Skip to main content

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 12; Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I-94 and Old US 10

By
After reaching Interstate 94 after a long stretch into North Dakota on US Route 85 I turned west towards Theodore Roosevelt National Park.


This blog serves at the 12th post in the 2016 Summer Mountain Trip Series; Part 11 can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 11; Lonely US Route 85 in the Dakotas

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is 110 square mile National Park consisting of the Little Missouri River Badlands located in Billings County and McKenzie County of North Dakota.  Although Theodore Roosevelt National Park was established in 1978 it has been an area of conservation far longer.  Theodore Roosevelt visited the Missouri Badlands throughout the 1880s to hunt bison and live in seclusion.  Subsequent books by Roosevelt brought attention the Missouri Badlands and it was designated as the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area in 1935 which was transferred to the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1946.  In 1947 Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park was established by President Truman under the Antiquities Act and was the only such park to carry such a designation.  By 1978 Theodore Roosevelt National Park was established by Congress.

The Billings County annex of Theodore Roosevelt National Park largely is associated with US Route 10 which was subsequently replaced by I-94 in North Dakota.  I-94 is one of the few Interstates with direct access to a National Park.  From Exit 32 the Painted Canyon Visitor Center and Painted Canyon Nature Trail can be accessed.


Primary access to the Billings County annex of Theodore National Park is along former US 10 on Pacific Avenue in Medora and East River Road over I-94.  Medora dates back to 1883 when it was established as rail siding of the Northern Pacific Transcontinental Railroad along the Little Missouri River.  The initial primary export from Medora was buffalo meat which was shipped by the Northern Pacific.  Medora was visited various times by Theodore Roosevelt during the 1880s and was a notable stop on his 1903 Presidential Tour of the West Coast.  Despite being the Billings County Seat Medora's population never exceeded a couple hundred residents and primarily exists now to serve visitors to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  The Rough Riders Hotel is located at the intersection of 3rd Street and 3rd Avenue.




From East River Road there is a overlook view of Medora and the Little Missouri River.


Crossing over I-94 there is a overlook view of the Interstate 94 and the Little Missouri River from the Skyline Vista.






East River Road ends at the Scenic Loop Drive which is primary road access through the Billings annex of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  From East River Road I headed east on Scenic Loop Drive towards the Old US 10 Entrance Station.



Despite the road being obliterated ahead this trail ahead served US 10 traffic as an entrance to the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area.  There is an entrance station shelter from the 1930s ahead about 1 mile on a trail.


The remainder of my day was spent hiking and viewing overlooks from Scenic Loop Drive. 






Upon leaving Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Medora I headed west onto I-94 into Montana.  From the North Dakota State Line I kept west on I-94 to Montana State Route 47 (which I clinched and should have took photos of) before turning east on I-90/US 212 towards Little Bighorn.

Part 13 of this blog series can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 13; Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

By
  There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population.  The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t
Post a Comment
Read more

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two
1 comment
Read more

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third
Post a Comment
Read more