Medora, North Dakota.

Antoine de Vallombrosa came to North Dakota in 1883. The French aristocrat fancied himself a businessman of some acumen, but in North Dakota, he spent mostly family money on more than one failed business. His family money went a long way, and he built a 26-room summer home near a small town he built and christened Medora after his wife’s name. According to his biography on Wikipedia, he was known as a gunslinger who was quick to anger, a reputation that must have been well earned in only the three years he lived in North Dakota.

The Marquis de Mores, (Vallombrosa’s title,) built the “chateau” in 1883 for family visits. Really, it was a hunting cabin for the wealthy family and other visitors. The house is now a historical site that includes the grounds of the Marquis’ failed beef packing plant at the west edge of Medora. All that remains of the packing plant is a tall chimney, the buildings having been destroyed in a fire in 1907.

The house is built high on a hill that overlooks a valley. From the relatively sharp dropoff, other buildings on the property are also visible. A guided tour of the house describes the layout of the property and the life and times of the Marquis and his family. The outbuildings are the stables and barns. I have read that there are tours of the outbuildings, but one was not offered on the day of our visit.

Inside the house, our tour guide started with the large dining room, a bit smallish considering it’s a 26-room two-story house. There we learned of some of the ideas of the Marquis. As I share these images from inside the home, let’s chat a bit about the Marquis. From what I gather, he was either ahead of his time or simply inept at business.

Inspired by the invention of the refrigerator car, the Marquis planned to ship refrigerated beef, already butchered, to the steak houses of Chicago and points east. Instead of driving cattle to markets with its usual losses in weight and stress, the cattle would be butchered at the best time and the refrigerator cars would keep the meat fresh. The idea was sound, so apparently the failure was in execution.

Another of his failed businesses, a stage line between Medora and Deadwood, South Dakota was active for a short time. He concentrated on his cattle operation, but he was unable to break through the Chicago markets, and he couldn’t get the cooperation he needed from the railroad industry to make his plan competitive with more locally raised cattle. By 1886, the family investment money dried up and the Marquis and his family closed the plant and moved back to France.

The chateau has many bedrooms and a large guest area for guides and the gear of the guests who planned to hunt bison. The rooms are all well equipped with period furniture and accessories. Much of the furnishings were originally owned by the Marquis and his wife and were left for us to eventually enjoy as we toured the home.

In 1936, the descendants of the Marquis and Marquise donated the chateau and property within to the North Dakota State Historical Society. A treasure trove of history was left for guests to view the rugged life of the aristocrat turned cattle rancher, at least for a short time.

There is a visitor center near the chateau where you can purchase tickets for the tour of the chateau. It is also a museum of sorts with plenty of information about the area and life in Medora in the wild west of the 1890s. Expect to spend at least an hour exploring the exhibits and touring the chateau, more if you explore the outbuildings, should they be available for you to view when you visit.

On my Flickr site, I’ve published many more images from the interior of the chateau and some exterior shots of the beautiful landscapes that surround the summer home and lodge left to the historical society for our education and enjoyment. You can click on any image above to visit my Flickr site to see these and other images in 2K HD, Alternatively, you can visit the album page here to see thumbnails of all of the images shared there, and pixel peep at any you choose.

John Steiner

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota.

The South Unit of the park is by far the most popular of the three units. Last week’s Cellpic Sunday featured a view of the North Unit. We didn’t make the trip through to the third park unit, Elkhorn Ranch, as that part of the park is undeveloped and only available to those with 4-wheel drive vehicles probably meant more for off-roading than anything else. The largest section of the park, the South Unit entrance is located on the main street of the city of Medora.

One of the first things a visitor can see is just outside the park’s visitor center doors. Officially known as the Maltese Cross Cabin, the original site of this cabin was about seven miles (11 km) south of Medora on the Chimney Butte Ranch. Theodore Roosevelt had ranchhands build the cabin after Roosevelt bought the ranch, cattle, and brand, an eight-pointed Maltese Cross.

After Roosevelt sold his interest in North Dakota properties, the cabin was moved to Missouri for the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis. From there, it was moved to Portland, Oregon for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, before it was returned to North Dakota. It spent time in Fargo before finally being moved to its current home in Roosevelt’s namesake national park.

About the photo: Stepping out of the back door of the visitor center, you will find a sidewalk that leads a short distance to the cabin. This snapshot was processed in Adobe Lightroom with final processing completed in Luminar 4. As I have often noted, click on the image, and if your browser supports it, you’ll get a better view of the image.

John Steiner

Medora, North Dakota

In 1883, a young French nobleman, the Marquis de Mores, with the help of family money founded a town on the Little Missouri River. Named after the Marquis’ wife, the town of Medora consisted of a meat packing plant, hotel, some stores and a large residence for him and his wife. In only a few years, the Marquis’ businesses ended in failure, but the town survived. 

The town, and it’s surroundings of some of the most beautiful country in the nation, attracted many visitors. One in particular who, at the age of 42, would become the youngest President of the United States at the time of his election credits his time in North Dakota for his success. However this post is not about President Theodore Roosevelt, or about the town of Medora. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Medora Musical, a summer event that attracts thousands of visitors to the area every summer.

The musical had its beginnings in 1958, but was reborn in 1965 with the financial support of Harold Schafer, an entrepreneur from Bismarck. Over the years the amphitheater Mr. Schafer built has been reconstructed, reoriented and enlarged to support the large number of visitors attending nightly from June to September each year.

Show up early to the Burning Hills Amphitheater to be treated so some beautiful scenery, and if you are lucky, you may get a glimpse of some wildlife along the ridge that separates the amphitheater from the surrounding countryside. Just prior to this summer excursion, I purchased a new lens, a Tamron 16-300 mm zoom. It enabled me to capture these two bull elk at 300 mm full zoom. To give you an idea of the range of this lens, the photo immediately above the elk photo was taken at 26 mm. In a future post, after I’ve had a chance to experiment more with the lens, I will post a review. So far, I’m happy I made the investment.

The late afternoon hour before the show starts provides great lighting for the scenery around the site. Before you know it, they will open the gates and people will start walking or riding the escalator down to the seating area. The musical runs through September 12, this year and tickets are reasonably priced for a show of this quality. I submit for your approval, a small gallery of images taken during our visit. Click on any image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner

View from Painted Canyon Rest Area

Medora, North Dakota

“When Theodore Roosevelt came to Dakota Territory to hunt bison in 1883, he was a skinny, young, spectacled dude from New York. He could not have imagined how his adventure in this remote and unfamiliar place would forever alter the course of the nation. The rugged landscape and strenuous life that TR experienced here would help shape a conservation policy that we still benefit from today.”

These words, from the National Park Service webpage, concisely describe the relationship between the Western North Dakota badlands, our 26th President, and his love of our natural environment. One the west side of the town of Medora, North Dakota is the entrance to the South Unit of the park. It was here that my wife, Lynn, and I started our tour of the park. As we were just passing through on our way to Montana, we only had a few hours to spend in the park. We would have to postpone trips to the other two units in the park, the North Unit, and Elkhorn Ranch Unit.

At the very least, if you are travelling along I-94 in Western North Dakota, be sure to stop at the Painted Canyon Rest Area. The rest area is just east of the town of Medora, a historic location in its own right. The rest area includes a small park with shelters and a well equipped information center. A sidewalk winds along the fenced edge of the overlook. Near the west edge, we found a short loop trail. It took us about 45 minutes to complete the loop, downhill at first, and then uphill back to the overlook at the same point we started the hike. There is also a trailhead that joins the main trail from the westernmost shelters. Even though the trail is only a mile, bring water, especially on a warm North Dakota summer day. You will be glad you did.

Along the trail at Painted Canyon

From the overlook, the trail looks to be sand, rocks and low growing ground cover. A short distance from the overlook though, we ran into a small forest. On a warm day, the shade was welcome. The trail is an easy walk for anyone with hiking experience. Though there are some steeper descents and climbs, the trail is well marked and should be an easy to moderate challenge for the non-hiker. The few forks we found in the trail always led back to the main trail, no matter which fork we chose to take.

After leaving the rest area, we continued a short distance on I-94 to the Medora exit. After a short drive through town, we came upon the National Park South Unit entrance. The visitor center features a very useful oversize chart of things to do in the park if you are staying for two hours, a half-day, a full day or longer. The organized guide was helpful in determining what we could reasonably expect to do in the three hours we would spend in the park.

In addition to the hiking trail at the overlook we’d just completed, there are many miles of trail within the park itself. Some short, some long enough for a full day’s hike. Our choice for the day, however, was the 36-mile (58 km) scenic drive through the park. Speed limits are low in the park, so expect the drive to take at least an hour. You wouldn’t want to miss anything by speeding through the park anyway.

Just as we were leaving the information center, a gentleman on his way in mentioned that if we want to see buffalo, we should take the left fork and follow the scenic road opposite the direction that most people would take. We would end up doing the tour “backward”, (not that it matters.) We took the gentleman’s advice and in only a few miles, we came upon the herd of buffalo (properly named American Bison.) Except for one individual, they were some distance from the road and even with my 270mm lens; they were too far away from us to get any decent photos.

Even though they were some distance from us, I distinctly heard the bison say to the prairie dog, “No, you CANNOT roller-skate in a buffalo herd!”

In addition to the buffalo, prairie dogs are plentiful in the park. In the photo above, you can see several of the prairie dog mounds that dot the area. Members of the squirrel family, prairie dogs grow to about 17 inches (43 cm) and weigh around 2 pounds (1 kg) on average. They are plentiful in the park.

An American Bison rests by the roadside

Shortly after leaving the area where we stopped to watch the buffalo herd, we were following a large pickup and camper trailer. They were travelling faster than us, and rounding a curve, we were surprised to see them stopped in the right-of-way on the two-lane scenic drive. We stopped behind them and waited for a few minutes, wondering what they saw, considering we’d just passed a turnout to a scenic overlook, there didn’t seem to be too much to see right here. When they pulled away, however, we saw the bison. He was only a few feet from the road edge and was apparently enjoying the view of vehicle traffic along the highway. He was standing at first, but as we came alongside, he lay down and watched us as we stopped and I grabbed a couple of photographs. We didn’t stay long as we didn’t want to find out if the clicking of a camera shutter might be an annoyance to the beautiful animal.

Wild horses on a hillside

Near the end of our drive, we stopped at a scenic overlook; I happened to look behind us and noticed, high on a hillside, a herd of wild horses that live in the park. They were some distance away, and my 270 mm lens was at full extension. Unfortunately, the only photos I took were all a bit blurry because in my haste to set aperture priority to get a sharp photo, I neglected to notice the shutter speed was too slow for hand holding the camera. This was the best shot of the bunch.

It was only a few more miles to the fork where the scenic drive loop brought us back to the information center and the main entrance to the South Unit of the park. We would soon depart for Montana and our stay at Fort Peck that I featured in last week’s blog entry. The North and Elkhorn Ranch Units of the park will have to wait for another time for our visit. We are looking forward to seeing more of this beautiful and historic park in Western North Dakota.

John Steiner

North Dakota on Dwellable