grove of cottonwood trees in 1884. They would have required much water, and this system might have provided it. (So might the heavy levels of groundwater just under the surface in the area.)

Between the tracks, and along the ditch filled by the siphon, a wheel for sharpening scythes, etc., was run by a paddle wheel in the water. At one end was a grindstone, at the other a flywheel acting as a counterbalance. The system could be turned on and off by diverting water to run the wheel or by allowing undiverted water to flow west in the ditch. [4]

2. The Drainage System and Some Aspects of the Water System

The extant data on the drainage system indicates that it was quite large and complex, although this complexity did not arise by design. It stemmed from the fact that new drains were often being installed, either because an existing one became plugged or failed for some other reason, or because a new spring popped out of the bluff parallel to the railroads. Con Warren has indicated that once around 1934 when they were digging preparatory to laying pipe to the horse barns area (Historic Structures 6, 7, 9), they ran into sixteen pipes or wooden boxes -- oriented east-west—once used for drainage purposes. Generally the drainage was run through cedar boxes, measuring about eight by fourteen inches, buried in the west soil.

One system began near the creek just south of the ranch house, just west of the bluff carrying the railroad tracks. Here, in Fred Burr Creek, a diversion dam could send water in a surface ditch to an open ditch that ran along the edge of the garden. This ditch turned where the garden edge turned north, and then turned quickly again in the vicinity of Historic Structure 3 and went south toward Historic Structures 15 and 16 and the buildings west of it. This water could flush out the privies located in the general area of Historic Structure 3 and could furnish water for the stock and for the small patches of garden between the ranch house and those stock pens watered by the meanderings of Fred Burr Creek. This ditch eventually emptied into Fred Burr Creek west of Historic Structure 16, passing in a straight line from the row of cottonwoods to the creek. The data on this ditch is not yet complete.

Another system involved a spring just a few feet north of the diversion dam on Fred Burr Creek noted above. The spring was lined with stones (called a "French Drain"), then covered with timbers and buried. A cedar box, about eight by fourteen inches, carried its water. The box (buried about two to three feet deep) angled to the corner of the garden, and must have been just under the open ditch that turned there. Access to the drainage box was about two thirds of the way toward Historic Structure 3, and was provided by a wood-lined vertical shaft visible today, that permitted dipping water out of the drainage box that can bee seen connecting on the upstream and downstream side of the access box today. The system then headed north-northwest across the back of the house and into the field toward the hydraulic ram. The data on this is not yet complete, and will not be until the line is traced.

Another system, comprised of a six-inch pipe, drained the house. Both the spring on the bluff against which the brick addition is built and the water tank overflow in the attic were drained by it. This system came from the spring site under the length of the basement of the brick addition, and went straight west towards the creek. Presumably the sewage and waste water from the brick addition also drained into this pipe. Today the city sewage system connects to it and the pipe can be seen in the access box located in the open area between Historic Structures 19 and 16.

The hydraulic ram furnished water to a tank located in the attic of the brick addition of the house. The ram was located about seven to eight feet below surface level in the field north of the ranch house, west of the bluff, and about ten feet from the Kohrs-Manning ditch, directly west of Historic Structure 12. It was fed by a cedar pipe, reinforced by wire wrapped around it and water-proofed by a tar coating. This pipe (stored now in sections in Historic Structure 12) went from the bluff near Historic Structure 12 to feed the hydraulic ram. The hydraulic ram was also fed by a six-inch steel pipe running from the same bluff to the ram, but starting further to the south—roughly at ai point on the bluff midway between Historic Structures 11 and 12. This pipe had numerous feeder arms connected to it. The hydraulic ram supplied the tank in the attic of the brick addition with a 1-1/4-inch lead pipe. This pipe was buried from about eight feet at the ram to about four feet where it approached the house. The exact trace of it and where it attached to the water tank are unknown.

An arm went north from the open ditch that ran in front of Historic Structures 15 and 16 to water the field north of Historic Structure 23. [5]

3. The Kohrs-Manning Ditch

The Kohrs-Manning ditch remains an active irrigation ditch today. It is not owned by the government but remains in the private holdings of the Kohrs-Manning Ditch Company. Begun about 1870 by a partnership of Conrad Kohrs and a Judge Manning of Deer Lodge, the long system tapped the waters of the Deer Lodge River south of the present boundaries of the park, and brought water into the pastures along the east side of the river. Intended for only home and agricultural uses, the water in the ditch was not used for mining purposes as was usual. The rights to the water, and the profits from the operation of the ditch, were sold in the early 20th century. Apparently, from 1870 until the present time the bulk of the water was sold north of the ranch and the current park boundary, and the flow of water that came through the ranch was not significant to the ranch's water needs, although the water was put to some use at the ranching and even further south. [6]

Introduction
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