My Experience In The Stock Business Savers Somewhat Of The Romantic.

CARSTEN CONRAD KOHRS

1835-1920

The following paragraphs were obtained From: In the land of Chinook; or, The story of Blaine county ([c1917]) Noyes, Alva Josiah, 1855- Subject: Frontier and pioneer life -- Montana Blaine County; Blaine County (Mont.) – History Publisher: Helena, Mont., State Publishing Company


John Bielenberg and Con Kohrs — now men who have all they need — lost all they had. Mr. Bielenberg told the writer that that winter of '86-'87 they lost $400,000 worth of cattle. They had enough with which to pay all their debts and as they were noted for their ability to rustle and also a knowledge of cattle and range conditions they were extended credit by A. J. Davis, the rich banker and mining man of Butte, and got on their feet once more. Mr. Kohrs told the writer the following concerning that transaction:

"My experience in the stock business savers somewhat of the romantic. I was a green German boy when I came to Montana. I was trying to get out of the territory and go west. I was camped on the Deer Lodge river and was waiting for the party to pull out when something occurred to change all my plans. I had learned something about the butcher business as a boy and thought I could make a living at that. While we were camped on the Deer Lodge a man had a beef to kill and asked if I had ever done anything of the kind. I at once told him I was sure I could do the job and he told me to turn myself loose. The pay that I was to receive was the head and neck. Now I want to explain to you that we had been living on short rations for some time and I was hungry and when that head was cut off I am ashamed to say it had the longest neck I ever saw on a cow brute, as it was cut off pretty well down toward the tail. Soon after I had finished this artistic job, a man who was to be somewhat noted in the story of Montana, Hank Crawford, came along and learning that I was a butcher (?) told me he would give me $25 per month and board if I would go to Bannack and work for him. Now twenty-five dollars was not much money in those days and that did not appeal to me but that word “board” was the one that made me consider his offer and take it, as I had not had enough to eat for days. I was a very able-bodied man in those days and did not know what tired meant but I was soon to learn it in all of its variations. That fellow Crawford must have sized me up for an animal of some kind, probably an ass, as the work first assigned me was surely some job. He had bought three wild heifers off someone on Cottonwood (the creek where the City of Deer Lodge is now) and helped me take them out a few miles and then told me that I was to take them to Bannack, a place that I had never seen. (He had asked me where my butcher tools were and I rustled a butcher knife and a hatchet and borrowed a hand-saw from a friend. These were well wrapped up and put in a wagon that some one was taking with them to the mines.)

When he turned me loose with those heifers they were in no frame of mind to give me much trouble because there were no other stock in sight. When I got the other side of Dempsy creek the baby cows saw a band of cattle that belonged to Bob Dempsy and they took for them as fast as they could go. The weather was hot and the exercise, which I did not need, caused me to get mighty warm. The fact is I was d---d hot in both mind and body. I chased those heifers and that band of stock all over those hills trying to cut them out. It seemed to me to be a useless expenditure of muscle and wind, as it did not seem to do any good. All at once I saw a man going by on horse-back and I called his attention to my trouble and asked him if he wouldn't use his pony to help those heifers change their minds and get them strung out on the road to Bannack as it seemed that I was about to run my legs off without accomplishing anything. Sure I was a foot! That was what I meant when I said that Hank must have taken me for some kind of an animal. "I afterward learned that the gentleman who helped me change the minds of those brutes and get them strung out on the road again, was Dr. Glick. He cut them out and helped me for a few miles and then rode on his way. It was one hundred and twenty miles from Cottonwood to Bannack. We came by the Big Hole and forded the river near the place where Brown's Bridge was afterward built. This was the first place where I could rest. I laid down thinking that the cattle would be tired enough to rest for a while at least. I know that I had only been asleep but a short time when I missed the heifers. I started on the back trail and caught them before they could cross the river. This was enough to satisfy me that they needed more exercise and that my only hope was to keep them going. I got after them and hazed them right along and when within a few miles of Bannack Hank came out and met me and they were soon placed where they could not run any more. I had made the 120 miles in about 36 hours. I only worked for him for one month at $25 per month, as he soon found out I could keep his books so he raised me to $100. I worked for him for some time and came to the conclusion to go into business for myself. I saw several of the miners and got them to loan me some money with which to buy a starter in the business. Some one had several steers for sale and I bought them with the borrowed money.

I turned them out up the Grasshopper just above town and that night they were run off by the Indians or some one else and I had to begin over again. The miners from whom I had borrowed the money knew the shape I was in and they asked me what I intended to do and I told them they must loan me some more in order to give me a chance to make something to pay them what I had first borrowed. They were nice fellows who were making money and they kindly helped me again. "When they discovered the mines at Alder I went there and began the business. Every time I could find steers for sale I got them and was a big cattleman in a very short while. I bought the John Grant ranch in '66 and with it about 600 head of cattle, probably the largest herd in Montana in those days. This gave us headquarters until we got more than we could handle to advantage in the Deer Lodge country so we had to change our base and look to the range in the central and eastern part of the Territory. A lot of us who had been in the business for years soon found that the Judith was well adapted to stock raising so we sent many of our cattle to that section. One soon expands on the range, that is, he soon allows his herds to scatter into the places where the best grass is to be had. It was in that way that we got several miles east of the Judith country by the season of 1886. The grass being better on the north side of the Missouri we got permission from the Government to put our cattle on the Belknap reservation. That winter we made such a big losing that we were broke. I met A. J. Davis one day and he said: 'Con, I hear that you have met with some heavy losses this past winter, how is it?' I replied that we had, but that we had enough to pay all we owed.' He then said: 'There is $1 00,000 to your credit in this bank so you can start in the stock business as soon as you want.' This was a surprise to me that the judge should offer us a credit without solicitation on our part, so I asked him how long the offer would hold good. I did not have any definite plan in my head as to what I wanted to do. I soon came to the conclusion to go to Oregon and look over the situation. I soon found that I could spend the $100,000 and as much more in what looked good to me. I wired Davis what I thought and asked for an additional $100,000. His reply was to do what ever I saw for the best. I had no sooner spent that money than I found where I could use $60,000 more and so wired him. To make my story short the judge allowed me to use that also. When I returned to Montana I owed him $260,000. I will say that that credit for which I had not asked came to us in time to help us make a success in the stock business. I had lived so long in Montana that Mr. Davis knew I had always met all of my obligations."

The man who would have the nerve to attempt to drive three head of wild range cattle on foot for over one hundred miles had nerve enough to get out from under almost any serious load. The ordinary cowboy would never have started on such a trip. He would have invited Hank to or directed him to a most decidedly disagreeable climate and gone off disgusted to think that anyone took him for such a fool as to even try such an almost impossible feat.

All cow men know how hard it is to drive two or three cattle any place. In the large herd they will stay together and, even though one happens to stray a little to one side, the main herd goes on and the stray can be brought back without any serious trouble. Take three head and if they do not stay together, and they are not apt to, there is all kinds of hard feelings in the cowboy's mind toward that little outfit. One will go one way, probably the other two in another direction, or the three may make up their minds to go in three different directions at the same time, while the cowboy is sure that there is only one way at a time that he can go. After the cattle have acted in this way for some time there is only one place where the cowboy wishes them to be and that is a place where the barbecue is certain and where they will no longer bother him. It recalls to the writer's mind a little thing that occurred at his ranch one day. One of his sons was trying to cut out a saddle horse from a band of fifty horses and take it to the corral. He was having a whole lot of trouble. Wm. Montgomery, the big ranchman of the Big Hole, was looking on and he said: 'That boy of yours puts me in mind of a hired man I had on my ranch. I sent him out after a saddle horse and he began just as the boy is doing, to cut the horse out and bring it in alone. He was not successful. He came and reported and I asked him why he did not bring the whole band in? He turned on me with disgust depicted in his face and said: 'How in hell can you bring in a whole band when it is d ---d hard to bring in one?


Reference

1. In the land of Chinook; or, The story of Blaine county ([c1917])
Author: Noyes, Alva Josiah, 1855-
Subject: Frontier and pioneer life -- Montana Blaine County; Blaine County (Mont.) -- History
Publisher: Helena, Mont., State publishing co
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT