By Kylie Blanchard
Photos by Chad Ziemendorf
The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library (TRPL), opened to the public on July 4, the 250th anniversary of American independence, and is the first comprehensive institutional home for the story of America’s 26th president. The 96,000-square-foot library and museum sits on a 93-acre butte one and a half miles west of Medora at the gateway to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and overlooking the very landscape Roosevelt credited with making him president.
Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919, decades before the modern presidential library system was established; his papers and artifacts have been scattered across institutions ever since. The TRPL was created to do what no other institution can: bring his comprehensive story together in one place, in the landscape that shaped him.
Designed by the international firm Snøhetta and built around the three pillars of leadership, citizenship and conservation, the library is designed to be the only carbon-neutral presidential library in the world and operates on a Four Zeros framework of zero energy, zero carbon, zero water, and zero waste.
Its primary structural system is mass timber; its entrance walls are rammed earth from local soil; its accessible 121,000-square-foot green roof merges into the surrounding prairie; and a 0.6-mile boardwalk leads visitors across the 93-acre campus of restored native plant communities.
The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit incorporated in 2014. The library is supported by private philanthropy and by a state operating endowment established by the North Dakota Legislature in 2019.
The Grand Opening
Celebratory events were held throughout the TRPL’s opening weekend.
On July 1, President Donald Trump visited the library, arriving in Medora by train as President Roosevelt had done on a speaking visit in 1903. Trump’s motorcade was escorted to a private tour of the TRPL by horseback riders portraying Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, and the President then spoke to a crowd gathered at the Burning Hills Amphitheater.
The Arena Reception was held on July 2, hosting VIP guests, dignitaries and major donors. Founding Benefactors Days were held on July 2-3, inviting principal donors and community partners to take part in “Campfire & Prairie Talks,” which explored the topics of leadership, conservation, civic life, and Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy today.
The TRPL marked its public opening with two events: a morning grand opening ceremony, and an evening drone show over the badlands. At the grand opening ceremony, guests were greeted by Roosevelt reprisor Joe Wiegand and the Rough Riders presenting the flags of the nation and state. Remarks were given by Gov. Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota’s congressional delegation and state leaders, and TRPL leadership and board members.
A ceremonial branding was held, which included Roosevelt’s Maltese Cross and Elkhorn Ranch brands burned into a cross-section of the copper beech tree Roosevelt planted at his Sagamore
Hill home in New York. The library officially opened to visitors at noon.
The day was capped off with the “Eyes on the Stars: Theodore Roosevelt and the West” drone show, with performances by the 188th Army Band. The badlands sky was illuminated with 1,776 drones telling the story of Roosevelt and the American west.
Welcoming Visitors
Visitors can now take in the library daily from 9 a.m.–6 p.m. through Sept. 13. It is recommended visitors purchase tickets ahead of their visit, as most participants spend an average of two hours exploring the library and outdoor boardwalk. Seasonal hours and visitation information can be found at trlibrary.com/visit.
Programming de
signed to introduce different audiences to the TRPL will continue throughout the summer and remainder of 2026. These include an inaugural lecture series with national scholars, a series on conservation ties to the 120th anniversary of the Antiquities Act, public conversations on civic engagement, and a fall schedule of school-group access and community programming. The anticipated TRPL annual visitation at maturity is 150,000 to 200,000 visitors.
Leaving a Legacy
It was over a relatively brief four years that Roosevelt spent punctuated time in the North Dakota Badlands, but by his own admission, those years shaped him. At the center of the TRPL experience are more than 40,000 square feet of immersive exhibits that take visitors through Roosevelt’s life from his childhood collections to his presidency and beyond. The library strives to instill the lessons of Roosevelt’s life in the citizens, students, leaders, and visitors that pass through the facility and walk its grounds.
The TRPL, built as a 100-year-plus institution, rests on the mission pillars of leadership, citizenship and conservation. The library invites every visitor to engage in leadership as Roosevelt practiced it by being principled, action-orientated, willing to take political risk, and grounded in a sense of public duty.
TRPL’s civic engagement programming is created around the idea that citizenship is an active practice, harkening Roosevelt’s 1910 Sorbonne address that made the case the credit in a republic belongs to “the man who is actually in the arena.”
The library does not just commemorate the 230 million a
cres of American land Roosevelt placed under federal protection, the five national parks created, the signing of the Antiquities Act, the founding of the U.S. Forest Service, the establishment of the first federal bird reservations, and the wildlife-management ethic that remains today. It lives it through the building’s sustainability measures, the native plant project, its connection to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and the boardwalk experience.
As the library is shared with visitors, scholars and student, the TRPL strives to establish itself as a flagship cultural and educational destination in the Northern Plains, become a recognized national hub for civic and conservation programming, and operate as the enduring home of Roosevelt scholarship and public engagement.