Medora is nine square blocks sporting the tag lane “North Dakota’s #1 vacation” to which I say Medora is North Dakota’s only vacation destination. It’s also home to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Our first stop was the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site. The chateau was built in the 1880’s by the Marquis de Mores and his wife as a hunting cabin. The house has 26 rooms, 10 of which are bedrooms. It is two stories with a huge porch on the front and hunting room on the back. Many of the furnishings are original.
The Marquis de Mores was newly married to Medora, after meeting her on the French Riviera. He built the town and named it after his bride. The both hunted the area, she a better shot than he. They had several servants to help run the place. In addition to his business schemes, he had a hotel built in town as well as a house for her parents.
Both the marquis and marquises were from money. He was a French aristocrat and she a US banker’s daughter. Both were educated; she spoke seven languages and he four. Her father bankrolled many of the marquis’s projects, primarly a meat slaughtering and packing plant. Eventually the plant and other ideas failed and they moved away leaving the chateau in the hands of a caretaker. They never returned and the home became a boarding house at one point. The son of de Mores gifted the house to ND and it and the interpretive center do a nice job of portraying the life and times of these people.