Ayrshire Dairy Farm

Ayrshire Dairy Farm
South of Great Falls
Owner/Manager: Harry Mitchell & Family

Here is one of the most significant historic sites on the entire national Lewis and Clark Trail -- the Upper Portage Camp and White Bear Islands area, where the expedition headquartered for a pivotal month in 1805 and stopped again on its way home the following year.

It was here, on the present-day Ayrshire Dairy Farm, that the Corps of Discovery based its life throughout the brutal portage of the five Great Falls of the Missouri. It was here that they laboriously collected and created materials needed to assemble the iron boat frame they had hauled from Virginia -- only to have the finished boat sink. It was here that they fought off wolves and grizzlies on a daily basis, while hunting and drying thousands of pounds of meat for the next leg of their journey. And it was here, too, that they drank the last of their whiskey and celebrated the nation’s 29th Independence Day on July 4, 1805.

One hundred years after Lewis and Clark‘s momentous passage, ancestors of the land’s present-day owners began creating one of the state’s first -- and longest-lasting -- dairies. H. B. Mitchell imported Ayrshire cows from his native Scotland, believing they were the only species hardy enough to thrive even in Montana winters. Milk processing ended here 92 years later, but the dairy’s rangelands are still grazed by local cattle.

The rangelands here still sustain themselves naturally, having changed in 200 years only by virtue of the loss of bison, which in the days of Lewis and Clark grazed -- even overgrazed here -- by the tens of thousands. H. B. Mitchell’s descendants today manage cattle grazing to ensure sustained productivity both for livestock and for the many wildlife species that remain in abundant numbers. With the creation and growth of nearby Great Falls, much of the land surrounding the Ayrshire Dairy Farm has been developed, but the farm’s owners plan to continue preserving their land and its historic sites as open space. A historical exhibit and loop-trail created by Undaunted Stewardship® now overlook the Upper Portage Camp and White Bear Islands area.

Directions to this ranch:
In Great Falls, take 10th Avenue South to 13th Street. Turn south on 13th and travel about four miles to 40th Street. Turn right (west) on 40th; the display area is on the left about 400 yards from 13th Street.

Undaunted Stewardship® is a cooperative and multi-faceted program led by federal, state and private sector agencies, seeking to ensure the long-term maintenance of the environmental quality and economic productivity of privately-owned agricultural landscapes, especially in areas rich in history along the Lewis & Clark Trail in Montana.