Photo By Mark A. Holloway - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72856305

Deer Lodge is the second oldest town in Montana and has been known by several names. The Native Americans knew it as the “Lodge of the WhiteTailed Deer” because a geological formation known as Warm Springs Mound provided a lightly salted water to the fields that kept nutritious grasses green year-round. This attracted deer and other wildlife. The Pioneers shortened it to “Deer Lodge”.

Johnny Grant, a fur trader and trapper built two cabins in Powell County in November of 1859 and amassed great wealth and an enormous heard of open range cattle by trading cattle with travelers on the Oregon Trail. His operation served as a crucial food source during an early gold rush in the treasure state.  In 1862 he moved his family to Deer Lodge because of its ideal environment for raising cattle and horses. This ranch, along with the heard,  was sold to Conrad Kohrs in 1867 whose land holdings once stretched over a million acres of Montana, Wyoming, and Alberta, Canada. Today the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site commemorates the Western cattle industry from its 1850’s inception through recent times.