Medora

History

Medora was founded in 1883 along the transcontinental rail line of the Northern Pacific Railway by French nobleman Marquis de Mores, who named the city after his wife Medora von Hoffman. Marquis de Mores wanted to ship refrigerated meat to Chicago via the railroad. He built a meat packing plant for this purpose and a house named the Chateau de Mores, which became a museum. In the evening of April 7, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt, who had visited and invested in ranches in the area in the 1880s, visited Medora on a presidential tour of the Western United States. Most of the Badlands' residents turned out to greet him on his whistle stop. Roosevelt later recalled that "the entire population of the Badlands down to the smallest baby had gathered to meet me… They all felt I was their man, their old friend; and even if they had been hostile to me in the old days when we were divided by the sinister bickering and jealousies and hatreds of all frontier communities, they now firmly believed they had always been my staunch friends and admirers. I shook hands with them all and…I only regretted that I could not spend three hours with them." A local hotel changed its name that same year to the Rough Riders Hotel. In 1962 the hotel was purchased by Harold Schafer. After the creation of the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation in 1986, the hotel changed hands and is operated by the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation. In April 2021, a wildfire threatened Medora and caused the town to evacuate during its tourist season. The fire burned 2,276 acres around Medora but spared the town. Home to the popular Medora Musical, the city of Medora has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in the state.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (5.07%) is water. }}

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• DEMORES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
  Elementary · Medora · 55 students · 7.9:1 ratio