Deer Lodge, Montana

Deer Lodge sits in the Deer Lodge Valley in Powell County, Montana, one of the oldest continuously inhabited spots in the Montana Territory. The valley had been a gathering place for the Salish and Nez Perce peoples for generations before American trappers arrived in the eighteen twenties, following the beaver trade north from the Bitterroot. The name Deer Lodge comes from a natural warm-spring mound that early trappers called the Deer Lodge, because deer were drawn to the natural salt at the mound.

The settlement that grew here was incorporated as Deer Lodge City in eighteen eighty-eight. The Montana State Prison was established here in eighteen seventy-one, and for nearly a century it was one of the defining institutions of the region. The old prison complex, decommissioned in nineteen seventy-nine, is now a museum and one of the most distinctive historic sites in the state, its stone walls and cellblocks preserved exactly as the last inmates left them.

Nearby, Johnny Grant built the first permanent structures in the valley in eighteen fifty-nine and sixty, and founded the Grant-Kohrs Ranch in eighteen sixty-two. He sold most of his holdings to cattle baron Conrad Kohrs in eighteen sixty-six, and the ranch is now a national historic site that is still a working ranch. Deer Lodge is the seat of Powell County and counted two thousand nine hundred thirty-eight residents in the twenty twenty census.