Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site Historic Structure Report CHAPTER III: THE BAD WINTER

"The Montana pattern has been brief, explosive, frenetic, and often tragic. The economic picture has often been one of exploitation, over expansion, boom, and bust."

K. Ross Toole [1]

"Ranchers, huddled about their stoves, did not dare think of what was happening on the range -- of helpless cattle pawing at frozen snow in search of a little food or fighting to strip bark from willows and aspens along streams, "dogies" and unseasoned eastern cattle floundering in drifts, whole herds jammed together in ravines to escape the frosty blast and dying by the thousands."

Ray Allen Billington [2]

The bad winter alone did not bring about the changes in the range cattle industry that began in 1886 and 1887, but it served both as the deciding factor and the catalyst that coalesced the elements of disaster and subsequent response. Warnings of trouble on the open range had been voiced years before the momentous winter descended on the Montana plains.

Overstocking the ranges here had been the norm since the early 1880s. Texas cattle, often carried part way north by rail and driven the rest of the way, and eastern cattle, brought in on the newly completed Northern Pacific, were added to the herds already feeding on the rich grasses of the northern plains. By the fall of 1883, possibly 600,000 head of cattle filled the Montana ranges, sharing the resources there with an equal number of sheep and a proportionately smaller number of horses. By that time the range stood at or quite near capacity. [3] Yet, as Conrad Kohrs and others observed, more cattle came in the next year. Con placed the 1884 importation of eastern cattle alone at 75,000, adding tremendously to the 94,000 already shipped to Montana in preceding years. [4] The natural increase of the herds and the importation of more Texas animals added to the cattle population. This resulted in more animals grazing on the same amount of grass, which became thinner, requiring more acres per animal even as more animals per acre arrived. By the mid-1880s the Montana rangelands began to show the effects of this vicious circle. Kohrs had noted, about that time, that "It takes 20 acres on a new range to feed one cow, after the range has been grazed two years it will take almost 25 acres, and after six years all of 40 acres." [5]

By 1885 the situation worried Granville Stuart considerably. In June he, Kohrs, and the other DHS partners considered one of many proposals by investors, in this case Europeans, to purchase the DHS ranch and stock. Stuart's comment to Kohrs about the deal included a straightforward and worried comment on the range conditions: "I hope the sale will go for I am afraid of the overstocking that is going on, if we could prevent that I would never want to sell. It would be the best business in the world". [6]

By the beginning of 1886, the factors that would eventually combine to bring disaster were coming closer and closer to fusing. More cattle, which had not yet developed the ability to meet the rugged Montana winter, filled the range. This situation, plus the fact that the freshly imported cattle were receiving less nourishment from the sparse grass, meant that only one other adverse factor might bring about destruction of the herds. It might have been disease; it could have been a prolonged drought. But, as it happened, a dry summer and a concurrently poor grass crop preceded a severe winter that started early and ended late. The cattle were weak as they entered the always dangerous winter season, and 1886-87 proved to be the most dangerous one for years.

"The alders are in bloom and the trout running up -- six weeks ahead of the ordinary seasons" exulted the Deer Lodge newspaper in late February 1886." And Sam Scott says the Race Track is as fine as it is in June. This is getting to be a great country," the story continued. [7] The year was off to a fine start in the Deer Lodge Valley of Montana. But from the south came a report that would prove to be tragically prophetic for Montana within twelve months:

Reports from Dodge City, Kansas, Tuesday, reported very severe weather the preceding ten days. Cattle were drifted up to the fences and river by the storms and many were perishing. The grass was snowed under, water holes were frozen up, and it is feared the loss of stock will be heavy. [8]

At the home ranch, Con Kohrs lay low, weak and sick, puzzled and irritated at being unable to find the cause of, or a cure for, his enervating sickness. The winter of 1885-86 had not gone well for him. It had included a trip to Canada to buy stock, and, in early February, the death of his mother in Davenport, Iowa. Con recalled later:

I had been miserable all the winter. The physicians seemed unable to find out what ailed me. Their diagnosis varying from consumption to the lesser and greater ills to which flesh is heir. I was not able to work and remained at home the greater part of the summer.

Con's unidentified sickness was to trouble him the rest of 1885 and keep him from the typically heavy activity he had performed as a matter of course since his arrival in Montana twenty-four years before. [9]

Business, however, was not too bad. And, had the overgrazing situation not been a clearly present danger early that year, the size of the DHS herds and the rest of the Pioneer Cattle Company's assets would have been even more impressive than they looked in the Manager's Report of 16 January 1886. It showed

18,843	Cattle on range @ $31. Ea		584,133
164	Horses		12,886
4	Wagons & Harnesses (badly worn)		200
400	Acres of Hay land @ $25.		10,000
400	Tons hay @ $10.		4,000
	Amt due from Sundry parties per trial bal		4,212.19
	Cash on Hand		108.09
	Capital Stock	400,000
	Amt Due parties per trial Bal	3,764.77
	Approximate gain	211,974.51
		615,739.28	615,739.28	[10]

Yet the figures meant little, since the foundation of any cattleman's wealth, the animals themselves, did not thrive that year. In a letter to one of the DHS partners, a DHS manager wrote that the

cattle are looking poorer on this range than I have ever seen them. There is actually no grass on the range & if we do not sell the most of the cattle will have to be moved onto a new range or they will all die next winter. The range is now the poorest in the country. Thoroughly eaten out. [11]

The situation worried the DHS partners, who carefully considered all opportunities to sell that came along that year. Kohrs and Bielenberg's herds -- both those owned fully by them and the DHS herd -- totaled 35,000 that year. Con numbered the DHS herd, of which he and John were about one-third owners, at 23,000. The CK herd, owned completely by Con and John, numbered 12,000. One particular deal, an offer to sell to "Steve Elkins and other eastern capitalists," resulted in an investigation of the herd by their agent. Kohrs recalled that "we rounded up many herds for him. He was well satisfied with the cattle, but advised our clients not to buy unless rains came to insure a good growth of grass."

The rains did not come that spring or that summer and the deal fell through. Faced then with a situation of very poor grass, prolonged lack of rain, and undernourished cattle, the

Pioneer Cattle Company asked me to go to Canada to see whether I could lease some land on the Canadian side. We secured a lease of about 100,000 acres in the Cypress Hills with the expectation of driving our cattle across. The herds were not started until after the beef roundup. The river was bad and only a few crossed and these had to be left in the Little Rockies as it was too late to take them across the line.

With Con still ailing that spring and not as energetic as usual, "Johnny [Bielenberg] attended the beef roundup and helped us to drive the cattle to Custer's Station and I was present at the loading." [12]

Nor had the weather changed by September. The dry summer that followed the dry spring gave way to a dry fall as Con and Johnny loaded beeves for the eastern markets at Custer. The New Northwest, with its typical mixture of boosterism and realism, referred to the parched conditions by noting: "splendid weather, but it makes low wells." [13] It also made sluggish streams, low rivers, poor grass, and weak cattle. Those shipped east that year could not have been up to the normal CK and DHS high standards.

Con soon traveled east, probably in a caboose of one of the cattle trains leaving from Custer Station. At St. Paul (en route to Chicago) he took the train to Davenport to see a Dr French. Kohrs had developed bronchitis by this time, in addition to his asthma and generally "poor condition." Dr. French examined Con and told him the baleful news that one of his lungs was "entirely gone and the other badly affected." There might be a few years of life left, the doctor added, if Con would go to southern California and live back from the coast. [14] Discouraged, he returned to Deer Lodge. Con later recalled that he "felt poorly all winter."

This was the beginning of the winter that followed the dry spring, summer, and fall. Already alarmed, Kohrs saw the winter begin in November, "and in such a manner as to make us fear the worst. A top mantle of snow covered the earth and all of the roads were blockaded". [15] With the range conditions that winter all too well in mind, Con Kohrs and John Bielenberg must have wondered how spring would find their herds. The year, had it been other than an intensely dry one, would not have been too bad, because the heifers on the range produced a relatively good calf crop. The total number of calves branded for the DHS on the 1886 spring roundup stood at 3,118. This represented the total of the various DHS herds on the home range (the DHS home range, near Ft. Maginnis), the Musselshell, Cove Butte, and Mocassin, and stray groups detached from these herds. The fall roundup added 1,462 calves, for a combined 1886 calf crop of 4,580. [16] While this calf crop from a herd of 23,000 could have been significantly better, this total was at least adequate. The 1886 herds had a larger percentage of steers than normal because Con and John had held them back in the face of low prices. Given this situation and the range conditions, a calf crop of 4,500 from such a large herd probably represented a good production and happily -- albeit busily -- engaged bulls. It was not what the herd would have produced in a good year in good pastures, however.

Still there was little to do but wait for spring, and in the meantime Con Kohrs's health continued poor. The imminent death from consumption of Charles Bielenberg's wife added to the gloom at the home ranch that winter. Mrs. Bielenberg died in mid-January. After the funeral, Con, Augusta, and the children departed for Hot Springs, Arkansas, on January 22. The onslaught of winter that was even then killing cattle at an awesome pace manifested itself to the rail travelers as well. For the family, grieving at the loss of Charley's wife and for Con with his debilitating sickness, the railroad trip proved tedious: "Most of the stations were short of coal, our engine could not get full supplies and we were often stuck in the snow before we reached St. Paul." [17] At St. Paul, Con sent wife and children ahead and determined to travel to New York for medical treatment. There he looked for a Dr. Curtis who had been recommended to Kohrs when he had been in Canada leasing rangelands earlier that year.

Kohrs reached New York on 4 February and immediately sought the doctor out. A quick examination revealed not only that Kohrs's lungs were healthy, but also the cause of the problem that had kept him from his usual steady pace of long days of work. Dr. Curtis told him: " 'your nose is full of polypi.' He commenced operating at once." With the large polypi (probably akin to what is known today as adenoids) removed from one nostril and two not-so-large ones from the other, Conrad Kohrs immediately began to breathe easier than he had in at least a year. For three weeks he visited Dr. Curtis for the removal of more and more growths from his breathing passages. The total bill, for what to Con was a virtual lifesaving treatment that would enable him to meet the heavy demands the winter back in Montana was beginning to lay upon stockmen, was $58.00. Con "felt like a new man, and was more thankful than anyone may ever know." [18]

The cure came just in time. Even before he reached Montana, Con had begun to hear the first of the bad news. [19] On 22 February he had received John's letter telling of a big chinook in progress. [20] But he had not then heard that those warm winds, which began a snow melt, had yielded to a massive blast of frigid weather that froze the melted snow, added to the snow cover on the plains, and kept all but the most determined cattle from the grass deep beneath the snow-covered ice. [21] Kohrs tells of his first intimation that things were as bad as some feared. On his way back from New York he met a fellow stock-grower named Broadwater who told him that

losses throughout Montana had been very heavy. I said "Broad, I have my health again, and this is worth more than the cattle." To which he replied: "Con, you have more nerve than any man in Montana." Granville Stuart denied the losses until after the spring roundup, when he found that branding had dropped from 8,000 to 900. [22]

The demands of recovering from the disaster would require Kohrs's active participation, and it was a lucky stroke that the cause of his ailment was found and that he received successful treatment in time to be up and about for the spring of 1887.

The situation that Kohrs met upon his return to Montana that spring has been, since 1887, part of both the history and legend of the range cattle industry. Cattle had died by the tens of thousands. Weakened from the poor nourishment of the preceding two or three years, and from the dry year that set the stage for the hard winter, many of those cattle who had managed initially to find grass under the heavy snow cover later succumbed to the biting cold that followed the chinook of late January. This killing cold air, as much as sixty degrees below zero on the northern ranges of Montana, took its toll of the herds. [23]

One of Montana's historians succinctly described the effect of the 1886-87 winter on the Montana open-range cattle industry: "The losses were appalling -- so much so that old cattleman Granville Stuart was sickened and vowed never to ranch again. . . . The Montana range-cattle industry was in ruins. Bankruptcy followed bankruptcy." [24]

"Old cattleman" Granville Stuart did take the blow as hard as Toole described. In his own rich reminiscences Stuart graphically describes both the scene and his feelings:

In the spring of 1887 the ranges presented a tragic aspect. Along the streams and in the coulees everywhere were strewn the carcasses of dead cattle. Those that were left alive were poor and ragged in appearance, weak and easily mired in the mud holes. . . .

A business that had been fascinating to me before, suddenly became distasteful. I wanted no more part of it. I never wanted to own an animal that I could not feed an shelter. [25]

Another stock-grower took a somewhat more detached view, although he, like Granville Stuart, felt the disaster financially and emotionally. This was John Clay, the Englishman who became an open-range cattle industry participant and chronicler. Clay's summation describes the overall effect on the open-range cattle industry about as neatly as any participant or historian has done.

The cowmen of the West and Northwest were flat broke. Many of them never recovered. They had not the heart to face another debacle such as they had gone through and consequently they disappeared from the scene. Most of the eastern men and Britishers said "enough" and went away. Some remained and their story we shall develop as we go along. The late summer and fall of 1887 was, to use a western expression, simply a fright. The big guns toppled over; the small ones had about as much chance as a fly in molasses. Swan, Sturgis and others in Wyoming went to the wall; Kohrs, Murphy, Granville Stuart, Joe Scott and many others in Montana were badly hit; Russell Harrison, other wise known as Prince Russell, disappeared from the range, while Theodore Roosevelt left a good many bones behind him north of Medora. [26]

The effect on the Kohrs and Bielenberg cattle empire -- those herds they owned fully (the CK herds), as well as those of which they owned one third (the DHS cattle) -- is known more exactly. The number of calves branded at the DHS in the spring of 1887 was less than one eighth the number branded in the spring of 1886. [27] The Pioneer Cattle Company inventory for the year, written in Stuart's hand, makes it a little more graphic: "Total Cattle on Range Jan'y 1, 1887 . . . 22622." Further down the column comes "Less Loss of winter of 1886-7 . . . 15081." Then, with the small calf crop added, a few purchases, and a few strays on the fall roundup, "Total on range Jan'y 1, 1888 . . . 8262." [28]

Kohrs and Bielenberg, then, had not been wiped out completely. Yet, badly hurt financially, they faced a major rebuilding job to reform the herds that had taken them twenty years to build. But at least a foundation, composed of diverse elements, existed from which to work. Those remaining animals surviving on the now much less overgrazed Montana rangelands comprised one of the elements. Another was the good credit Kohrs and Bielenberg enjoyed along with their widely acknowledged acumen in cattle and mining matters. Few investors would not want their money with them, even in such gloomy times. Finally there was the horizontal diversification that Kohrs and Bielenberg had nurtured over the years. With mining, real estate, and commercial interests in their economic holdings, even a major cattle loss could not destroy the entire structure. The near destruction of the herds, of course, could hardly be classified as anything but a heavy, weighty blow. But it did not wipe out the partnership. It represented a loss for the financial structure of Kohrs and Bielenberg, but a recoverable one. Indeed, if recovery was managed carefully, profits could eventually ensue from the hard winter, and Kohrs and Bielenberg might even prosper.

One of the "bright spots" (for Con and John at least) in that dark spring for cattlemen in Montana was

the kindness of Mr. A. J. Davis of Butte [a former DHS partner of Con and John]. Hearing of my losses, he sent for me and offered $100,000.00 without any security. The confidence of such a friend added to my courage and I was very happy. While l did not accept it then, I made use of it the year following in the purchases of cattle. [29]

In this statement in Kohrs's autobiography probably rests his entire view of the hard winter. He admitted losses, and even a little faltering perhaps, in his offhand admission: "the confidence of such a friend added to my courage." But his courage never waned so much that he felt the need to jump at the chance for money to rebuild his herds; he would wait the market out and watch the results of the massive cattle kill on his competitors. He could invest the $100,000 when and where it would do the most good. He knew, as well, that the foundation for rebuilding remained solid. It was in the home ranch pastures that the greatest number of the registered Short Horns and Herefords grazed. And the home ranch, located in southwestern Montana, had come through the bad winter quite well. The killing storms had hit hardest at the Montana hills and plains east of the divide. So the Kohrs and Bielenberg registered herds came through the winter virtually unscathed, and could be employed to upgrade any replacement animals Kohrs shipped in. The herds could be rebuilt. [30]

Possibly some of Kohrs's buoyancy was also the result of the kindness of another good friend, Joseph Rosenbaum, in Chicago. He served many Montana ranches, including that of Kohrs and Bielenberg, as their commission agent for selling cattle on the Chicago market. Rosenbaum would often retain the receipts of the sales and Con and John would write drafts on that account as needed. So Rosenbaum acted, to some extent at least, as a banker for the brothers. [31] He also advanced money to Kohrs and Bielenberg and numerous other Montana ranchers. As a prime lender, and possibly the prime creditor for the Montana herds, he stood in a particularly powerful position that gloomy spring of 1887. He could easily foreclose on those who could not pay their indebtedness to him. But Rosenbaum did not see things this way and responded in a manner both astute from a business standpoint and humane beyond normal expectations. One of the grand studies of the cattle industry describes the situation:

Following the disaster, a number of Montana cattlemen, to whom Rosenbaum loaned approximately a total of one million dollars, were struck speechless when their creditor called them to Helena and announced he would not foreclose, but would actually loan them an additional million. This double indebtedness they eventually paid in full. Twenty years later, when the Chicago man faced ruin on the Grain Exchange, Conrad Kohrs and other beneficiaries pooled their resources and loaned their benefactor more than one million dollars. With this, Rosenbaum was enabled to stage a comeback, continue solvent, and reap a large profit. [32]

Those with the wherewithal to hang on for a year or so and friends such as Rosenbaum would survive. At least one factor operated to allow those with cattle to increase their herds somewhat. The competition for grass was dramatically lessened. With the diminished herds tearing up less grass, there might even be a chance for the ranges east of the divide in Montana to recover. It seemed, too, that after the clear demonstration of her power in matters of weather, Mother Nature became almost benevolent that spring. The New Northwest, which had pooh-poohed the fears of many during the winter, rhapsodized early that summer, after the ranges had greened up a bit and it seemed that life in Montana would go on, even for cowmen. In an announcement mixed with the hope that things would soon get a great deal better, and with an almost audible cheer, the paper rejoiced at the state of the ranges in mid-June:

The grass crop has never looked better than it does this season. The grazing is splendid and the bunch grass is seeding. Whether this is the seed year, coming triennially, as some believe, or always coming when there is plenty of rain makes no difference. It is seeding just the same. Two or three years rest would restore the ranges to their original wealth of grasses. [33]

For the CK and DHS herds, of course, adjustments would be necessary. But Kohrs is not abundant with words in his description of 1887, and it appears that neither he, John Bielenberg, nor the remaining DHS partners held any ambitions but minor range and herd adjustments, at least for the moment. Kohrs took much more active charge of the DHS herd with Granville Stuart refraining from active management, admitting that "a business that had been very fascinating to me before, suddenly became distasteful," and that "Conrad Kohrs took charge of the herd. [34] The DHS shipped some cattle up to Canada to graze on the leased land acquired in 1886. The partners moved the Sun River CK herd to Flat Willow Creek (near Lewistown) [35] and the remnants of the DHS herd onto the Milk River range (northeastern Montana). [36] But they purchased no great numbers of replacement cattle and devised no new marketing techniques.

Con and John shipped a few cattle to the eastern markets that year -- but nowhere near the huge numbers of previous fall shipments. The Pioneer Cattle Company cattle inventory record for 1887 notes "Shipped to Chicago . . . 664." [37] It was hardly a pleasant time to ship, Con recalled in his autobiography, with the temperature sometimes at forty degrees below zero. They transported the cattle on the Great Northern out of Bowdoin. Con used his pass (typically granted by the railroad to cattle shippers) and went on into Chicago for more medical treatment on his breathing problems.

There he almost failed to survive the minor operation because of an overdose of cocaine administered prior to the removal of those polypi that had grown back since the previous treatments in late 1886 in New York. But he did survive, and following the medical work went to Davenport to pick up dresses for the girls and Augusta from the family dressmaker there, and then returned to Deer Lodge. In a brief glimpse of the inner family that Con Kohrs only occasionally allows in his autobiography, he remembered fondly that "In spite of hard times we had a merry Christmas. The gifts were never displayed at my homecoming, but were kept until Christmas Eve, when we had our tree." [38]

The year 1887 closed well enough then for Kohrs and Bielenberg, at home at the ranch in Deer Lodge, but hardly on a high note. The strongest animals at the CK had survived and the herds would grow in the future; Con's and John's reputations for astuteness in cattle raising and mining assured them of plenteous credit when they needed it. Rebuilding of the DHS and CK herds would follow the bad winter, but at a measured pace. Following the hard winter of 1886-87, and because of the readjustments that it forced, the home ranch began to take on a stronger importance than it had held previously when Con and John were away so much on range cattle operations. The outfit would grow dramatically in the next dozen years, at a pace unmatched in the period since 1866.

Table of Contents

Chapter 4