July 31, 2025
Leaving Columbia Falls, we began back-tracking to Kalispell, around FlatHead Lake to Polson. In Polson, we found a parking space next to Flathead Lake and walked to Pork Chop Sammy’s for lunch. We stopped at this outdoor “diner” earlier on our trip and decided to stop again for lunch. It was a beautiful day for our outdoor lunch!
After lunch, we continued on the road, then, stopped in Missoula for Diesel. From there, we drove I-90 to Deer Lodge, MT. We checked into the Indian Creek CG and managed to get set up just before the rain.
Deer Lodge is located directly off I-90, halfway between Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks. This was our first time in Deer Lodge. The CG host gave us a few recomendations for things to do in the area. We decided to check our Kohr’s Ranch.
Grant-Kohrs Ranch
Grant-Kohrs Ranch is a National Historic Site that once was the headquarters of a 10 million acre cattle empire. That’s a lot of acres! This historic site commemorates the role of cattlemen in American History.
The ranch is a working ranch and is open to the public for free. We stopped briefly at the visitor center, picked up our self-guided brochure, and began our self-guided tour of the ranch. As we walked along the trail, we saw the main house, bunkhouse, black-smith shop, horse barns, cattle sheds and a few other outbuildings dating as far back as the 1860’s. We saw old farm machinery, buggy’s, wagons, sleds, and tools. Cattle also continue to graze on the lush grasses of the ranch. We even spotted deer in the grasses along the trail! We enjoyed the interesting tour!
We heard that there was a unique building in town that resembles a castle. It wasn’t hard to find the building because it really did look like a castle. But, this was no castle…it was a prison! The prison had a stone wall surrounding it with towers at the corners and a large fortress looking building inside. Today, it is no longer a prison but a museum. We opted not to do the museum on this trip. Photos will have to do!
There were a few other small communities nearby, but, we weren’t really interested in driving the additional miles. One of the nearby towns was Anaconda, MT. Anaconda is where four people were killed in a bar this morning. Now there is a manhunt and the authorities are searching for the suspect in the National Forest southwest of Anaconda. Happy to be leaving the area tomorrow!
Tomorrow- West Yellowstone, MT and Yellowstone National Park
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