North Dakota was a “hero’s journey” in President Roosevelt’s life.
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Theodore Roosevelt is known for his time in Washington as president, for serving as governor of New York, for leading the Rough Riders in Cuba against the Spanish army, and for building the Panama Canal.
But it was the years he spent in North Dakota as a young man that shaped him most.
That’s why a privately run library focused on the Roosevelt era is scheduled to open on July 4 in Medora, North Dakota.
“North Dakota is the home of the journey of the protagonist in T.R.’s incredible life story,” Edward F. O’Keefe, CEO of Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, said in a statement explaining the choice of location.
Roosevelt lived and ranched in North Dakota intermittently for about two years after his wife and mother died on the same day in 1884. On this day, Roosevelt famously wrote in his diary the words, “The light went out from my life.”
Roosevelt visited the Badlands and Medora frequently until his death in 1919. North Dakota is home to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, with an entrance and visitor center in Medora.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora on July 1.
Following the dedication ceremony, the library will be open to donors for two days before opening to the public on July 4th.
The exhibit will include a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln, which hung in Roosevelt’s White House office and was often consulted by the president.
Like the Obama Presidential Center, which opened earlier this month, the Roosevelt Library is privately operated. It is not part of the National Archives and Records Administration’s Presidential Library System, which consists of 16 presidential libraries.
The presidential library system managed by the National Archives did not begin until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt donated presidential documents to the federal government.
