# Theodore Roosevelt National Park — the badlands that made a president Canonical: https://sockmonkey.com/places/theodore-roosevelt-national-park (this is a plain-text copy of that page) Source: https://sockmonkey.com/places/theodore-roosevelt-national-park Publisher: SockMonkey.com (https://sockmonkey.com) Part of: The Field Guide - https://sockmonkey.com/places/ Cite as: SockMonkey.com - sockmonkey.com Last reviewed: 13 November 2026 Part of The US National Parks - **Where:** Little Missouri River badlands, south-western North Dakota - **Coordinates:** 47.60° N, 103.26° W (North Unit Visitor Center) - **Size:** 70,447 acres in three units:, South, North and Elkhorn Ranch - **Bison:** South Unit 200–500, North Unit 100–300 (target herds) - **Rocks:** Laid down from over, 65 million years ago - **Protected:** Memorial park 1947, national park 1978 - **Advisory:** United States, (no State Department level) ## The short answer Theodore Roosevelt National Park protects three separate pieces of the badlands along the Little Missouri River in south-western North Dakota, about 70,000 acres in all. The South Unit, beside the town of Medora and Interstate 94, is the busiest, with a 36-mile scenic drive. The North Unit, a little over an hour’s drive north, is quieter and more rugged, and the Elkhorn Ranch Unit, between them, keeps the site of his second ranch, the Elkhorn. The park was created in 1947 as Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park and became a national park in 1978. ## Why it's worth knowing Land that hardly seems to belong to this earth. Roosevelt described the badlands as “so fantastically broken in form and so bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong to this earth.” The story begins more than 65 million years ago, just after the dinosaurs died out, when rivers carried sand, silt and mud off the rising Rocky Mountains and laid it down here in a swampy, forested lowland. Volcanoes across the West sent ash that settled in the water and turned to bentonite clay. Much later, erosion took over and began carving the layers into the buttes, gullies and caprock pillars that line the river now. The ranchman. Roosevelt paid $14,000 for cattle and a brand at the Chimney Butte Ranch, seven miles south of Medora, known by its brand as the Maltese Cross. He threw himself into the work of a cowboy and wrote three books about his life here. The ranches cost him money, and he saw at first hand what overgrazing did to the land. By 1887 he had begun to sell his interests in cattle. As president, he created the US Forest Service, 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, five national parks and, using the Antiquities Act of 1906, 18 national monuments. Bison come home. Bison once numbered in the tens of millions and were nearly wiped out by overhunting by the end of the 19th century. There were none in the park when it was founded. In 1956, 24 females and 5 males were brought to the South Unit from Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge in Nebraska, and six years later 20 of their descendants went north to start the North Unit herd. With no wolves or grizzlies left to keep their numbers in check, the herds are now held at 200 to 500 bison in the South Unit and 100 to 300 in the North. Thousands of the park’s bison have been moved to start or strengthen herds elsewhere. ## The field notes ### The Elkhorn On Valentine’s Day 1884, two days after the birth of their first child, Roosevelt’s wife, Alice, and his mother died within hours of each other in the family home in New York. Grief-stricken, he left the East and came back to Dakota, put another thousand head of cattle on the range and chose a site for a second ranch, thirty-five miles north of Medora, paying $400 for the rights. Two woodsmen from Maine, Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow, cut cottonwood logs through the winter and by the spring of 1885 had built a ranch house 30 feet by 60, with a porch along the east wall. Roosevelt called it the Elkhorn. Its nearest neighbours were ten and twelve miles away. By 1901, a local stockman said, every scrap of it had gone except a couple of half-rotted foundations; the Elkhorn Ranch Unit keeps the quiet ground where it stood. ### A monument, not a park Soon after Roosevelt died, on January 6, 1919, people began proposing a memorial in the badlands. A party of 40 scouted the Little Missouri in 1924, and a tour of “cowboys and Congressmen” camped through the canyon the next year. Not everyone was convinced. In 1928 the superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park reported that “a national park does not seem to be justified.” Then came the drought and dust of the 1930s, when many homesteaders sold their land to the government for as little as $2 an acre. The memorial park was finally created in 1947 and dedicated in June 1949. ### Life on the prairie Grassland is the commonest habitat in the park. Black-tailed prairie dogs pop up from their towns along the South Unit’s scenic drive. Mule deer, pronghorn, elk, coyotes, wild turkeys and bald and golden eagles live in the park too, and bighorn sheep are sometimes seen near the cliff edges of the North Unit. More than 186 kinds of bird live in or pass through the park. Horses roam the South Unit, kept as part of the park’s history, and a small herd of longhorn steers in the North Unit recalls the cattle drives that came up from Texas along the Long X Trail in Roosevelt’s day. **A relic from Theodore Roosevelt National Park** The Maltese Cross Cabin. Roosevelt asked his ranch managers to build it in 1883 of ponderosa pine logs, with a shingled roof, a root cellar, wooden floors and three rooms, larger than most frontier homes. Its steep roof, odd on the northern plains, made a sleeping loft for the ranch hands. It has travelled further than most cabins. While Roosevelt was president it went to the World’s Fair in St. Louis, then to Portland, Oregon, then to Fargo, and settled for years on the state capitol grounds in Bismarck before coming home to the park in 1959. Its logs are the originals. ## Getting there How to get there. The South Unit is 133 miles west of Bismarck and 27 miles east of the Montana line; its entrance and visitor centre are in Medora, off Interstate 94 at exits 24 and 27, and the Painted Canyon Visitor Center is 7 miles east of Medora at exit 32. The North Unit entrance is on US Highway 85, about 14 miles south of Watford City and 50 miles north of Belfield (I-94 exit 42); the drive between the two main units takes about an hour and ten minutes. The Elkhorn Ranch Unit is reached by gravel roads, and the last three miles sometimes need four-wheel drive or a high-clearance vehicle, especially after rain or in winter. There is no public transport in the park, and no hotels or cabins inside it; an entrance fee applies. When to go. The park never closes. Park roads and nearby highways can close in winter for snow and ice. Safety. The State Department’s travel advisories cover other countries, so none applies here. Bison, horses and prairie dogs may look tame but are wild animals, and the park’s road-status page lists closures. ## Common questions #### Why is it called Theodore Roosevelt National Park? Because Roosevelt ranched here. Theodore Roosevelt first came to the North Dakota badlands in 1883 and owned two ranches there; the park in his memory was created in 1947, and he later said he would not have been president without his years in North Dakota. #### How big is Theodore Roosevelt National Park? About 70,447 acres. Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota is made up of the South Unit (46,159 acres), the North Unit (24,070 acres) and the Elkhorn Ranch Unit (218 acres). #### Are there bison in Theodore Roosevelt National Park? Yes, in both main units. Bison returned to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in 1956; the herds are kept at 200 to 500 in the South Unit and 100 to 300 in the North Unit. #### What was the Elkhorn Ranch? Roosevelt’s second ranch. He chose the site, thirty-five miles north of Medora, in 1884 after his wife and mother died, and two Maine woodsmen built its house in the winter of 1884-85; the site is now the Elkhorn Ranch Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. #### Can you see Roosevelt's cabin? Yes. The Maltese Cross Cabin, built for Roosevelt in 1883 seven miles south of Medora, now stands behind the South Unit Visitor Center of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. #### How far apart are the units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park? The South and North Units are about an hour and ten minutes apart by car. The South Unit is at Medora on Interstate 94; the North Unit entrance is on US Highway 85, about 14 miles south of Watford City. #### When did Theodore Roosevelt National Park become a national park? In 1978. It was established in 1947 as Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park and redesignated Theodore Roosevelt National Park in 1978. What to pack: the Road trips kit ## Related places Badlands National Parkalso in The US National Parks · about 440 km away Wind Cave National Parkalso in The US National Parks · about 450 km away Yellowstonealso in The US National Parks · about 670 km away Glacier National Parkalso in The US National Parks · about 780 km away Rocky Mountain National Parkalso in The US National Parks · both tagged wildlife ## Sources and notes Written and checked by SockMonkey.com · last reviewed 13 November 2026 - [The National Park Service](https://www.nps.gov/thro/) - [The U.S. Forest Service](https://www.fs.usda.gov/)