Establishing a ranch in 1860s Montana required many hands. Help from relatives and friends and the able assistance of horses meant survival. This stable and the house are among the first buildings Bartholomew Gehring built. His brother, Frank, who homesteaded nearby, helped him harvest the logs and build the stable. While the stable had a hayloft and likely a small grain bin, it did not provide enough feed storage for a flourishing ranch. Shortly after receiving his final homestead papers in 1877, Gehring built a log granary to the southeast of the stable, which allowed him to add more stock and dedicate more acreage to feed grain. The granary follows a common plan: it is centrally positioned in the corrals and elevated on piers to resist ground moisture, invasive pests, and facilitate wagon bed loading. Inside, grain bins flank a central hall. As the Gehring family acquired more sophisticated buildings, the log stable fell out of use in the early 1900s and was near collapse by 2017. In 2018, Hal Harper and a crew of volunteers rescued the stable, restoring it to its original appearance.
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