What began as a quest to check North Dakota off the list became a firsthand look at a destination poised for a tourism breakthrough
By Jeff Gayduk
I’ll be honest. When North Dakota came up as stop number 48 on my quest to visit all 50 states, I was looking for a good excuse to get there. After all, people who track these things know that North Dakota is reliably one of the last states checked off the list. You don’t travel through there to get to many places, there’s no coastal pull, no “gotta see this before I croak” hook.
So, when I heard about the Accent West trade show coming to the western part of the state, I immediately had my reason to click off No. 48. I’d heard about the Medora Musical and figured it would be nice. Theodore Roosevelt National Park was on the itinerary. That’s impressive.
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What I didn’t expect was to leave thinking I’d just witnessed a tourism transformation in progress.
Hosted by the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation and the soon-to-be-opened Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library (separate entities), Accent attendees included tour operators, group leaders, hotels, attractions and destination marketing professionals. We stayed right in the heart of Medora at the iconic Rough Riders Hotel, easily walkable in a town with roughly 150 year-round residents.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Gayduk
The Presidential Library That Becomes the Landscape
I’m a sucker for a good hard hat tour and our visit to the soon-to-be-open library moved the needle in a big way. Designed by Snøhetta, the architecture firm behind some of the world’s most celebrated cultural buildings, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library sits on 93 acres of Badlands terrain, adjacent to the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
The 96,000-square-foot structure is built into a butte rather than planted on top of one. Rammed-earth walls and a mass timber rain screen pull materials and palette directly from the surrounding landscape. A living roof, planted with dozens of native plants, allows visitors to walk above the building and look out across some of the most untouched terrain in the American West.
Amy McCann, of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, described it accurately: “You see the building and how it connects with the earth and nature. It just becomes this awe-inspiring location. Even today, every time I go out there and see how it just seems like a shadow on the landscape — that’s exactly what we wanted.”
She’s not overselling it. Standing on those grounds in hard hat and safety glasses, with construction crews still working against a fixed July 4th deadline, that description holds. The building doesn’t announce itself like the new Obama Presidential Library does, it emerges from the landscape. The walking pathway around the grounds is open to anyone, guests don’t need a ticket to experience the extraordinary scenery.
The Numbers Behind It
The total project budget is $450 million. Approximately $280 million covers the building and pathways; $70 million covers exhibits; the remainder funds operations and pre-opening costs. Notably, Notably, this is a privately driven project with only about 11% of the budget is publicly funded.
When asked about first-year visitor projections, McCann was measured but confident: “Would we have 400,000 people come through in a year? We think so.” For context, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which sits at the library’s doorstep already draws well over half a million visitors annually.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Gayduk
What’s Inside the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library?
Construction was too advanced for interior access during our visit, but the program is well documented. Inside, visitors will find immersive galleries and artifacts tracing Roosevelt’s life from his early years as a sickly New York boy to his transformation in the North Dakota Badlands to his presidency and conservation legacy. The experience is designed to push visitors back outside as part of the storytelling, with the surrounding landscape treated as exhibit space.
The library will also feature a first-of-its-kind digital library, a café with ingredients sourced from the living roof, cooking classes, and direct trail access. The Maah Daah Hey Trail — a renowned multi-use route through the Badlands — runs through the site. As library leadership has noted, this will be the only presidential library in the country you can hike, bike or ride a horse to.
Zero Water. Zero Waste. Zero Energy.
Tour operators increasingly have travelers asking about the environmental footprint of destinations they visit. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library has a very ambitious answer.
The building is pursuing the Living Building Challenge, considered the most rigorous green building standard in existence, one that goes well beyond LEED Platinum. McCann explained the distinction: “Not everyone is familiar with the Living Building Challenge. It’s not just the building in the moment that it is built, it is the building beyond that. After a year, after two years, are we still doing what we said we were doing?”
The standard demands zero water consumption, zero waste and zero net energy use, verified not just at building completion but over time. Carbon soil samples were taken before construction began; they’ll be retaken post-opening to measure whether the project has sequestered more carbon than it displaced. Directly echoing Roosevelt’s own conservation ethos, this building is designed to give back more than it takes.
For groups that want to offer travelers more than beautiful scenery and good food, this is a story worth telling.
The Infrastructure Is Already Here
Key to all of this is the ability to pair your visit to the library with the Medora Musical. I wasn’t able to catch a performance as we were here off-season, but we toured the amphitheater, which is literally carved into the side of a Badlands gulch. With more than 2,800 seats, each summer, more than 100,000 guests experience a Western music revue with live horses, a replica of the Medora town and a fireworks finale, all set against an open-sky Badlands backdrop at sunset. We got to experience a delightful pitchfork fondue supper, served onside and I’ve already made a mental note to come back in the summer when both the Musical and the library are fully operational.
For local lodging, the Rough Riders Hotel is beautifully restored and already operating year-round. It provides boutique-caliber lodging in a town that feels genuinely Western. Medora’s new Hotel 1883 comes online July 2, 2026, with 100 rooms, positioned close to the library site. Between the two properties along with gift shops, restaurants and a championship golf course, there’s plenty of options for a group visit.
Jaden O’Rourke, of the Medora Foundation, spoke about how the library changes the seasonal calculus: “I anticipate that it will extend the season — that people who own their own shops will open them earlier and leave them open longer.” The Foundation already runs shoulder-season programming through spring and fall shows, giving operators more flexibility when building itineraries.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Gayduk
The Gateway Effect
The Black Hills of South Dakota have long anchored domestic group travel itineraries in the northern plains region with Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Custer State Park and Deadwood all top draws. Extending those itineraries into the North Dakota Badlands has historically been a harder sell. That’s changing.
McCann acknowledged the geography directly: “Right now, our reach is primarily North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota. We’ve been working pretty hard to grow that and it is definitely going to change. We anticipate drawing a little bit different type of visitor than what we’re used to.”
A library of this ambition also unlocks the broader North Dakota tourism story: the drive-worthy Badlands, Bismarck’s history, the quiet rural charm of a genuinely overlooked American state. For tour operators building itineraries in the northern plains, the routing logic just got a lot more compelling.
O’Rourke put it succinctly: “North Dakota is a truly amazing experience. When you haven’t seen it, it’s hard to understand that this smaller state that is a little bit farther away from other places has so much to see.”
My Advice for Tour Operators: Get This on Your Radar
The window to get ahead of this is open. Medora is equipped to handle group travel. The foundation has a dedicated group sales operation, and two quality hotels bring meaningful room inventory right at the moment demand begins to spike.
North Dakota has always been there. It has something that will make your clients believe you when you tell them it’s worth the trip.
Group rates for the Medora Musical (20+ travelers) are available through medora.com. For group travel inquiries, contact the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation directly @ trlibrary.com.
For more travel tips and ideas for groups, be sure to Download the June edition of Leisure Group Travel and Subscribe for FREE
