Theodore Roosevelt came to the Badlands of North Dakota in 1884.
Theodore Roosevelt participated in the seasonal roundup in the area during the fall of 1885 and the spring of 1886. Roundups usually closed around June 29th.
The roundup:
Involved the Langs, the Eatons, the Huidekoper outfit, the "Three-Sevens", and "OX", every ranch big or small in the Little Missouri basin, a hundred men or more, nearly a thousand horses and upon thousands of cattle, taking in a territory of perhaps ten thousand square miles. (Theodore Roosevelt, Mornings on Horseback pg. 338)
T.R. with his horse Manitou at the Elkhorn Ranch
The Pyramid Hotel, cantonment of the Little Missouri, 1881
Wilmont Dow, T.R., Bill Sewall
T.R. 1883
Theodore Roosevlt was asked one time, to give some comment as the the kind of man County Judge Norman Lebo was, and the answer came quickly," He has the greatest store of miscellaneous misinformation of anyone that I have ever known".
-Harry Roberts
Norman Lebo
Theodore Roosevelt in his buckskins
Theodore Roosevelt left the Elkhorn ranch and Merrifield and his wife lived there until 1891. It was then left empty; TR did return and hunt in the fall through 1896 (except for 1895). After 1896 Theodore did not return to the badlands. However he did make two "whistle stops" in the area in 1900 and 1903.
Stanley Rietz's model of the Elkhorn Ranch house