Grant-Kohrs Ranch Foundation

Here's where it all started -- John Grant's home and trading post. In 1860, Grant persuaded a number of other Métis families, most of them headed by French Canadians, to settle in the area. Horses and cattle were the foundation of Grant's fortune. He spent part of that fortune on the house -- it was the first frame dwelling in the territory, with an extravagent number of windows, whose glass panes were shipped clear from St.Louis. The place was famed for its hospitality to all comers, with dances and horse racing. "They fed us to the eyes," one Blackfoot chief said. Grant lived here for just four years with his Bannack wife Quarra and children.

The other families settled in log homes along nearby Cottonwood Creek. In no time an infant town with business fronts was springing up. But Grant decided to return to his native Canada. The gold rush had brought Civil-War-era violence to the region, with some of it directed at the tribes and Métis. Quarra's uncle, Chief Snag of the Lemhi Shoshonis, was murdered by white outlaws. So in 1866 Grant sold the ranch to his friend, Conrad Kohrs. That winter, Johnny went down to St. Louis to put his oldest daughter in a boarding school.

When Grant returned in spring 1867, he found that Quarra had died. She was buried at the new Catholic church in town. Dozens of other Métis families had also decided to leave. They all made the wagon trek north to Canada with Grant. Some members of these families, however, did remain in Deer Lodge. They or their descendants were still living in the town after 1900.

(Photo of Granville Stuart drawing from the GRKO archives. Information compiled by Patricia Warren.)