Theodore Roosevelt arrives at the tiny village of Little Missouri on the western edge of Dakota Territory around 3 a.m. on the night of September 7-8, 1883. According to his own account, he is the only passenger to disembark at Little Missouri that night. The rail stop, such as it is, offers no amenities and no waiting platform.

Roosevelt had arrived in the Dakota badlands in the dark. This was his first visit to the true West. Though he may have experienced the brokenness of the countryside in silhouette as the Northern Pacific steam train chugged from Belfield down into the badlands, it would not be until after dawn on September 8 that he will gaze on the weirdness of the Little Missouri River Valley for the first time.

Roosevelt carries his duffle bag and guns to a ramshackle hotel north of the tracks.
He knocks on the door of the Pyramid Park Hotel, partly owned by Roosevelt’s New York friend Henry Gorringe and operated by a man named “Captain” Frank Moore.
Moore leads Roosevelt upstairs to the “bullpen,” an un-partitioned loft over which fourteen cots are scattered. Thirteen of them are occupied—by the kind of men who drifted around the cattle and railroad frontier in the 1880s. Some of them, surely, are snoring. One cot is empty. Its linens are doubtful. Roosevelt takes it. It is Hobson’s choice.

In the morning, when breakfast is announced, the inhabitants of the bull-pen unceremoniously stampede down the stairs of the Pyramid Park in pursuit of grub. When Roosevelt at last reaches the wash basin, its waters are foul and the seamless sack towel is sodden and filthy.

Thus the New York dude, the Harvard-educated aristocrat who is accustomed to using the finest soaps and being shaved by a professional barber, gets his first taste of the democracy of the frontier.

There is no evidence that Roosevelt found these experiences anything but “dee-lightful.” He had come west to immerse himself in some authentic frontier experiences before the march of civilization swallowed up the last of America’s untamed country. He had not come west to remake the wild country, but to soak it up and take it as it actually was.

He strolls six or seven miles that morning, to get some exercise after five days aboard the train from New York, and then begins his search for a local hunting guide.

The romance of Roosevelt’s life has begun.