Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site: Cultural Landscape Report Part One, Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site

John Milner Associates, Inc.; Rivanna Archaeological Consulting; National Park Service

The primary goal of this Cultural Landscape Report is to provide the National Park Service with a contextual evaluation of how the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site (NHS) is situated within regional ranching history and broader national historic themes. This report includes Part I, Site History, Existing Conditions, and Analysis, which documents the evolution of the site’s cultural landscape resources, and determines the origin and significance of existing landscape features within the site’s boundaries. It includes a physical history of the landscape’s evolution, historic photographs and illustrations, existing conditions documentation and base maps, a comparative analysis of existing and historic conditions, identification and evaluation of significant character-defining features, and evaluation of historic integrity. Part II, Treatment, which recommends appropriate treatment guidelines, strategies, and plans for preservation and enhancement of cultural landscape resources, was prepared separately. The Grant-Kohrs Ranch, established by John Grant in 1862 and operated by Conrad Kohrs from 1866-1920, is an outstanding representation of the days of the open range cattle industry in the American West during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Grant’s and Kohrs’s dominance of the regional beef market demonstrated the possibilities available to entrepreneurs on the developing frontier, and the ability to run cattle over a virtual empire of open and free grassland. The National Historic Landmark period of significance for the site (1862-1919) extends from the initial development of John Grant’s ranch to the dissolution of the greater Kohrs Ranch. Altogether, the Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS represents changes in agriculture, and the continuum of cattle ranching from the days of the open range into the modern era. Its landscape encompasses the cultural and physical resources that help interpret the story of continuity of ownership and the evolution of western cattle ranching operations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In September 2002, the NPS commissioned John Milner Associates, working in collaboration with Rivanna Archeological Consulting, and Susan Maxman & Partners, Architects, to complete a Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) for the Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS. The goal of this CLR is to help establish preservation goals for the landscape and provide the basis for making sound decisions about agricultural and grazing management, treatment that supports those goals, and use, as well as aiding in maintenance and interpretation. The report includes administrative data, landscape physical history, documentation of existing conditions, and landscape significance and evaluation of integrity.

Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site: Cultural Landscape Report Part One, Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site

Series

Other versions

See also