Lawrence County SDGenWeb
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Lawrence County SDGenWeb |
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In the early 1880’s a young tenderfoot seeking health, happiness and sport dropped off a Northern Pacific train at the little cowtown of Little Missouri on the west bank of the river by the same name. His health was poor, he had just lost his wife [and mother] and he wanted to get away from politics for a while and forget his troubles. He soon became enamoured with this badlands country, the plentiful game and the free, if rough and tumble, live. He decided to join up with two experienced pioneer ranchers who provided the “know-how” while “Teddy” furnished most of the money, and went into the cattle business. One ranch was established about ten miles south of Little Missouri. (About this Medora was established by the Marquis deMores on the east bank of the river and the old pioneer town of “Little Missouri” faded out of the picture.) A little later the Elkhorn ranch with two other partners was set up about 35 miles down the river from Medora. But neither the know-how of his partners nor his own cash could prevail against the ”hard winter” (1886-1887) and Roosevelt, along with the Marquis deMores and others, went out of business. Roosevelt’s books showed a net loss of $20,292.63 (about $699,409.04 today) at the close of his operations. This did not include interest on the investment but included operation of the Matese Cross (Chimney Butte ranch) to December, 1891 and of the Elkhorn ranch until February, 1899. Roosevelt’s Tower, proposed by Seth Bullock for his friend Teddy Roosevelt, [was] built by the Black Hills Pioneers, grand opening was held July 4, 1919, sadly after both men’s deaths in 1918. In 2005, the USFS and several local Black Hills agencies began restoring the Roosevelt Tower. The Deadwood Historic Preservation Office awarded a grant to the USFS and aided in the successful nomination of the tower to the National Register for Historic Places. |