Rose Thorn Stables: A History

Location: Kalispell, Montana, U.S.A.
Location History, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Fort Benton, Montana, formed the Kalispell Townsite Company with three other men. The townsite was quickly platted and lots began selling by the spring of 1891. It was officially incorporated as a city the following year.Since that time, the city of Kalispell has continued to grow in population reaching 19,927 in 2010. As the largest city in Northwest Montana, Kalispell serves as the county seat and commercial center of Flathead County. The city is considered a secondary trade center with a trade area of approximately 130,000. The city also is home to Kalispell Regional Medical Center, which boasts a 150-bed facility. Nestled in a valley, Kalispell is 31 miles (50 km) from Glacier National Park and 22 miles (35 km) fromHungry Horse Dam. Skiers have access to Whitefish Mountain Resort on Big Mountain and Blacktail Mountain Ski Area each 17 miles (27 km) away. Flathead Lake is 7 miles (11 km) away. Montana became a state November 8th, 1889

Below this line, the story and characters are purely fictitious and completely made up by myself for the purpose of my HARPG stable and DARPG kennel, along with the many plotlines I have that take place in the area. Some events mentions, such as the Spanish American War, are real events and I have tried to stay as historically true to those as I can.
History of the land: This history will begin in 1893, which is when the oldest records date back to. Not much is know about the area in particular before this, other than Native American tribes had formally settled in areas of what is now Rose Thorn Stables.

The plot of land that started it all was first purchased in the early 1890s by Jean-Louis Desmarais, a French Canadian trapper who was looking to settle with his wife and six children, four girls and two boys. Jean-Louis's father and grandfather had both been on hunting expeditions in the area, and on some of those expeditions he had been able to tag along and learn the ropes when he was a boy, so it seemed a perfect place to start his new life. Trapping wasn't as great of an occupation as it had been in those days, so he had saved the extra money he had made from trading skins and other useful things that he had gathered, plus the meager inheritance he had gotten from his father, so he had the means to settle and take up a craft, with the added benefit that he could spend more time with his family.

Jean-Louis's eldest son joined the United States Military in 1898, where he was killed in the Phillipeans during the Pacific Theatre, leaving Jean-Louis's youngest child and son, Nicolas, to inherit when he died in early 1904 when he was lost in the forest during a blizzard. When Nicolas became the owner of the land, just before his twentieth birthday, he had dreams that the cattle industry would again become a major industry in Montana, despite its decline after the winter in 1886-1887. He went to work building pens and pastures for the bovines, spending so much money that once the land was prepared he only had enough to buy four cows, one bull, a cattle dog and an older stallion. Nicolas tried to keep the new ranch afloat, but he didn't have the knowledge or the budget to keep it going long.

In 1907 Nicolas Desmarais sold his father's land to one of his brother-in-laws, Henri Lefevere, trying to at least keep it in the family. Lefevere sold the cattle and put together a forge, where he operated as a blacksmith and his brother came on as a livestock veterinarian and boarder. The Lefevere brothers ran a successful operation for two decades, at which point they retired to nearby cabins on the lake. The two brother's sons took up the family business, but their business crashed during the Great Depression. The brothers abandoned the land and jumped trains looking for work until 1944 when they went to work on the Hungry Horse Dam, finally gaining a steady income, but they still ended up selling their childhood home.

The new owner, Frederick Bell, left the ranch area of the property mostly untouched, but by the lakes in the forested area he put in motion plans to build more cabins for hunters and vacationers. Several plots of land were cleared and foundations put up before the owner disappeared into the forest on his way home from the construction site. No one ever heard from him again and his body was never discovered. It was decided that either wolves or a bear got to him. His business partner, Len Riley, then took over the project. The cabins that had already been started were completed, but when he started to scout out areas for more cabins, he meet the same grizzly fate as his late partner. The cabins were then abandoned and it was said that the forest was haunted.

The land was left alone until the end of World War II, when a veteran, Brandon Calderon, oblivious to the stories surrounding the land, purchased the property. Once again the ranch was fixed up, this time to succeed as a cattle ranch thanks to the high demand for meat. In the summer he rented out the cabins to families looking for a relaxing break and in the autumn and winter the hunters were permitted to set up base there. The land was flourishing for the first time in years.

Brandon Calderon died in 1962 of natural causes, leaving his wife, Andrea Calderon, as his sole beneficiary. She hired someone to manage the cattle, having no interest in the cattle side of the ranch, preferring to stick to the horses. She ended up marrying this man, Derek Montblanc, and together they kept the Calderon Ranch up and running, eventually having a daughter, Amanda Montblanc. Like her mother, Amanda didn't give much thought to the cattle and ended up selling the giant herd just before the cattle demand went way down again. Amanda focused on shaping the Calderon Ranch into a prized horse showing and training facility. The ranch was just reaching an amount of notoriety when tragedy struck. Amanda had gone out on the forest trails with her beloved Lakota mare, Corra, when she and her horse were shot. When the rescue team searched the trails and found the bodies there was a handwritten note saying that it was a hunting accident and the two had been mistaken for a deer, though the bullets found were traced back to a handgun rather than a hunting rifle in 1986. The shooter was never prosecuted, but the running theory was that it was her once-boyfriend and father to her son, Sam.

Sam Montblanc then took over the ranch, but having neither the interest in the horses nor the will to stay at the place where his mother had lived and died, he hired a groundskeeper and moved to the city to work. During his time as owner he had a statue of Corra erected in front of the main house in remembrance of his mother. In 1993 Sam finally sold the property.

At this point the ranch changed hands multiple times over the years with the only notable event being the addition of a race track in 1996 by someone who thought they could train racehorses. They couldn't, and the property was sold over and over again until the line of willing buyers came to an end. The property was vacant for several years, and the housing market crash didn't do it any favors.

Then along came a brother and sister, Khayman and Cat Rosenburg, looking for a place to call home, preferably a place where they could be around horses like they had when they were children back in Sweden. They found that home in Kalispell, buying the land for a pittance due to its lack of care in the prior years. They purchased an Anglo-Arabian mare and named the ranch Rose Thorn Stables after the wild roses that grew in certain areas. The property, after a rough start, began to resemble the place it had been in its glory days. More horses were purchased and foaled on the land and a kennel building was added on to the main house. The stables were renovated and the pastures were cleaned up. Just as things were looking up, Khayman fell in love and got married, moving them and the majority of their horses to an island in Canada for a year and half. During that time, a friend of the twins, Mikael Ellstrom, rented the property, taking care of the remaining horses and buying a few of his own. He also purchased a herd of sheep. Then Khayman's marriage crashed and burned, the twins moved back to their home in Montana, bringing their growing herd of horses back with them. Mikael stayed on and eventually bought into a co-ownership with the twins. Rose Thorn Stables has since grown into a full sized, fully functional ranch with two separate stables, a kennel, a herd of sheep, and a single cow who thinks that he is also a sheep.



That is the story of how Rose Thorn Stables came to be.

Congratulations if you read all of that! You have my everlasting love and a cookie!