I Ate My Approach By Montana’s Cattle Nation—and Discovered the Excellent Steak

As I stood atop a rocky precipice in central Montana, probably the most putting factor earlier than me was nothing. Extra exactly, it was house: the all-encompassing nothingness for which the West is legendary. It was off this cliff that thundering herds of bison as soon as jumped, pushed to their loss of life by the Native peoples who hunted them for his or her meat, hides, and bones. “Not less than 13 tribes used the bounce, together with Shoshone-Bannock, Nez Perce, Assiniboine, and Crow,” Clark Carlson-Thompson, the supervisor at First Peoples Buffalo Soar State Park, advised me. “The bone mattress is eighteen to 22 toes deep. Lots of bison went over that cliff.”

The park was my first cease on a journey throughout Montana’s huge grasslands to hint the story of the West by way of its cattle ranches and the meat they produced. As I regarded up from the location of so many bison deaths, I surveyed the plain of good inexperienced that appeared to stretch for miles to the horizon. The view is so expansive, the native joke goes, you possibly can watch your canine run away for 3 days.

I hiked again to my automobile. The solar was low within the sky, and I used to be getting hungry. Luckily, I didn’t have to ship any shaggy beasts over a cliff to obtain my dinner. A brief drive away, within the tiny settlement of Ulm, was the Beef N Bone Steakhouse, an informal restaurant with a hearth that makes a speciality of Montana beef and bison. Bison meat is usually touted for its well being advantages as a result of it has far much less fats than beef, however the lack of fats rendered the steak slightly too lean for my style. 

The historical past of Montana, the place I reside, is in some ways the historical past of cattle ranching. Native peoples hunted the good herds on these grassy plains for generations, and the animals have been important to survival. However by the top of the 1870s the bison had been almost worn out by settlers and the U.S. Military and have been changed by cattle, which may very well be extra simply herded and pushed to market. The meat business was central to life in Montana through the Nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, feeding individuals who have been mining gold and copper and chopping timber. 

After dinner I drove nearly an hour east to Fort Benton, the place I stayed on the elegant Grand Union Resort, a slice of Montana’s Nineteenth-century historical past. Based in 1846, Fort Benton lured cowboys and miners who arrived on horseback or by steamboat on the Missouri River.

Among the many first ranchers was Conrad Kohrs, a fortune seeker from Holstein, in what’s now Germany. He arrived in 1862, through the Treasure State’s gold rush, and have become a butcher, promoting beef to hungry miners. As their numbers continued to develop, Kohrs bought a ranch within the Deer Lodge Valley, an unlimited meadowland close to Butte; 20 years later, he had elevated his holdings to greater than 1 million acres and 50,000 head of cattle.

I spent a few days in Butte, one of many locations Kohrs did enterprise, wandering among the many remnants of the once-great mining city. At its peak some 100,000 individuals known as it residence; the inhabitants now hovers round 36,000. An enormous open pit sits within the heart of city, a long-lasting scar from the ravages of mining. 

I checked in to Resort Finlen, a French-inspired constructing from 1924. Its glory is considerably pale and the refurbished rooms are small, however the lodge is comfy and the foyer, with its excessive ceilings and chandeliers, is grand and properly preserved.

Butte has many prosperous-looking historic buildings, which can clarify why 1923, the prequel to the hit TV sequence Yellowstone, was filmed there. For dinner, I went to Casagranda’s Steakhouse, which occupies a 1900s brick warehouse on what appears like the sting of city. The rib eye—sourced, like all the restaurant’s beef, from ranches within the Rocky Mountains­—was rubbed with a savory spice mix. The middle was medium uncommon, a garnet shade, and so tender I may minimize it with a fork. It might need been top-of-the-line steaks I’ve ever eaten.

The next day I drove a few half-hour north to the Grant-Kohrs Ranch Nationwide Historic Website. The Nationwide Park Basis purchased the land from Conrad Kohrs’s grandson within the early Seventies and it now operates as a working, Nineteenth-century-style cattle ranch with cows, chickens, and horses. “This space is a sea of grass,” a volunteer advised me. “Beef is about all you may develop.” Staffers and volunteers role-play as cowboys and camp cooks. As I sipped a powerful, sturdy espresso that was brewed over a smoky campfire, I used to be reminded {that a} scene from 1923 was shot there, with mountains as a backdrop. 

Whereas cattle barons might appear to be a throwback, their spirits nonetheless rule in Massive Sky Nation. Sprawling ranches are dotted with lots of of Hereford, shorthorn, and longhorn cattle and the cowboys who herd them. Cowboy tradition persists, although it has been modernized with issues like microchipped cows and GPS trackers; it gained’t be lengthy, they are saying, earlier than drones will do the herding.

Ranch possession has modified, as properly. Montana’s wide-open areas have exerted a strong pull on rich out-of-staters; Tom Brokaw, David Letterman, and Rupert Murdoch are amongst those that personal trophy spreads. 

Although they face their share of challenges, smaller household ranches survive and are on the lookout for methods to thrive. On my final day, I drove to Helena, Montana’s capital, the place I met Cole Mannix, cofounder and president of the Previous Salt Co-Op, a meat provider that sources beef from 5 native farms, together with his household’s ranch within the Blackfoot Valley.

Through the pandemic, Mannix advised me, with meatpacking employees falling ailing and eating places closing, the provision chain for cattle processing broke down. Rising land costs and competitors from cheaper overseas beef had already been challenges. Mannix and different ranching households determined it was time to eradicate the intermediary and promote their beef on their very own. Right this moment, a lot of what they increase is offered in Montana.

Mannix additionally owns and runs two eating places, together with the Previous Salt Outpost, a small burger store contained in the Gold Bar saloon in downtown Helena. The burgers are made with grass-fed beef raised by the native ranches; the potatoes, from a farm 60 miles away, are fried in beef fats.

Throughout the road is Mannix’s second restaurant, the Union, a contemporary wood-fired grill and butcher store with meat sourced from the ranches within the Previous Salt Co-Op. It serves completely different steak cuts nightly. I ordered the well-marbled rib eye, medium uncommon, smothered in marrow butter with a aspect of smashed purple potatoes. It was, in a phrase, scrumptious. And realizing it was half of a centuries-long custom on the prairies of Montana made it style even higher. 

A model of this story first appeared within the Could 2025 situation of Journey + Leisure underneath the headline “A Style of the Previous West.”