Theodore Roosevelt National Park
National Park · Medora, North Dakota
The North Dakota badlands where a grieving 26-year-old New Yorker went to work cattle in 1884 and came back a conservationist. Roosevelt first arrived in 1883 to shoot bison, bought into the Maltese Cross Ranch, and returned after his wife and his mother died on the same day; he said later that he would never have been president without his years here. The park protects about 70,000 acres of eroded clay and coal-seam badlands above the Little Missouri River in three widely separated units, with free-roaming bison, elk, prairie dog towns and a herd of wild horses found in no other national park.
315 Second Ave, Medora, North Dakota, 58645, United States
FREE of any timed-entry requirement and open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, but ⚠ THE PARK IS THREE SEPARATE UNITS AND THEY ARE NOT NEXT TO EACH OTHER. The South Unit at Medora is on Interstate 94 and holds the main visitor centre, Roosevelt's Maltese Cross Cabin and the 36-mile scenic loop. The North Unit is about 70 miles north on US 85 with its own 14-mile scenic drive. The Elkhorn Ranch Unit, the site of Roosevelt's own ranch, is reached only by some 20 miles of gravel and has nothing built on it. Visitor centres keep seasonal hours; the scenic drives close for snow, ice and slumping road; the entrance fee is per vehicle for seven days and covers all three units.
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