Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park -- Best Place to Visit in North Dakota

Hi, I'm JD Conrad. I'm the host of American Classic Tour TV. If you love to travel, you are in the right place. Make sure you hit the red subscribe button and ring the bell to get notifications. Okay, on to our two-minute tour. Located in western North Dakota, roughly 30 miles east of the Montana border, lies the small town of Medora. And when I say small, folks, I mean it. Medora has a population of just 129 people. If I were to describe Medora in one phrase, I would say it is This small town is a sort of emblem of the countless other small towns that have popped up on the American frontier over our nation's history. Frontier towns are a symbol of the greater American psyche. They represent manifest destiny, rugged independence, adventure, opportunity, risk. In short, they represent the American dream. In this way, Medora as a frontier town is sort of the last of a dying breed. While many other frontier towns have been developed into modern cities or have grown in population to become big towns, Medora has remained small, preserving its old western feel. Medora was found in 1883 along the transcontinental rail line of the Northern Pacific Railway by French nobleman Marquise Desmours, who named the city after his wife, Medora von Hoffman. Desmours wanted to ship refrigerated meat to Chicago via the railroad. He built a meat packing plant for this purpose and a house named the Chateau Desmours, which is a that you can visit today to learn about Medora's founding. Fast forward 20 years to April 1903. President Teddy Roosevelt visited Medora on a presidential tour of the western United States. Now, Roosevelt was familiar with the area because he had visited and invested in ranches near Medora in the 1880s. When he returned to Medora on his presidential tour in 1903, most of the Badlands residents turned out to greet him on whistle stop. Roosevelt later remembered the day saying, The entire population of the Badlands, down to the smallest baby, had gathered to meet me. They all felt I was their man, their old friend, and even if they had been hostile to me in the old days when we were divided by the sinister bickering and jealousies and hatreds of all frontier communities, they now firmly believed they had always been my staunch friends and admirers. I shook hands with them all. I only regretted that I could not spend three hours with them. So folks, Teddy Roosevelt is a big deal in this part of the country. So much so that the state of North Dakota named its only national park after him. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, located right next to Medora, is the only national park named directly after a single person. This park lies where the Great Plains meet the rugged Badlands. It is home to magnificent scenery and an abundance of wildlife, including bison, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and wild horses. Yep, folks, you heard me right. Teddy Roosevelt National Park is in fact home to some wild horses. There's something so beautiful about seeing a wild horse run free. It's also an incredibly unique thing to see. And I remember when I first learned about the wild horses at Teddy Roosevelt National Park, I found their origin story so fascinating. I wanted to share some of the history of these horses with you today. Disappearing from North America around 10,000 years ago, the horse survived on the European and Asian continents. Horses were brought back to North America by the Spanish in the 1500s. Over time, some of these horses strayed from domestication into the wild, and these stray horses became known as mustangs. From the 1600s to the mid-1800s, mustangs ranged throughout the Great Plains in vast herds, sometimes numbering in the thousands. Reintroduction of horses changed the social and environmental landscape of the Great Plains, most notably for the Plains Indians. Their acquisition of the horse changed their culture from a pedestrian hunter-gatherers to mounted buffalo hunters and warriors. During the modern ranching era, feral horses came to be regarded as a nuisance. Cattlemen worked to exterminate these animals throughout the West. In the 1950s and 60s, though, efforts to preserve feral horses began. In 1971, the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act mandated the protection of these animals as, quote, a national heritage species. Today, the wild horses are managed and actively preserved at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It is one of the few national parks where visitors can observe free-roaming horses. There's more to Medora than just a national park, though. You're going to want to take in two of America's great small-town traditions, the famous Pitchfork Steak Fondue Cowboy Cookout, where delicious steaks are cooked on pitchforks over open fires, and the Medora Musical, performed live and outside every night. The show is dedicated to President Teddy Roosevelt's time in the Badlands and the spirit of the Old West. It's really an amazing show. During your visit to Medora, stay at the famous Rough Riders Hotel located in the heart of downtown Medora. This iconic hotel is where luxury meets western charm. Well, thanks for joining us on this edition of Two Minute Tour. If you liked the episode, please leave us a like.