Roosevelt in Medora
In the late 1870’s, early 1880’s newspaper headlines from NY to Paris to London were all touting the Dakota cattle boom that was in full swing in the northern plains of America.
Books, such as James Brisbin’s The Beef Bonanza or How to get Rich on the Plains (1871) and Trans Missouri Stock Raising; the Pasture Lands of North America by Hiram Latham ( 1881), fueled the excitement for the expanding cattle industry.
In 1879 The Bismarck Tribune proclaimed that that western North Dakota possessed “the best grazing lands in the world”.
A writer for the New York Times was cautious but ultimately concluded “….the subject has not been overstated”.
In 1883 the first Texas longhorns arrived on the northern plains via the great cattle drives. The longhorns thrived on the wide open northern range even with the brutal winters and so ranches began to be established in the Little Missouri River Valley.
In 1879 the discovery of gold in the Dakota Territory and the Black Hills in 1876 added fuel for westward dreamers. As surveyors, soldiers and builders came into the area they noted the abundance of wildlife in the Little Missouri Badlands, again adding to the excitement about the region.
When the Northern Pacific reached the Little Missouri River in 1880 the region became a prime destination for hunters.
It now only took 5 days to go from the east to the Little Missouri region making the region more accessible.
In the early 1880’s it was fashionable for those with means on both sides of the Atlantic to own a piece of the west.
Anyone who could invest or make their way to these great expanses could be part of a great and romanticized adventure with a promising future. A young Theodore Roosevelt had already invested in a ranch a Harvard classmate was running in Wyoming.
A young French nobleman, the Marquis de Mores, would soon make his mark in the Little Missouri Valley. The town of Little Missouri was perfectly situated to grow and be a part of it all. In 1883 the Northern Pacific Railroad was essentially complete all the way to the west coast. A commemorative train the “Golden Spike Special”, on its way to Montana for ceremonies to mark the completion of the Northern Pacific corridor with a host of VIP’s, including former president Ulysses Grant, passed through Little Missouri on September 7th. Just five days earlier on September 2nd the current president Chester A. Arthur stepped off the train at Little Missouri station on his trip home from Yellowstone National Park.
TR arrived at Medora in the middle of the night on September 8th and disembarked at the Little Missouri depot looking forward to bagging a Buffalo on a much anticipated hunting trip. He was 24 years old at the time he shot his first Buffalo at Cannonball Creek in Montana.
The Little Missouri’s story began in November 1879 when a company of the 6th Infantry built a military post along the west bank of the Little Missouri River about a mile northwest and across the river from present day Medora. This small encampment was known as the Badlands Cantonment; a garrison that provided protection for the railroad construction workers. The local store run by a civilian named Frank Moore became a gathering spot for the military post and the surrounding area. The town itself was founded in 1880 at the site of the railroad depot a short distance from the military post.
There was the new saloon called Big Mouthed Bob’s Bug Juice Dispensary, general store and boarding house. Frank Moore in late 1880 built the Pyramid Park Hotel near the garrison an establishment that nowhere near reflected its grand name, which he ran as an outfitter for hunters. A coal mine operated In a bluff few hundred yards away from the town. A short spur line had been put in to carry the coal.
The garrison was abandoned in early 1883 and retired naval officer E. G. Gorringe who was an acquaintance of TR’s converted the drab and ramshackle Army buildings into a “tourist resort.” The Dakota newspapers as well as Northern Pacific tourist brochures touted the region as a “hunter’s paradise.” The little town continued to grow with the arrival of hunters, tourists, and ranchers. Newspaper accounts brimmed with optimism for the entire region.
In September 1883, the same month the Little Missouri saw three presidents pass through, The Dickinson Press described Little Missouri as a “town, situated in Pyramid Park on the banks of the Little Missouri River, and surrounded by the Bad Lands with their fine scenery is, at the present time one of the most prosperous and rapidly growing towns along the line of the Northern Pacific. New buildings of every description are going up as fast as a large force of carpenters can do the work and an air of business and enterprise is apparent that would do honor to an older town. . . . Game of all kinds is plentiful in the surrounding country and it is becoming quite a resort for pleasure seekers and those who love the chase. The country is well adapted to stock raising and Little Missouri will soon become the center of a large and growing stock interest.”
This account may have been a little over overstated. The settlement was in fact unimpressive, described by a young Theodore Roosevelt as, “a handful of ramshackle shanties”, and unofficially called by the railroad, “the toughest town on the line.” Ironically, the town’s name pronounced by the locals, “Little Misery”, foreshadowed its future more accurately than the newspaper articles and tourist brochures.
The year 1883 was pivotal to Little Missouri’s destiny in many ways, but perhaps none was as significant as the arrival of the Marquis de Mores. De Mores was a French aristocrat and graduate of the St. Cyr Military Academy in France. He was enthralled by the American West and became famous as a duelist, ranchman and hunter. He saw the open range of western Dakota as his opportunity for innovation in the beef industry and unimagined economic success. He came to Little Missouri with the financial backing of his father in law and a plan to invest in the local beef industry, buying up as many steers as the Badlands could produce and then importing many more by rail. He intended to build a gigantic slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in the valley, process the cattle onsite, and then ship it east in refrigerated cars. This would save the expense, trouble and loss of quality that came with transporting beef on the hoof long distances.
He determined where the Northern Pacific crossed the Little Missouri River was the perfect place; this was the eastern edge of the prime cattle range and therefore the shortest distance to market. The natural resources he needed were abundant. The valley was a perfect place to hold cattle naturally protected by the topography of the badlands. The Marquis bought 9,000 acres and set out to build a town, infrastructure and draw people. He boasted, “I shall become the richest financier in the world!” He was so sure of his plan’s success he was willing to spend millions of dollars if necessary. In the quiet moments of his wildest dreams he expected to earn billons and go on to buy control of the French Army.
The citizens of Little Missouri were skeptical and wanted nothing to do with the “crazy Frenchman.” When De Mores realized the people of Little Missouri weren’t buying into his dream he crossed the river, set up a tent and broke a bottle of champagne across a tent pole and started to build a new town named Medora for his wealthy wife living off a $90,000 a year income from a trust fund. The new town was christened April Fool’s Day 1883.
Gangs of workers soon arrived from St. Paul Minnesota and the new town arose in amazing speed. By early 1884 Medora had 84 buildings and a population around 250 along with some stragglers passing through. Businesses included: five saloons, three hotels, a newspaper office (The Cow Boy), laundry, barbershop, blacksmith shop, 3 hotels, 2 groceries, 2 general stores, a dry goods store, photography gallery, and a freight outfitting house. De Mores predicted Medora would be the “Omaha of the northern plains”.
Many Little Missouri businesses ended up moving across the river to the new boom town of Medora. In 1884 the Northern Pacific ceased operations in and out of Little Missouri and by June Medora was a bustling town and Little Missouri was already on its way to becoming a ghost town.
Cow Boys boasted Medora had “a larger freight, express and passenger business than any point on the Northern Pacific. The Medora boom continued throughout 1884 and 1885.
The drought of 1886 and the killing winter of 1886-1887 wreaked havoc in the cattle business. The hard winter had dealt an overwhelming blow to the open range cattle industry in the Little Missouri Badlands and most of the outfits which were backed by eastern or foreign capital pulled out.
All of the Marquis’ various enterprises were facing financial failure by the fall of 1886. The great losses along with de Mores impulsive decision to fulfill his dreams elsewhere brought the village of Medora into rapid decline. The packing plant closed for good in 1887 and by the spring of that year only a saloon, boardinghouse and general store was left. The rapidity of the towns rising was mirrored in its demise.
Medora continued to decline, until it was almost a ghost town and the village of Little Missouri across the river eventually disappeared. The economy had changed; many of the large Texas outfits gave way to smaller ranches and other towns had grown along the railroad routes.
Little Missouri was gone, just a spot for an historical marker. Medora was almost a ghost town, a shell of its former self, until its revival in the 1960’s. Medora was given new life with the establishment of the Theodore Roosevelt and Medora Foundation in 1963 by Harold Schaefer, who bought and refurbished many of the buildings and helped turn Medora into a tourist attraction even though ‘Little Misery” and Medora remain a forgotten footnote in the history of the Old West.
