Maltese Cross Cabin

The Maltese Cross Cabin is a compact, one-and-a-half-story 1883 log house from Theodore Roosevelt’s first Dakota ranch. It now stands behind the South Unit Visitor Center at the start of the scenic drive. Stop if you want a close look at his early ranch life; this is a small cabin visit, not a sprawling museum.

Self-guided visits are offered year-round, and ranger-led cabin tours run in summer. The cabin follows visitor-center hours, so check the schedule if you’re timing your visit around a talk.

There are three rooms below: a kitchen, living room, and Roosevelt’s bedroom, with a loft for ranch hands under the steep roof. The interior is compact, so take your time with the details instead of expecting a long walk-through. Some furnishings sit behind protective glass, which can make small items harder to see.

The cabin originally stood about seven miles south of Medora on Chimney Butte Ranch. Roosevelt had ranch managers Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merrifield build it from ponderosa pine in 1883. The ranch took its name from Roosevelt’s eight-pointed Maltese Cross cattle brand, and the name stayed with the cabin.

He used it while dividing his time between Dakota and New York. After returning to Dakota in 1884, he established Elkhorn Ranch. The cabin you visit is the surviving Maltese Cross cabin, not the original ranch site.

The cabin traveled far from its ranch. It went to St. Louis for the 1904 World’s Fair, then to Portland for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, and later appeared in Fargo and at the North Dakota Capitol in Bismarck. It arrived at the park in 1959.

The 1883 ponderosa logs survive, but the steep shingled roof was restored after the original roof had disappeared by 1900. Roosevelt’s writing desk is a replica of the desk from Elkhorn; the marked travel trunk is the one he used between Dakota and New York. Most of the other furnishings are period antiques, not his personal belongings.

The visitor center beside the cabin has parking, public restrooms, a bottle-filling station, museum exhibits, and a film. There’s no food service at the cabin or center, so plan meals in Medora. The visitor center is wheelchair accessible, but cabin-interior accessibility wasn’t established in the available information.

For a useful exterior photo, step back far enough to include the steep roof, front logs, and doorway. A tight crop loses the compact one-and-a-half-story shape that makes this a working ranch house.