Great Falls, home to around 57,000 inhabitants, is the county seat of Cascade County in the US state of Montana. It is also the capital of the Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all other cities within Cascade County. The city got the name Great Falls after a series of waterfalls that members of the ancient Lewis and Clark expedition had to overcome on their way to Louisiana in 1805-1806.
The town was founded in 1883 by Paris Gibson and railroad magnate James J. Hill. Great Falls was a city that used hydroelectric power plants on the Missouri River as a source of energy. Historian William J. Furdell described it as a “business town”. In 1884, a post office was established here, and in 1889, the construction of the Black Eagle Dam began, which provided the town with water power for the entire following year.
According to iamaccepted, Great Falls quickly became a thriving industrial city and by 1900 was already one of Montana’s largest cities. Notable landmarks in the city include Charles Marion Russell’s rustic studio, but also the nearby Grat Falls, after which the city is named. The Great Falls Portage is a national cultural monument. The city is also home to the CM Russell Museum Complex, the University of Great Falls, Giant Springs, and the Roe River, the shortest river in the world, flows through it. In 1940, Malmstrom Air Force Base was opened here. Today, Great Falls is home to the Montana Air National Guard Museum, which houses interesting aircraft, including the F-89J that launched the nuclear-powered Genie missile in 1957.
The city of Great Falls is also known for being one of the first cities where the phenomenon called UFOs occurred. In 1950, two people here observed bright silvery orbs moving rapidly across the sky. They flew over the entire city and stopped over an empty baseball stadium. People photographed these objects and the whole world learned about this incident very quickly. It is considered one of the first cases of UFO sightings in the United States of America. In 2007, the Great Falls White Sox baseball team was renamed the Great Falls Voyager, a commemoration of this very event. The team logo also features a flying saucer.
Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site
This ranch located in the US state of Montana was established by Canadian fur trader Johny Grant. It was later expanded to include the cattle of tycoon Conrad Kohrs, creating the sprawling Grant-Kohrs Ranch, which is now a National Historic Site.
Conrad Kohrs was born on August 5, 1835 in the Danish province of Holstein. He came to America at the time when the gold rush broke out in California. He became a citizen of the United States of America when he was 22 years old. He then went to Canada and finally returned to Montana, USA, where in 1862 he worked as a gold digger in a camp. Later, however, he became involved in the sale of beef cattle and became a wealthy man by selling beef to the miners. Before long, Kohrs already owned 50,000 cattle and therefore decided to build a facility for them. He was thus assured of grazing grasses on an area of 40,000 km2.
After a harsh winter at the turn of 1886-1887, Kohrs and his half-brother John Bielenberg decided to use more modern farming methods. They purchased several purebred breeding animals, fenced their pastures, and bought more feed, which they then stored in case of shortages. Kohrs became known as the “Cattle King of Montana.”
The ranch recalls the history of industrial breeding in the western United States of America in the mid-19th century and introduces visitors to the beginnings of breeding and the present day. This interesting type of park was created in 1972 and covers an area of 6.1 km2. There are over 90 different buildings on this area. Today it is protected by the National Park Service.
