In the summer of 1883 Roosevelt, struggling through a more than usually serious attack of asthma, “went West,” in the hope that outdoor life in Dakota would restore him to strength.
Medora, the place to which fortune directed him, was a little prairie settlement barely inhabited except on pay day, when the cowboys galloped in from the surrounding ranches to spend their well-earned money in the saloons.
Roosevelt had selected Medora as a possible haunt of buffalo-hunters, and he inquired eagerly of the inhabitants as to how he could find a guide for a bison-hunt.
One of the owners of the Chimney Butte Ranch, Joe Ferris, chanced to be in town that day, and while his companions were eyeing the spectacled “tenderfoot” with amusement or suspicion, Ferris, attracted by the newcomer’s friendly and honest looks, invited him to his ranch.
Roosevelt gladly accepted this opportunity to know ranch life at first hand. After a drive of twelve miles, Ferris led him up to a crude ranch house. When Roosevelt entered its door he found its furniture quite as primitive as was the building.
The place was owned by Joe Ferris and his brother, Sylvane, who were in partnership with one Joe Merrifield. The young Easterner handled himself in a way that won the esteem of these hardy, keen-eyed “cow-punchers.” They took him on a trying trip through the desolate “Bad Lands” in search of bison, but Roosevelt endured the hardships without flinching and in the end got what he went after--a bull buffalo.
When the trip was over Roosevelt found himself in love not only with his comrades, but also with their cattle and ponies and crude outfit. He bought the ranch; left Merrifield in charge as his foreman; and came East to enter upon another vigorous term in the Legislature.
Two years later, Roosevelt found himself sick of politics, and at odds with life itself. His adored mother had died, and, a few hours after her passing, his wife had also died in giving birth to his daughter Alice. Leaving the child in the best of care in New York, he went back to Dakota, resolved to devote himself to ranching.
He selected a site for his new ranch house at Elkhorn, and his favorite companions, Sewall and Wilmot Dow, Sewall’s nephew, who came West to join him, had a great deal to do with the building of this house.