Medora, North Dakota

Theodore Roosevelt's Western home is where legends were made - and still celebrated.

- PETER CORBETT

It’s hard to imagine a Western town with a more unusual backstory than Medora in the Badlands of North Dakota.

The town was founded in 1883 by French nobleman Antoine Amedee Marie Vincent Manca de Vallambrosa. He named it for his wife, Medora Von Hoffman, daughter of a New York investment banker. The nobleman, known as the Marquis de Mores, lost millions of the Hoffman fortune on a cattle and meatpacking venture that went bust within three years.

A New Yorker, 25-year-old Teddy Roosevelt, arrived in the Dakota Territory about the same time as the Marquis de Mores. The two were neighborly but nearly squared off in a duel over property rights. The Marquis was later jailed on a charge of murdering a ranch hand but was acquitted.

Meanwhile, Roosevelt acquired two ranches along the Little Missouri River in what’s now far western North Dakota. But he sold his ranches by the late 1880s and ended his foray in ranching.

By 1901, Roosevelt was living in the White House as the 26th president of the United States.

Marquis de Mores returned to France, the meatpacking plant in Medora burned down in 1907 and the town languished for a half-century.

Then came angel investor Harold Schafer, who decided to clean up the town. He succeeded in making Medora, population 130, one of the top tourism attractions in North Dakota with a million annual visitors. How did he do it?