Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is open. Set in the North Dakota Badlands that shaped a young Roosevelt into the leader and conservationist the nation would come to know, it is the first presidential library built on the exact landscape that formed the president's character — a direct connection to the country he later worked to protect.

This is not a traditional museum. Inside, immersive Narrative Galleries trace Roosevelt's story from a determined young New Yorker to a rancher, reformer, soldier, and president, while hands-on Adventure Galleries connect his challenges to your own. The Trailblazer system personalizes your journey, sending you home with digital keepsakes and takeaways that keep the experience alive long after you leave. Outside, a one-mile boardwalk loops through restored native prairie, and rooftop terraces open onto sweeping views of the buttes.

The building is as ambitious as the story it tells. Designed to produce no waste, use no outside water, emit no pollution, and generate its own energy, the Library is pursuing the rigorous Living Building Challenge — an effort to become one of the most sustainable buildings in the world, working with the land rather than against it.

The Library is also a gateway to the surrounding Badlands. Theodore Roosevelt National Park — the only national park named for a person — sits just minutes away, where bison, wild horses, and prairie dogs still roam. The historic town of Medora, the Medora Musical, and the 144-mile Maah Daah Hey Trail round out a full Badlands experience.

Plan Your Visit
Open daily 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m., July 4–September 13; seasonal hours vary the rest of the year. Entry is by timed ticket, and because daily capacity is limited, reserving in advance is strongly recommended. Adults (13+) $26, youth (3–12) $16, children under 3 free — with discounts for seniors, military, college students, and groups of 15 or more. Ranch-to-table dining is available on-site at Salt+Scoria.

Salt+Scoria

Salt+Scoria is the restaurant inside the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library — and like the building around it, it begins with the land. The name comes from two things you can see from the table: saltbush, the tough four-winged plant that roots in the hardest Badlands soil, and scoria, the fire-formed red rock that gives this country its color. Together they point to the kitchen's whole idea — food shaped by the land rather than imposed on it.

That means cooking that is wood-fired and seasonal, drawn from native botanicals, North Dakota wild rice and grains, and ethically sourced bison, elk, and game — much of it foraged, grown with Native partners, or raised by ranchers nearby. The menu changes with what's ready, but a few things hold steady: real partnerships on every plate, and the belief that names the place — take care of what takes care of you.

Behind the kitchen is Chef Candace Stock, a forager, farmer, and land steward, and a member of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) Nation who grew up on Minnesota's White Earth Reservation. Trained at the Culinary Institute of America and a leading voice in the region's Indigenous food movement, she cooks from a conviction she returns to again and again: that food is medicine, and that people and the land are medicine for one another.

The room was built from the same instincts as the food — long communal tables, tall windows, warm timber and cool concrete, and a wood-slat ceiling that folds overhead like windblown grass. Beyond it, the Library opens onto the prairie: an open-air breezeway, a walkable green roof planted in native grasses with sweeping views of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Little Missouri valley, and a native medicinal garden of the same wild plants Chef Candace forages and cooks with. Grab a boxed meal and a coffee, and a quick lunch can turn into an afternoon on the boardwalk.

Plan Your Visit
Open year-round with seasonal hours; no Library admission ticket is required to dine. In summer (June 1–September 13), full service runs daily 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m., with lite café service (coffee and pastries) from 9:00–11:00 a.m. and 6:00–7:30 p.m. Hours shorten in spring, fall, and winter, and the restaurant closes Mondays outside summer and on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day.