Elkhorn Ranch State Historic Site, Presidential ranch site in Billings County, North Dakota.
Elkhorn Ranch is a historic site spread across 218 acres of prairie land along the Little Missouri River, shaded by cottonwood trees. Today visitors find foundation remnants of the original buildings set into the grassland.
Roosevelt founded the ranch in 1884 as his Dakota residence, bringing skilled workers from Maine to construct the buildings. This move marked his embrace of western life and the beginning of his years as a working rancher.
The name reflects Roosevelt's formative years here, when his thinking about nature and conservation took shape before he became president. Walking the grounds today, you can sense how this remote landscape helped shape his later environmental policies.
The site is reached by a maintained gravel road from Medora and has interpretive signs explaining the ranch layout. Sturdy shoes are recommended since the ground is uneven and can become slippery after rain.
Roosevelt personally pursued a group of boat thieves and forced them to walk 45 miles to Dickinson for justice. This episode reveals his hands-on approach to law and order in a wild frontier region.
Location: Billings County
GPS coordinates: 47.25278,-103.62417
Latest update: December 6, 2025 19:07
North Dakota is a Great Plains state with a history shaped by trading posts, military forts, and Native American settlements. The region stretches from the Missouri River to the Canadian border, preserving sites that tell stories from the 19th century alongside Cold War relics and natural areas. Visitors find military installations turned into museums, archaeological sites, and parks that protect bison, prairie, and forest.The locations include Theodore Roosevelt National Park with its badlands formations, Fort Union Trading Post from the fur trade era, and Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, where earth lodge foundations recall earlier communities. The Enchanted Highway displays large metal sculptures along the road, while Nekoma Missile Site and Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site provide views into the missile defense systems of the 1970s. State parks like Fort Ransom and Icelandic preserve river valleys and woodlands. Museums in Fargo and Minot showcase aviation history. The Center of North America Monument in Rugby marks a geographic midpoint, and Bonanzaville USA displays historical buildings from pioneer times.
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