Skip to main content

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 12; Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I-94 and Old US 10

After reaching Interstate 94 after a long stretch into North Dakota on US Route 85 I turned west towards Theodore Roosevelt National Park.


This blog serves at the 12th post in the 2016 Summer Mountain Trip Series; Part 11 can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 11; Lonely US Route 85 in the Dakotas

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is 110 square mile National Park consisting of the Little Missouri River Badlands located in Billings County and McKenzie County of North Dakota.  Although Theodore Roosevelt National Park was established in 1978 it has been an area of conservation far longer.  Theodore Roosevelt visited the Missouri Badlands throughout the 1880s to hunt bison and live in seclusion.  Subsequent books by Roosevelt brought attention the Missouri Badlands and it was designated as the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area in 1935 which was transferred to the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1946.  In 1947 Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park was established by President Truman under the Antiquities Act and was the only such park to carry such a designation.  By 1978 Theodore Roosevelt National Park was established by Congress.

The Billings County annex of Theodore Roosevelt National Park largely is associated with US Route 10 which was subsequently replaced by I-94 in North Dakota.  I-94 is one of the few Interstates with direct access to a National Park.  From Exit 32 the Painted Canyon Visitor Center and Painted Canyon Nature Trail can be accessed.


Primary access to the Billings County annex of Theodore National Park is along former US 10 on Pacific Avenue in Medora and East River Road over I-94.  Medora dates back to 1883 when it was established as rail siding of the Northern Pacific Transcontinental Railroad along the Little Missouri River.  The initial primary export from Medora was buffalo meat which was shipped by the Northern Pacific.  Medora was visited various times by Theodore Roosevelt during the 1880s and was a notable stop on his 1903 Presidential Tour of the West Coast.  Despite being the Billings County Seat Medora's population never exceeded a couple hundred residents and primarily exists now to serve visitors to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  The Rough Riders Hotel is located at the intersection of 3rd Street and 3rd Avenue.




From East River Road there is a overlook view of Medora and the Little Missouri River.


Crossing over I-94 there is a overlook view of the Interstate 94 and the Little Missouri River from the Skyline Vista.






East River Road ends at the Scenic Loop Drive which is primary road access through the Billings annex of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  From East River Road I headed east on Scenic Loop Drive towards the Old US 10 Entrance Station.



Despite the road being obliterated ahead this trail ahead served US 10 traffic as an entrance to the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area.  There is an entrance station shelter from the 1930s ahead about 1 mile on a trail.


The remainder of my day was spent hiking and viewing overlooks from Scenic Loop Drive. 






Upon leaving Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Medora I headed west onto I-94 into Montana.  From the North Dakota State Line I kept west on I-94 to Montana State Route 47 (which I clinched and should have took photos of) before turning east on I-90/US 212 towards Little Bighorn.

Part 13 of this blog series can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 13; Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po