National Park ServiceU.S. Department of the Interior

Grant-Kohrs RanchNational Historic Site

The News LetterFall 2016 • Newsletter for Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site • Vol. 1 Issue 3

Grant-Kohrs Ranch

As the days get shorter and a crisp chill fills the air, the smell

of applesauce cooking beckons to a time gone by. Early settlers would have been hard at work in the fall. It was time for harvesting crops and canning or otherwise preserving them for the long cold winter ahead.

The varieties and kinds of vegetables they grew, were carefully selected to be grown successfully in different areas. Many of those varieties are different than the hybrids and new varieties that are widely available to gardeners today. Heirloom varieties of historic crops, at least 100 years old, are grown in the garden at Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS. Part of

the challenge of growing an heirloom garden is that many of the historic varieties are no longer available.

Varieties grown in the Grant-Kohrs Ranch garden this season include: Purple Top White Globe Turnips (pre-18801), Copenhagen Market (1909) and Light Flat Dutch Cabbage (1913), and Danvers Half Long Carrots (1871).Early White Vienna Kohlrabi is another variety, which was grown as far back as the 1850s. Kohlrabi comes

Fall HarvestBy Lori Jensen

NPS PhotoLate fall garden after many crops have been harvested.

NPS PhotoKohrs’ root cellar

from the German word “kohl” mean-ing cabbage and “rabi” meaning turnip.

It was common to store root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots, in a root cellar. The Kohrs’ root cellar was located in the basement of the ranch house. You can see in the picture to the left, that it has several stalls to keep crops seperate. The cellar is encased in the stone foundation, including the floor, to keep vegetables cool, but insulated from freezing.

1 Dates indicate the first known existence of a variety in the world

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Experience Your Park

House Tours – Take a ranger-led tour of the historic ranch house. Learn how Johnny Grant and Conrad Kohrs made a living on the open range.

Walk – Come out, stretch your legs, and enjoy the fresh air on 10 miles of trails.

Bird Watching – You can see many different species of birds in different habitats.

From the Collectionby Austin Bousquet

The use of spurs is a long, sto-ried history. They have been

used since at least the second century BC by both Celts and Romans. The Roman cavalry used spurs in order to steer their horses with their feet, leaving their hands free for combat. Squires of medieval times were said to have “earned their spurs” when they achieved their knighthood. The spurs of defeated knights were also some-times collected as trophies of war.

The design of spurs is as varied as their history; straight and curved necks, straight prick-spurs and rotat-ing rowels both large and small. Even in vaquero and cowboy culture, spurs could vary greatly by the region and time period in which they were produced. When long chaps were worn in the colder northern areas like Montana, some spurs had small metal projections above the spur and a shank

NPS Photo Spurs in Grant-Kohrs Ranch Collection

that curved downward. This made sure the spur stayed free of entanglement with thick leather chaps. Contrarily, spurs worn later with shorter batwing-style chaps, like the example pictured, lack these features.

The spurs pictured to the left reside in the Grant-Kohrs collection and were made in San Francisco by the LD Stone and Company saddlery. They have an aggressive 10-point rowel and an ornate design chiseled into the heel band. LD Stone and Company made many of their spurs by custom order, so these were most likely adapted perfectly for what the cowboy needed.

The News Letter

EDITOR/DESIGNERLori Jensen

CONTRIBUTORSAustin BousquetJeffrey JohnsonLanette KingMichael OestreichJason Smith

SUPERINTENDENTJacqueline Lavelle

CHIEF OF INTERPRETATION & EDUCATIONJulie Croglio

COMMENTS? CONTACTGrant-Kohrs Ranch NHS266 Warren LaneDeer Lodge, MT 59722406-846-2070 ext. 226www.nps.gov/grko

Wildlife Watching – The ranch provides a natural habitat for

many different species of wildlife, from moose to

muskrats. Who can you find today?

Fishing – You are welcome to fish on the ranch with a valid MT fishing license.

Photography – With 88 historic structures, livestock, wildlife and

about 1500 acres to enjoy, you are sure to find that

perfect shot. Trail Riding - Bring your

own saddle horses to the ranch and ride the trails. Stop at the Visitor

Center for more information.

NPS Photo Parts of spurs indicated on Conrad Kohrs ‘ spurs

As summer quickly fades to fall, there are many things to see and do at Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS. Stop in the Visitor Center to learn which ranger programs are available each day.

3 National Park Service

It’s been a very productive sum-mer for the Maintenance Pro-

gram. One the projects completed this summer was chinking and daubing the Ox Barn, the Icehouse, and Bunkhouse Row. Log structures require periodic repair to the material which seals the spaces between the logs, and chinking refers to the pieces of wood or stone used to fill larger voids. Daubing is the lime-and-sand mortar mix that seals it all together, often appearing as the white bands in between logs of a cabin.

A close observer will notice that even fresh daubing at Grant-Kohrs Ranch may show a parting gap between logs. Montana is dry; when it rains, the daubing expands slightly and fills the gaps. The ranch does not use Portland cement for daubing as it is too rigid for our climate and tends to crack and fall apart as the logs expand and contract with seasonal changes or even rain.

NPS Photo: Dolly Risteyn reapirs daubing on the Ox Barn

Daubing to Preserve Log Structuresby Mike Oestreich

Volunteers Make Valuable Contibutions

There are many ways that volunteers help care for Grant-

Kohrs Ranch. This year volunteers assisted with visitor programs, resource management, visitor center operations, trail maintenance, and youth programs. Volunteers also make many activities possible for visitors to enjoy during special events. Whether it’s teaching a lucky child to brand, driving the coveted hay-rides for Pumpkin Sunday, or helping children create birdfeeders at the Holiday Open House, volunteers made a considerable impact in fiscal year 2016.

A total of 105 volunteers gave their time to Grant-Kohrs Ranch this year. That included an 7,100 hours of volun-teer efforts. Thank you volunteers!

If you would like to volunteer at Grant-Kohrs Ranch, please contact Julie Croglio at 406-846-2070 ext. 226. NPS Photos

Clockwise: Santa: Gene Hensen helps brand; Carol Mjelde making bird feeders; hay rides

on Pumpkin Sunday

Other projects maintenance had to tackle, included: repainting/white-washing several buildings, repointing the stone and brickwork of the main house, and repainting the kiosk outside of the visitor’s center, accented with carefully hand-painted brands. Many of the aging wooden gates around the ranch were taken to the shop for

repair and repainting, and new gate cap timbers were lifted into place and installed above the tall gate posts.

As the summer winds down, and hopefully before the first snow, the collapsed irrigation flume in the Bull Pasture will be replaced with assistance from the Resources Program.

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Steers & Interns Help with Grazing Managementby Jason Smith

On the HorizonOct. 16 - Pumpkin Sunday

Sunday, 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Enjoy the fall season with themed activities for children and special programs and activities for visitors of all ages.

Dec. 4 - Holiday Open HouseSunday, 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Celebrate the season with music, children’s activities, wagon rides and refreshments. The Kohrs home will be decorated throughout the month of December.

April 15 - Junior Ranger Day Explore, Learn, Protect! Kids can take part in fun programs and earn a junior ranger badge or become a Junior Ranger.

www.nps.gov/grko/events

NPS Photo Steers in Mob Grazing Area on August 25, 2016

Superfund UpdateBy Jeffrey Johnson

Department of Environmental Quality plans on awarding a

contract to start superfund remedia-tion at Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS in early 2017. Road access to the cleanup areas is limited. The National Park Service is currently working with the City of Deer Lodge and DEQ to allow both of them to use the access road for the city’s waste water treatment facility.

Local 9th grade students will have the opportunity to study the contami-nated soils at Grant-Kohrs Ranch, before the clean-up begins. The Clark Fork Coalition’s Hands on the Ranch: Soils Inquiry program will be using two different areas of the ranch, where sets of three soils pits will be dug so that students can analyze the pits and

Have you ever noticed that when cattle have a large pasture to graze in, they will find a favorite spot and spend most of their time there? The cattle leave a good portion of the pasture under-utilized and the favorite area over-grazed. In 2014, Grant- Kohrs Ranch began testing a “mob” grazing technique to promote uniform pasture utilization.

According to a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service web article, mob grazing involves moving cattle at least daily between small pens. The goal is for every plant in the grazing pen to be either eaten or walked on and trampled. The grass is then allowed to rest for 60-120 days or more. Studies are showing that appro-priately managed grazing programs, like mob grazing, can improve livestock health, promote plant diversity, provide weed control, and enhance soil health.

Yearling steers are put on fifteen acres of irrigated pasture. For the past three seasons, the yearlings were moved into the designated area in early July. Portable electric fence holds the steers in a new pen each day. The pens are moved until the steers have grazed the entire 15 acres, usually by mid-September. With guidance from resource staff, college interns provide the labor needed for the program, while getting “hands on” grazing management experience. Interns

set up and size the pens, move the steers, fill the water tanks, and record observations. The steers are staying healthy and are doing a great job of using all vegetation, including the few weeds that are present. They are also incorporating litter into the soil and doing their best at nutrient application (aka manure). At the end of three seasons, the increase in vegetation production shows that intensive grazing is beneficial.

collect soil samples for analysis in their school lab. In the program, “students compare and contrast soil profiles, share their data, and reflect on what it may mean. This activity mimics procedures used to evaluate Superfund restoration sites in the UCF (Upper Clark Fork), and illustrates the real-world applicability of collecting data to make prediction about our environ-ment.”

DEQ is planning to hold several public meetings when the start date for on-site work gets closer. Informa-tion about the planned work schedule, as well as other information will be presented at that time. The public will also be able to ask questions.