User:Jwilsonjwilson/drafts/Montana Cattle Industry

Montana Cattle Industry

Branding Cattle, ca 1888

The presence of

Cattle are not native to the western hemisphere. So far as is known, cattle were first introduced into the

The association of humans and cattle goes back a very long time and has been of great importance to people. At Lascaux cave in France are prominent depictions of cattle in the Great Hall of the Bulls, which date from about 17,000 years ago. A great sweep of paintings across the cave ceiling has been interpreted to represent summer night sky constellations as seen in that time. The stars of the constellation Taurus are represented there by a bull, as in our own time^[1].

The wild Aurochs were the main ancesters of modern cattle. Over time these were domesticated and utilized for many things, including milk, meat, hides, tallow, work animals and so on. As Montana's modern cattle industry is principally concerned with the production of meat, we concentrate on that.

Through most of history, meat from cattle (henceforth beef) was fairly lean. Cattle were fed mostly on grass. In about the 18th Century, Europeans began noticing that feeding grain to cattle enhanced the 'marbling' or fattyness of the resultant beef. The beef thus produced was considered to be tastier than the leaner cuts and hence more desirable^[2].

The English were the most affluent Europeans of the time, with their far-flung empire and separation from the rest of Europe by the

Around 1800, as the English became aware of the taste superiority of marbled beef, it became fashonable among the landed gentry to compete in the production of the most desirable cattle. This roughly translated to the most weight of highly marbled beef on an individual cow. The Durham Ox was an early and famous example of this development, development which resulted in the Shorthorn breeds of today. The weight of the Ox was such that it could barely support itself and eventually had to be slaughtered after breaking its hip.

As the 19th Century progressed, the opening of western North American lands for agriculture coupled with technological advancements opened the possibility that North American beef might successfully compete on the English market. At the same time (starting in 1865), cattle herds in Britain and continental Europe were decimated by a plague of rinderpest^[4], from which they would not fully recover for nearly 25 years. In Britain alone, losses were estimated at 420,000 head. Across Europe, loss estimates ran as high as 200 million.

Types of Cattle

From about 1850 onward, the cattle giving rise to stock in modern Montana were brought in. They were of 2 general types: European Shorthorns and Texas Longhorns. In Montana as in other beef producing states these were interbred to emphasize desirable characteristics while de-emphasizing undesirable ones.

European Shorthorns

Shorthorns derived from the stocks preferred by the British for producing meat and dairy. They were imported mainly via the eastern seaboard of North America starting in the 17th Century. By 1640 substantial herds existed in Virginia and New York^[5]. They were large and docile as a rule.

Texas (Spanish) Longhorns

These were the descendents of Andalusan cattle imported to Mexico by the Spaniards, starting in 1521^[6]. They were much more wiry and aggressive than the shorthorns, which gave them a survival advantage but rendered them less desirable as beef producers. Also, they were prime carriers of Texas tick fever, to which they had acquired immunity.

Spanish Grandees and Their Cattle

Until 1836, the entirety of what is now the

Arrival of the Black Robes

The Oregon Trail

The lands which today comprise the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, plus much of British Columbia and parts of Montana and Wyoming, were up until 1846 contained in 'The

A Humid Land with Bountiful Forests

At the 49th parallel of lattitude (border with Canada), successful production of good harvests with crop varieties used in the United States of the 19th century requires at least 15 inches of precipitation during the year. Furthermore this moisture must be supplied at critical times in the growing season. In order to assure meeting these critera most years, the precipitation average should be at least 20 inches per year. This is adjusted upward as one goes south to account for increasing evaporation with higher average temperatures and varying average wind conditions.

The 98th meridian runs from the Canadian border in eastern North Dakota to the Mexican border near the southern tip of Texas. North to south, the adjusted 20 inch annual precipitation line very nearly parallels meridian 98. East of this line, farming can be done without worrying too much about rainfall in most years. As one proceeds westward from it however, this becomes progressively less certain.

Prior to about 1850, the United States was substantially an agrarian society. It was the land to the east of meridian 98 which established America's view of its world. In that world, you didn't worry much about water rights or crop failures. It didn't really matter whether your land abutted a stream or lake although likely it did. When the land in your area was taken up, you moved west, took up a new claim and continued with time proven practices. Much effort was taken in clearing forrested fields and building fences to separate crops from livestock. The 'Great American Desert' to the west was at worst a far off rumor.

Humid Country Land Practices

Jurisprudence in the United States owes much to its English progenitor, and nowhere more so than in laws pertaining to land use. American land laws in the 19th century were based upon English laws exported in the 17th century^[7].

Riparian Rights

In a humid land, there is little need for irrigation. Landholders on (non-navigable) water courses in England own the rights of access to them. Generally nobody owns the water itself, which is considered equally the property of all by whom it flows^[8]. This renders irrigation usage virtually impossible, as one person's use abridges the rights of use of others.

What is a Homestead

In a humid land there is little need to consider 'the lay of the land' in allocating farms. Enough water falls from the sky just about everywhere. Land division in the original 13 states and states surveyed before the Land Ordinance of 1785, was done via the English system of metes and bounds. The land ordinance commission, under Thomas Jefferson's leadership, decided that all land subsequently surveyed would be divided into 6 x 6 mile townships, each subdivided into 36 one square mile (640 acre) sections, and that this would be the case for the United States wherever land division had not already been specified by other means, irrespective of the physical geography. Farms were then allocated as subdivisions of sections, as 80 acres (1/8 section), 160 acres (1/4 section) and so on. Acreage was set aside for townships, schools and other purposes, again from the same pattern. Survey teams were employed to mark the boundaries of the sections as the country advanced westward.

Fencing Problem

Before the invention of barbed wire in 1874, the fencing of land was expensive and labor intensive. In most of the eastern United States, cleared timber was used for fence segments, a laborious and time consuming practice. Of course, clearing forrested land for farming was itself a laborious and time consuming practice. As American farmers began farming the still humid but generally treeless praire plains, things changed. It was no longer necessary to clear the land but the accustomed fencing material, wood, was also missing. Substitutes evolved such as hedge rows, rock fences and even mud fences, but none were truly satisfactory.

The factors mentioned above, ample precipitation for crops, ample humid land for expansion, small farms being sufficient for support of most families, problems clearing and fencing land, all militated toward a preference for small farms without much concern for their physical geography or access to water. And so the land laws of the growing United States came to reflect this condition.

Crossing Meridian 98

"This," said the newcomer to the Plains, "would be a fine country if we just had water."

"Yes," answered the man whose wagon tongue pointed east, "so would h*ll."^[9]:

Grass Meets Grain

Well before Europeans took up agriculture in Montana, the westward push of their settlement began to encroach onto the eastern Great Plains. Vast areas opened up which were suitable either for grass-based grazing or production of grain. As early as the 1830's areas of Indiana, Iowa and Kansas began to be used in tandem for both the initial growth of cattle via grazing and for the finishing of them for slaughter by a period of intensive grain feeding. The English proclivity for marbled beef took firm root in North America. Thus when Montana's beef industry began to look beyond the local markets provided by placer miners, it had to conform to this existing system.

The Civil War, The Chicago Stockyards, Railroads, Refrigeration

The

Louis Maillet recorded that he and his partner Neil McArthur ran cattle herds in the Bitterroot Valley for several years starting in 1852. John Francis Grant and his father had cattle in southwestern Montana by at least 1855. Several others who were prominent in the early history of the Deer Lodge valley were plying the Oregon Trail cattle and horse trade, including Fred Burr, Robert Dempsey, Thomas LaVatta and more.

John Francis Grant - Trader and Cattleman

By the mid 1850's, the Grants (Richard, Johnny and brother James) had established themselves in the Beaverhead and Jefferson valleys of Montana, where they were running their expanding herds of horses and cattle. Fellow mountaineer and trader Louis Maillet recorded the Grants at their winter quarters in theBeaverhead Valley in the winter of 1856-57^[11]. When the Stuart brothers Granville and James came north the following winter to avoid the Mormon troubles disrupting travel on the Oregon Trail, they found shelter with the Grants and a number of fellow mountaineers wintering in the same place^[12][13]. According to Granville Stuart, the Grants moved on up to the Deer Lodge Valley around Christmas time, with Richard Grant proceeding on to the Bitterroot Valley.

In 1859-60, John Francis Grant relocated permanently to the Deer Lodge Valley near the current town of Garrison, Montana where he gathered a number of mountaineer friends to form the shortlived town of Grantsville, Montana. By this time he reports having about 1000 head of cattle and numerous horses which grazed in the north end of the Deer Lodge Valley, which were marked with his 'G' brand - perhaps the first significant brand used in Montana.

In 1862, Grant left

In 1865 Kohrs bought out Ben Peel's part of the business and Peel returned to 'the states'[20]. Kohrs' command of both the wholesale and retail sides of the cattle business in western Montana of 1865 was such that he said in his memoir 'I was in entire control of the beef trade'^[21].

By 1870, Kohrs was mainly involved with buying, selling and raising cattle. He did find time to pursue another passion, placer gold mining, and made good money supplying water to other placer miners, mainly at

Very often, Kohrs acted as a middleman, buying cattle from western Montana and the states to the west and driving them to a railhead where he usually sold them for a profit. Referring to a buying trip he made to Idaho in 1889, Kohrs noted that "Stockmen there had never shipped east..."[25].

Kohrs retired from ranching a wealthy man, winding down his operations in 1915-1918[29]. Thereby he went out on top, avoiding the upheavals that began with the drought in 1919 and the post World War I crash of agricultural markets in 1920^[30].

Dan Flowerree - The First Longhorn Drive

Rumor had it that

Nelson Story - The First Drive from Texas

Nelson Story was another of the legendary Montana cattlemen. Like Conrad Kohrs and Granville Stuart, he came looking for gold. Unlike them he actually found lots of it. An early arrival in Alder Gulch, Story 'struck it rich' in early 1866 when he extracted some $30,000 worth from his claim in the upper Gulch before selling out to 2 brothers. He then determined to take some of the proceeds to Texas, buy a herd of cattle and drive it to the eastern markets then crying out for beef in the aftermath of the American Civil War. It seemed a slam-dunk way of making yet another fortune.

There is no indication that Story started out intending to mount a cattle drive to Montana. Although the gold miners assured a lucrative market for his beef, there was a formidible obstacle: the Sioux under Red Cloud. The only really satisfactory trail then available lay through the Powder River country over the Bozeman Trail. The trail's namesake, John Bozeman, would soon be dead along with a number of other unfortunates. The U.S. Army was in the process of building forts along the route but safety could not be assured. Prospects looked better to the east.

So Story went down to Texas and spent $10,000 for 1000 (or 3000 by some accounts) head of cattle. As it happened, 1866 was the first year after the end of the American Civil War and the economy of Texas, as in the rest of the former Confederacy, was devastated. However there were lots of cattle roaming around the state which could be had for very little money. Also there was great demand for beef in the northern states along with money to pay for it. So many returning Confederate soldiers begged or borrowed a stake to get a herd together. Many others signed on as trail drive cowboys. Give or take, about 260,000 cattle were driven north from Texas that summer toward the nearest rail shipping point at Sedalia, Missouri in hopes of selling them there for a quick profit. Nelson Story turned his herd in that direction.

Now in order to reach Sedalia, the cattle first had to be trailed through the territory which was to become

When the stampeders first arrived in an area they were able to feed themselves by hunting. Soon however the local game would be exhausted and a market for beef would spring up. Other cattle products were also in high demand. In Conrad Kohrs's memoir he said (in 1863)"Candles were very scarce in the country. Every bit of tallow...that could be spared was converted into candles..."^[35]. Very many of the gold seekers had next to nothing, relying on striking pay dirt to pay their bills. Of course not everybody found gold. Conrad Kohrs noted in 1864-1865 "Our retail shops lost money...I told the boys not to turn away those who could not pay."^[36].

End of the Era

The

East of the Rocky Mountains lie the Great Plains. In Montana Territory of 1870 the Great Plains were the domain of buffalo herds and fierce Native American tribes whose mounted warriors armed with carbines constituted the dominant military force between the Rockies and Minnesota. Ranching on the eastern plains promised to be more problematic than in the sheltered valleys of western Montana, and few wanted to attempt it. But where some saw only problems, others saw opportunities. Vast oceans of lush grazing grass swayed forever into the distance with many streams and rivers coursing through the otherwise arid country, and barriers to the land had a way of disappearing.

The Cattlemen Encroach

East of Montana's

Far to the east of the Rocky Mountains were the populous states of the recently repaired Union, hungrily expanding. That potential market wasn't going away any time soon. And beyond them beaconed Europe, especially the beef-addicted English. Here was enormous room for expansion. And here was the opportunity. But to seize that chance meant expanding to the east as well as opening routes to deliver the resulting cattle yet further east.

In 1869,

The beginning of the end of the great herds coincided with the arrival of the railroads, which delivered large numbers of

During this period refrigeration became available in railroad cars and ocean-going freighters. This greatly enhanced the meat demand as it was no longer necessary to bear the added expense of shipping live cattle east. Also American beef could begin to fill the void left in the European markets by the cattle epidemic of 1865-66.

The Eastern Montana Stockgrowers Association was formed in ??? at

1883 marks the last year in which substantial numbers of buffalo hides were shipped from Montana Territory^[42]. To all intents and purposes the buffalo had been exterminated. With the Native Americans now entirely forced onto (diminished) reservations, most of eastern Montana was cleared for (European-American) ranching and homesteading. Of course the land had mostly been ranched and settled by this time anyway.

The Speculative Bubble - 1879 to 1887

In 1879,

Granville Stuart - Mr. Montana: A Man For All Seasons

Writing about the life of Granville Stuart strictly in terms of the cattle industry would be very limiting as the man staddled most of the significant evolution of Montana from 1858 til at least 1890. At the same time it is as a cattleman that he is perhaps best known and that is the emphasis of this article.

Inflated Claims and Great Expectations

Storm Clouds Gather

The winter of 1885-1886 was a difficult one in Montana, but most ranchers came through it okay. However that wasn't true down Texas and Oklahoma way. All up and down the Great Plains the range was overstocked. The years 1880 to 1884 had had unusually wet spring/summer seasons and mild winters. So there was abundant feed, beyond what would have usually been available. Also cattle from warm climates recently driven north to colder ones could aclimatize gradually. But '85-'86 was harsh down south. The spring and summer of '85 were dry and the winter was cold. And then there was the reservation problem. It seems that the cattlemen had for some time been getting away with running stock in the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma), in defiance of federal Bureau of Indian Affairs regulations. In 1885, the Cleveland administation had had enough and forced the removal of said stock from the Indian Territory. And suddenly 200,000 extra cattle were forced onto the already over-stocked and dried out range. Then on January 1, 1886 came a great blizzard which howled from the Dakotas down to Texas. It lasted 10 days, freezing hundreds of people to death and killing many many cattle.

By spring the surviving cattle were in poor condition. Calves were far fewer than expected. And the 1886 spring and summer were even dryer than the previous year. Suddenly the profits which were being expected by the southern cattle speculators turned into sizable loses. Many just pulled out, dumping their poor-grade cattle onto the 1886 autumn markets. This depressed cattle prices to such an extent that the less affected ranchers further north couldn't sensibly market their cattle at all. So they mostly held onto them, hoping conditions would improve the year following.

The Perfect Storm - The Winter of 1886-1887

In retrospect it seems just too obvious. Dry conditions in '85, a cold winter followed by drought in '86, ranges very much over-stocked, with cattle being driven to eating sage-brush and worse. But in the words of the poet "...that hope that springs eternal in the human breast..."^[43]. As we noted above, the autumn '86 cattle markets were glutted with poor-grade cows being dumped. So Montana ranchers were hoping for a mild winter and a wet spring to recoup. And what they got...

In the autumn of '86 in Wyoming, 32,000 cattle were turned out onto the already overstocked and bone-dry range by one outfit alone. Thousands more were similarly dumped in Montana and Wyoming by other groups. These mostly had been brought in from milder climates where there wasn't enough to eat already and they were very vulnerable. One writer has called these acts 'simple murder'^[44].

In Montana, preparations for the winter varied from ranch to ranch. Some of the old-timers saw trouble coming and did what they could. Rancher Conrad Kohrs owned a large percentage of the DHS as well as his own CK herds. He secured grazing permits in Alberta, Canada intending to drive the CK and DHS herds north along with Granville Stuart. Due to the lateness of the roundup the plan was modified to just north of the Missouri. Teddy Blue Abbott was a cowhand for the DHS on that drive and gave a first-hand description in his memoir^[45]. As we noted, there was a severe drought in progress. When the combined herds neared the Missouri, they smelled the water and started to stampede. At the river bank was an area of quicksand. Many cattle got bogged down in the sand. Luckily there was a boat with a winch there which was able to pull a number of cattle out. Even so, some 70 head were lost. Most of the herd never got across the river.

Many ranches were being run as speculative investments, often by cattle-savvy managers working for absentee owners. The speculators had often been drawn to cattle investing by inflated expectations based on hype and a string of years in which wet summers were followed by mild winters, a cyclical weather pattern in the northern great plains which alternates with periods of drought and severe winters. From their distance, these owners could see no reason why the wet and mild pattern shouldn't continue. Also they often were most interested in a quick profit for minimum investment. Their managers generally didn't argue. And so, many outfits took no precautions at all.

Nowadays, ranchers lay in hay to feed their cattle over the winter. But things were different in 1886. The combination of drought, overgrazing on overstocked ranges, spring frosts, prairie fires and a bumper crop of grasshoppers greatly reduced any possible hay crop^[46]. Further, the wet and mild years coupled with the difficulty of feeding cattle scattered all over an open range had provided no incentive for forming the habit of winter feeding. Also ranchers didn't keep many cowhands on in the winter. The cattle were expected to get through the winter on their own.

To an already hungry and thirsty cow facing the winter, things must have seemed bleak indeed. Snow started falling in late November and lay deep in Montana, blocking the roads^[47][48]. In Wyoming, snow lay 4 feet deep on the flats, while the drifts were 'bottomless'^[49]. Then in late January, a chinnook wind blew in for a couple of days. It blew across most of Montana and Wyoming and lasted just long enough to melt the top layer of snow. Then new storms blew in from the north, plunging temperatures to 60 below in many places. This formed a veneer of ice on top of the snow, effectively blocking attempts by livestock to paw or nuzzle their way to any possible grass. Furthermore the watercourses were frozen so deeply that cattle could find nothing to drink and, contrarily, air pockets often formed on the underside of the ice such that thirsty cows would break through and be swept away under the ice. Things continued in this way until the beginning of March.

A Slaughter Second Only to the Buffalo

Helena Huntington Smith included in her book the following verse, author unknown^[50]:

I may not see a hundred before I cross the Styx,

But coal or ember, I'll remember eighteen eighty six.

The stiff heaps in the coulee, the dead eyes in the camp,

And the wind about, blowing fortunes out, as a woman blows out a lamp.

Stories of that winter abounded in Montana and Wyoming. Helena Huntington Smith recounted a story from the plowed

"One morning the residents on the outskirts of Great Falls looked out through the swirl of snow to see the gaunt, reeling figures of the leaders of a herd of five thousand...Inhabitants of ranch houses tried not to hear the noises that came from beyond the corrals."^[52].

The coming of spring was not cause for rejoicing. As the coulies, plains and rivers melted, the cattlemen's worst fears were realized. Heaps of dead cattle were stacked in the coulies. Cattle were found frozen standing up or drifted against barbed wire fences. Theodore Roosevelt's neighbor, Lincoln Lang, described the breakup of the ice on the Little Missouri River in North Dakota: "The river was out of it's banks...huge grinding ice cakes...Countless carcuses of cattle...rolling over and over...sometimes with all four stiffened legs pointed skyward..."^[53].. Teddy Blue Abbott noted the stench of decaying bodies wherever he rode^[54]. One roundup day, one of Teddy Blue's fellow cowboys looked up at the sun and exclaimed "Where was you last January?".

Spring roundup in 1887 was a depressing affair. Teddy Blue talked about riding all day amidst the stench and returning with one or a few half-dead cows

For those who came through, things got better in succeeding years. Indeed by 1890 some observers reported that the ranges were again overstocked. But the heyday of grandiose speculation in Montana cattle was past. The 20th century was to see surges of excess of other kinds. Granville Stuart finally left the DHS ranch and the cattle business in 1890, following the death of his wife of 30 years, Awbonnie Stuart, and his oldest daughter Katie. He remarried and became the chief librarian in Butte, Montana. Teddy Blue Abbott continued one of Montana's great love stories by marrying Granville's second oldest daughter Mary. Teddy Blue and Mary Stuart Abbott also left the DHS and took up small time ranching on a nearby homestead plot, which became the 3-Deuce ranch. In Montana there was no problem with a former ranch hand owning some cattle and participating in yearly roundups. This was most decidedly not the case in Wyoming!

Epitaph for an Era

John Clay was a long-time rancher, banker and, finally, author in Wyoming, who left us his assessment of the period^[58]: "Three great streams of ill-luck, mismanagement and greed came together...From the inception of the open range business in the West and Northwest, from say 1870 to 1888, it is doubtful if a single cent was made if you average up the business as a whole...when you bundle up, strike an average...the story with its flavor of romance ends in hollow failure."

And again, Granville Stuart in Forty Years on the Frontier^[59][60]: "A business that had been fascinating to me before suddenly became distasteful. I never again wanted to own an animal that I could not feed and shelter."

Mavericks and Cattle Country Justice - 1880 to 1892

Montana's economy was brought into being by mining. Agriculture, including cattle ranching, grew up in the miners' shadow as a necessary but ancillary enterprise. Montana politics and power revolved at first around the many mining activities scattered around the southwestern mountains, and later became increasingly consolidated in fewer and fewer concerns, finally coming to rest substantially with 'the Company' as the Anaconda or Amalgamated was commonly called. It is true that other forces had their day from time to time, as with the Cowboy Legislature of 1885 which enacted legislation of importance to the livestock industry.

The case was very different in

The '76' purchase included Mr. Foley's cattle, which were driven from the Sweetwater over to Powder River thereby becoming the first significant herd in that area. There was a story, denied by Frewen, that Foley had tricked him into buying his herd twice^[62]. Such stories gained credence in part because the spectacular profits promised by western cattle promoters during this period rarely materialized. One of several possible reasons for this under-achievement could have been that the size of cattle herds had been over-estimated. Moreton Frewen was noted for being absent from his cattle enterprise more often than he was present and relied on others to keep track of his cattle.

The term maverick as applied to cattle derives from the name of Texan Samuel Maverick. Samuel Maverick was politically quite notable in Texas history, but this usage of his name derives from his refusal to brand the cattle in a herd which he owned in the 1840's and 50's. By the 1880's the usage had become established all over the west.

Jack Flagg: Cattleman and Commoner

Thomas Sturgis and the Wyoming Stock Growers Association

End of the Era

Fred G. S. Hesse came to Wyoming as Moreton Frewen's range foreman on the '76' spread.

Sharing the Range: Sheep and Horses in Montana

Cycles of Booms and Busts - Montana and Its Cattlemen Since 1888

The Panic of 1893 and What Came of It

After the Storm. Before the Homesteaders - 1888 to about 1908

The Chicago Meat Packing Cartel

Dry Land Farming and the Homestead Boom, World War I - 1900 to 1918

In the words of historian Mary Wlma M. Hargreaves: "Dry farming may be generally defined as agriculture without irrigation in regions of scanty precipitation."

In Montana prior to about 1900, crop farming had been largely confined to areas with either higher average precipitation than generally available in the

Dryland farming techniques and free land was the great promise of Montana this time around. Here were the means to make your fortune. Some very persuasive voices began to advertise this theme far and wide, and the would-be homesteaders responded in droves. They came in wagons, in cars, on railroad trains.

Epitaph for an Era

The following quote comes from an anonymous Fort Belknap Agency, Montana resident circa 1920^[65]: "White man make big tepee. White man plow hill. Water wash. Wind blow soil. Grass gone, land gone, window gone, buck gone, squaw gone, whole place gone to h*ll. No pig, no corn, no cow, no hay, no pony. Indian no plow land. Great Spirit make grass. Buffalo eat grass. Indian eat buffalo. .... Indian no waste anything. Indian no work. White man work all the time. White man heap loco."

The Great Depression: Incarnation #1 - 1918 to 1922

The Not Quite So Roaring Twenties - 1923 to 1929

Changing Tastes: Montana Becomes a Calf Nursery - 1924 Onward

The Great Depression: Incarnation #2 - 1930 to 1940

Feeding the Troops: Oops! Where Did the Ranch Hands Go? - 1941 to 1950

Ups and Downs of the 50's and 60's. Good Times in The 70's (?)

The

Evan Johnston and his family ranch in the Deer lodge valley, Powell County, Montana. It's a cow/calf place as are most of Montana's 11,000 beef cattle ranches. Evan runs 500 to 600 head depending on the year, on about 3000 acres. He owns most of it but some is leased from the U.S. Forest Service and some over in the Big Hole valley is shared cooperatively with other ranchers. Evan also hays on some 500 acres although as he says he "has to buy a lot" of hay as well. In times of insufficient rainfall the fields are irrigated using water rights which Evan holds on Race Track Creek, a stream which is fed by the snows of the Flint Creek Range. When that is not sufficient, his water right on the Clark Fork River can also be invoked.

His cattle are Simmentals, a European breed which originated in highland areas of Switzerland and surrounding countries. Evan notes that these cattle are not as commonly ranched in Montana as Black Angus and some others. However he believes they are better suited to mountanous Western Montana than many other breeds. He does breed in some Black Angus as well, to blend the superior qualities of both stocks.

When Evan speaks of running 500-600 cattle, he is referring to his adult heifer population, plus about 30 bulls he keeps for breeding purposes. If a heifer has a calf, the heifer and calf count as one 'head' only. Calves destined for market graze on grass only by coincidence. From birth around the first of February to weaning, which happens usually in October, they suckle their mothers. From weaning until they are sold, around November 20th, they are 'background fed' on processed corn-based pellets and some hay. At the time of sale the male calves will weigh around 725 pounds while the females will be about 50 pounds less. The calf sale will be done on one day via video auction. In addition to weighing less the female calves sell for less per hundred-weight than the male calves.

The productive life expectancy for a heifer is 9 to 10 years, although Evan has a few 15 and even 16 year olds. The peak productivity of a typical heifer happens around 5 to 7 years old. Each year the choicest female calves are kept on the ranch to replenish the declining adult heifer population. The yearling heifers must prove themselves productive in the next year or they are sold at the Montana Livestock Auction in Butte, Montana along with the adult heifers whose useful productivity has passed.

An Eastern Montana Cattle Ranch circa 2011

Jimmy Collins owns a spread down south of Broadus, Montana, near Biddle, Montana. His father ranches nearby. For most purposes the two of them share in one operation. As with Evan Johnston, Jimmy and his dad run a cow/calf operation. Between them they run about 500 head most years, on some 11,000 acres with a lease on yet another 5500 acres. Their ranches have been cobbled together over time. Jimmy's dad retains about 2200 acres from the ranch his granddad bought in 1945 along with 6000 acres acquired later. Jimmy bought his own ranch in 1990, which borders granddad's original spread.

They have a water right on the Little Powder River which is seldom used. Summer water comes from wells and runoff into onsite reservoirs, for which they likewise have water rights. In winter the well water is used to fill stock tanks.

500 cattle refers to the adult heifers only. Jimmy tells me that 'heifer' refers to the year old females who have yet to prove themselves in producing healthy calves. After that, they are simply 'cows'.

The Cattle Industry of Today

Beef production has become a thoroughly modern industry, which bears a declining resemblance to the cattle ranching of old:

Feed Lots

Hormones and Pesticides

Slaughter of the Very Young

Predominence of the Packing Cartel

Movement to Fewer and Larger Operations

Cheap and Transient Labor

Importing Cheap Cattle from Canada and Mexico

Impediments to building a cattle counterculture

Feedlots

Temple Grandin

Buffalo Ranching

Decreasing Exports

Movement of People to Cities

How Can We Stay In Business When the Cartel is Dictating the Prices?

Ranches Turned to Other Uses

Laws Affecting the Montana Cattle Industry

The

The

The Desert Land Act of 1877

The Dawes Act of 1887

The Enlarged

The Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916

The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921

The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934

Notable People

Granville Stuart

Theodore Roosevelt

Notes

See also

• Ranch

Sources

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• Atherton, Lewis (1962). The Cattle Kings. Indiana University Press.
  LCCN 61-13722
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• Clay, John (1924). My Life on the Range. private printing, Chicago.
• Cushman, Dan (#1) (1966). The Great North Trail. McGraw-Hill Book Company.
  LCCN 07-014984-4. {{cite book}}: Check |lccn= value (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link
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• Cushman, Dan (#2) (1973). Montana-The Gold Frontier. Stay Away Joe Publishers.
  ISBN 0-911436-03-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link
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• Fletcher, Robert H. (1960). Free Grass to Fences. University Publishers Inc.
  LCCN 60-12710
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• Grant, Johnny and Lyndel Meikle (1996). Very Close to Trouble: The Johnny Grant Memoir. Washington State University Press.
  ISBN 978-0874221398
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• Kohrs, Conrad ed. Conrad K. Warren (1977). Conrad Kohrs An Autobiography. Gull Printing, Polson, Montana.
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  ISBN 0-295-97129-0. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
  )
• Milner II, Clyde A. and Carol A. O'Connor (2009). As Big as the West: The Pioneer Life of Granville Stuart. Oxford University Press Inc.
  ISBN 978-0-19-512709-6
  .
• Mockel, Myrtle (1969). Montana:an Illistrated History. Swallow Books.
  LCCN 79-75652
  .
• Rifkin, Jeremy (1992). Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture. Penguin Books.
  ISBN 0-452-26952-0
  .
• Rimas, Andrew and Evan D. G. Fraser (2008). Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World. HarperCollins e-books.
  ISBN 978-0-06-170785-8
  .
• Schoch, Robert M. (1999). Voices of the Rocks: A Scientist Looks at Catastrophes and Ancient Civilizations. Harmony Books.
  ISBN 0-609-60369-8
  .
• Sheridan, Philip H. Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan. 2 vols. New York: Charles L. Webster & Co., 1888.
  ISBN 1-58218-185-3
  .
• Speck, Virginia Lee (1946). The History of the Deer Lodge Valley to 1870 - Masters Thesis. Montana State University.
• Stuart, Granville (1925). Forty Years on the Frontier, as seen in the Journals and Reminiscences of Granville Stuart, Gold Miner, Trader, Merchant, Rancher and Politician. Cleveland:Arthur H. Clark.
• Thayer, Ernest (1888). Casey at the Bat. San Francisco Examiner.
• Toole, K. Ross (1959). Montana: An Uncommon Land. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press.
  ISBN 0-8061-1890-3
  .
• Toole, K. Ross (1976). The Rape of the Great Plains:Northwest America, Cattle and Coal. Little, Brown and Co.
  ISBN 0-316-84990-1
  .
• Webb, Walter Prescott (1931, 1959). The Great Plains. Boston: Ginn.
  ISBN 0-8032-9702-5. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help
  )
• Wellman, Paul I. (1939). The Trampling Herd. Quinn & Boden Co. Inc.

• Montana Stockgrowers Association
• Montana Cattlewomen Inc.
• Montana Beef Council
• National Cattlemen's Beef Association
• Montana Cattlemen's Association
• R-CALF USA