MEDORA, NORTH DAKOTA — When you come into the Badlands — as opposed to the approach to the Rocky Mountains — the ground dramatically dips. It’s here that you can experience the same views that a 24-year-old Theodore Roosevelt found when he arrived in 1883, determined to kill a buffalo and experience the American West, which he understood was quickly disappearing.
He instead invested in two ranches and fell in love with the badlands of the Little Missouri River Valley.
Back, in Grief
Within a year, Roosevelt was back, stricken with grief by the deaths of his mother and wife on the same day and determined to find purpose in his life by shedding the frailty of his poor health, the deep depression he had fallen into and the softness of city life which had earned the somewhat snobbish T.R. with the nickname “Dude” among the locals.
Ed O’Keefe, CEO of the Theodore…
