Elkhorn Ranch Cabin Site

Elkhorn Ranch Cabin Site marks the spot on the Little Missouri River where Theodore Roosevelt's second Badlands ranch house stood. The house is gone; only foundation stones remain. Go for the history and the quiet river country, but know that the long drive ends at a modest set of remains. From the parking area, a mowed path leads 0.7 mile to the site and its interpretive panels.

This is a bare-bones stop: parking, interpretive panels and a river setting, without a visitor center or service area. Visitors report no water or restroom at the cabin site; the USFS campground passed on the drive is a separate stop, and its facilities were not verified. The mowed path is 0.7 mile each way, but no official accessibility designation was found.

Roosevelt selected the ranch 35 miles north of Medora in 1884, after his wife and mother died on the same day. He came back to the Badlands looking for solitude and bought the previous occupant's rights for $400. The cabin site makes that retreat feel less like a name on a history panel and more like a deliberate choice of a remote river valley.

Maine woodsmen Bill Sewall and Dow built the cottonwood house through the winter; it was finished by spring 1885. The 30-by-60-foot house had eight rooms and an east-facing piazza, with a barn, cattle shed, chicken house and blacksmith shop nearby. Sewall and Dow ran the ranch until 1886. After Roosevelt's partners took over, the severe winter of 1886–87 killed about 60 percent of his cattle. By 1901, only a couple of deteriorating foundations were reported to remain.

The view opens across the Little Missouri's sandbars and shallows to meadowland, cliffs, grassy plateaus and buttes. Roosevelt wrote about the buttes taking on color after sunset. For the classic site view, walk to the foundations and frame the river and distant buttes with the cottonwoods; late light may bring out that color, but it is never guaranteed.