Heading to Enchanted Castle and Theodore Roosevelt Center

Community Highlights North America Heading to Enchanted Castle and Theodore Roosevelt Center

Today, we left Medora and were heading to see a place an person that I was so impressed with last year: Gary Greff and the Enchanted Castle!

However, before we get there, I needed to check out the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson University. I'd never taken the time to stop here in my previous years, but the Center has become very valuable to me in the last few months as I've been doing research for two projects I've got going. The center's been collecting and digitizing documents regarding TR for years. One of their staffers, Erik Johnson, has been so kind and helpful to me- above and beyond! The Center also has a visitor center and museum that is open to the public.

On our way into Dickinson, I wanted to stop by the store for the local minor baseball team, The Badlands Big Sticks. Their mascot is Teddy and they have some fun logos and merch. The team is made up of college students during off season and we had actually seen the team during our lunch stop on our way into Medora a few days before. There wasn't a game today, but I emailed the office previously and asked if they had a store open. I received a reply with their hours, but the guy must have misunderstood something... it was the main office, not a store. Claire and I walked in and no one was there. It was clearly not set up as a store, but we stepped in thinking if someone was there, maybe they could sell us something. We stood there seeing no one. Finally, a young woman who was on her iphone behind some boxes noticed us and seemed confused. We left... But we did get to see the mascot head on the floor.

Alright, back on track to the Theodore Roosevelt Center! I was happy to find that we were greeted by Erik Johnson at the front desk. I profusely thanked him for his help and warned him he'd be hearing more from me when we get back home. He was super nice and humble and helpful. It's so cool that smart, nice guys like him are running the TR archive and ALSO being the face for visitors who come in because that makes the academic side of history more inviting. After our introductions, he gave us some background on the center and what was on display.

The current exhibit is about how TR wrote SO MANY LETTERS. Honestly, it's hard to imagine how TR fit so much into his life. He's done more in one year than some people do in a lifetime. He was always reading, and writing and talking and traveling.. So, I really enjoyed this picture of him sleeping after he had been trying to read.

One of the things he did, especially for his children, was to illustrate his letters with little doodles. We got to see a number of those.

This picture didn't come out great, but I needed to include it. It's a photo of the speech that was in his pocket during his assassination attempt. I would pay good money for a poster of this. In person, this image was really striking and looked great. The color and quality enlarged looked awesome on the wall.

The exhibit was well done and covered a number of parts of his writing and literary life including a number of early and translated editions of his own books, fun quotes, and good photos.

As if Erik wasn't already nice enough, while we were making our way through the exhibit, he called upstairs and got a TR Center mug for me to have. He said he appreciated our visit and pursuit of TR info. I was touched when he gave it to me. I told him "I owe YOU stuff for your work!" It was very kind.

THE COOLEST PART, though, was that Erik took us into the library to show us two actual autographed copies of TR's books- one with an illustration in it. These were not behind glass. They were pulled off the shelf to be shown to us directly in front of us with our own eyes. Claire and I have been lucky to obtain a signed copy of Alice Roosevelt Longworth's book, the daughter Claire performed as last week, but I doubt I'll ever be able to get ahold of a TR autograph. This was really special to see sharing air with us- especially one of his doodles. I actually asked to see it a second time before we left. So neat!

We then spent a good deal of time looking around their research library that had SO MANY books on, by, related to TR. Claire dove in.

Before we left town, we had one more TR to see. This statue,, titled "Young TR Enters the Arena," is outside of the courthouse. It memorializes TR's first public speech, which took place in Dickinson on July 4, 1886. The short version of the crazy story: He was asked to give the address by the doctor who worked on his feet after he had walked through snow for many, many miles in order to bring two thieves he'd captured to justice.

Part of his speech that day: Like all Americans, I like big things; big parades, big forests and mountains, big wheat fields, railroads – and herds of cattle too; big factories, steamboats and everything else. But we must keep steadily in mind that no people were ever yet benefited by riches if their property corrupted their virtue. It is more important that we should show ourselves honest, brave, truthful, and intelligent than that we should own all the railways and grain elevators in the world

After this very nice visit, we headed south to Regent. My stay here last year is one I refer to quite often and my admiration for the man behind it all is quite high. I get into more detail in last year's post, which is linked here.. Due to that detailed entry, I won't go deep here. The basics: Gary is saving his town by creating giant pieces of art on the highway and then purchased his old high school to turn into a castle-themed hotel.

To get to the Castle hotel, we cruised along the farms, fields, and Enchanted Highway.

We arrived to the Castle, but no one was there to check us in, so I knew to heead back up the road to the visitor's center to find Gary. And there he was chatting up some visitors and serving ice cream. I got to see him with kids twice on this trip- serving ice cream and then later at dinner. he was very good with them. We said hello and he seemed to have a recollection of me (or played it off well). He hopped in his truck and we followed him back to the Castle where he checked us in. He gave us updates on current projects (a couple of which I had been told about last year and were now coming to fruition). He spoke with joy and excitement. It's so neat to see him so energized after spending so long working on these pieces.

That morning, at the Medora Musical, we happened to overhear that a memorial was planned for the NEXT day at the Castle for one of the old school administrators. Claire and I peaked into the gym, but it was being set up with chairs, so we didn't get to explore as much as possible- it is super neat to have a high school gym in one's hotel. It's also neat that a bunch of people who attended school in a small town from kinder to graduation were returning to have a memorial for an administrator in the gym where they attended- which has now been converted to a castle-themed high school.

I was impressed again with how many people stopped by to take pictures. Just while we loaded our luggage, multiple cars came by. Gary's goal of attracting people to his town is working!

We got the Jacuzzi room that I didn't get the year before. Like last year, it was big and comfortable. If I lived closer, I'd come here regularly just to unwind.

Claire spent most of our stay in the bed and I stayed most of the stay in the Jacuzzi.

The steakhouse is closed on weeknights, which I was kinda bummed about because I wanted to show Claire the decor. But, eating in the bar still gets the feeling. Gary was running around taking orders, checking with his few employees, chatting up guests. I overheard him talking to a guest about what happens when he retires, which, like last year is nice to hear given all that hes put into the place. he came and sat with me for a few minutes while Claire was back in the room and we had a nice chat. It was actually a pretty busy night at the bar, so he didn't get too long to sit with any of his guests.

We had a comfortable night's sleep, a morning hot tub soak, packed up the car, and headed to the gift shop to do some shopping and say bye to Gary. Unfortunately, Gary was off doing something else. But, fortunately, a very nice woman who volunteers was in the shop. Her name was Wendy and we had a nice chat too, learning more about how the place runs and updates they've been doing. She was a very good humored host.

Before leaving, we walked across the street to check out the Hettinger County Historical Society Museum, which was not open when I was in town last year. It was pretty impressive. They had a good set-up, well labeled, and clean. Lotsa neat artifacts to explore. They had an old church next door and a classroom set up in the main building. I really liked that there was a room full of old text books! It was neat to see those.