Place
For over 130 years, Bird Creek Ranch has been on the frontier--the frontier of place and the frontier of ideas.

The Ranch is located near the small town of Cascade, in what is now known as the lower Chestnut Valley. The area was once a large glacial lake that reached to Great Falls and beyond and depths up to 600 feet.

As the waters receded, the area drew ancient peoples searching for food and shelter. The rolling hills of the ranch's upper reaches provided pasture to herds of bison, antelope, and deer, while the brushy creek and river bottoms provided winter shelter to all types of animals.  A bison impound located on the ranch dates to 500 a.d., while a spear point found nearby dates humans in the area several thousand years before that.
 

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History
Lewis and Clark traveled along the river boundary of the ranch as they made their way up the Missouri to find its source. Later, patrols of the U.S. Army, traveling between Fort Shaw and Fort Logan, (near White Sulphur Springs), forded the Missouri here.

Jemison Perkins was the first white man to use the unique qualities of Bird Creek Ranch.  An ox-freighter needing a place to winter his oxen, Perkins chose the brushy area where Bird Creek flows into the Missouri River.  He built a two-room log cabin home described in a newspaper as the grandest house in the area.  Perkins later added a farm house, large barn, and eight outbuildings, six of which are unchanged and still used.  Perkins called his place "Picturesque Brockwood."

After Perkins' death in 1908, Mrs. Perkins sold the ranch.  It passed through several owners and holding companies until 1928 wnen Richard Jones, son of J.H. Jones, created the Bird Creek Ranch boundaries as they exist today, purchasing first the Perkins place, and then a number of surrounding homesteads.
 

Richard and his wife Freda reclaimed deserted buildings and cleared brush to create rich pasture and farmland.  They raised wheat, some sheep, and supplied alfalfa hay for a number of ranches into the 1970's. A nationally recognized herd of registered horned Hereford cattle carried their historic brands, the Wagon Rod and the Eleven Bar.

Before ecology was part of mainstream language, the Jones family recognized the uniqueness of this place and nurtured the habitats for the diverse plant and animal populations. In 1989, the ranch was named as a Montana Centennial Site.

In the 1990's, their daughter Cindy, her husband Jim and son Stephen moved to Bird Creek Ranch.  Under their stewardship, hayfields are being reclaimed and the first herd of registered Highland cattle in the area now graze the ranch's native grass. Icelandic sheep, known for their hardy nature and luxurious wool, add to the ranch's diversity.

For further information about this area's history, check our Ranch Store for the Cascade County Album:  Our History in Images.

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Mission
Drawing on the power of place, Bird Creek Ranch seeks to nurture the potential of all within its bounds, in the process strengthening the connections that link people to each other, to the working land, to nature, and to their own personal landscapes.
 

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Goals
The Bird Creek Ranch works to fulfill its mission not by sheer size or animals' numbers, but instead by vigilantly attending to quality.  Towards that end, the Ranch is home to a herd of well-bred Highland cattle and a flock of hardy Icelandic Sheep.  It is a destination for outdoor enthusiasts and is the residence for Jim Kittredge's design studio. Return to the Top