Editing Deer Lodge, Montana (section)

==Description==
[[File:Powell County Courthouse 04.jpg|thumb|left|Powell County Courthouse, Deer Lodge]]
The city is perhaps best known as the home of the [[Montana State Prison]], a major local employer.<ref name="msp">{{cite web |title=Montana State Prison |url=http://www.cor.mt.gov/MSP/MontanaStatePrison.asp |publisher=State of Montana |access-date=September 25, 2023 |archive-date=April 8, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408203650/http://www.cor.mt.gov/MSP/MontanaStatePrison.asp |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> The [[Montana State Hospital]] in [[Warm Springs, Montana|Warm Springs]] and the former state tuberculosis sanitarium in nearby [[Galen, Montana|Galen]] are the result of the power the western part of the state held over Montana at statehood due to the copper and mineral wealth in that area.<ref>Kinsey, Joseph.  ''Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome''. N.p.: Bison, n.d., p. 65.</ref> Deer Lodge was also once an important railroad town, serving as a division headquarters for the [[Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad]] ("the Milwaukee Road") before the railroad's local abandonment in 1980.

The current Montana State Prison occupies a campus {{convert|3.5|mi|km|1}} west of town. The former prison site, at the south end of Deer Lodge's Main Street, is now the [[Montana State Prison|Old Prison Museum]]. In addition to a former cellblock building, the museum complex includes a theater, antique and automobile museums, and a former [[Milwaukee Road]] "[[Little Joe (electric locomotive)|Little Joe]]" electric locomotive.

Deer Lodge is also the location of [[Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site]], dedicated to the interpretation of the frontier cattle ranching era. This site was the home of [[Conrad Kohrs]], one of the famous "Cattle Kings" of Montana whose land holdings once stretched over a million acres (4,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>) of Montana, [[Wyoming]], and [[Alberta]], Canada. The Grant-Kohrs ranch was built in 1862 by Johnny Grant, a Scottish/French/[[Métis people (United States)|Metis]] fur-trader and trapper who encouraged his people to settle in Deer Lodge because of its pleasant climate and large areas of bunch grass prairie, ideal for raising cattle and horses. The city's name derives from a geological formation known as Warm Springs Mound which contained natural saline that made for a natural salt lick for the local deer population, the protected valley in which Deer Lodge is located was where most of the local wildlife would winter as the temperatures lowered in the high country.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://pcmaf.org/history.htm |title=Deer Lodge History |access-date=October 8, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080914154728/http://www.pcmaf.org/history.htm |archive-date=September 14, 2008 }}</ref>

Deer Lodge was the site of the [[College of Montana]], the first institution of higher learning in the state.