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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	MEDORA North Dakota
Location: Billings County.

Still a typical cowtown, Medora was founded in 1883 by a wealthy French nobleman, the Marquis de Mores, on the Northern Pacific Railway in the center of a rich cattle-grazing area along the Little Missouri River. The marquis chose the site for the headquarters of a meatpacking industry he planned to develop to avoid the shrinkage and other costs of shipping live animals to Eastern slaughter houses. Incorporating the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, which planned to operate in five Territories and nine States and engage in the general transportation business, he built a packinghouse and cold-storage plant at Medora, capable of packing 150 head a day, and constructed cold-storage plants at a number of towns along the rail line. The town of Medora, which grew up around the plant, attained a peak population of about 400, in 1886.

The Chateau de Mores, built in 1883 by the Marquis de Mores, a French nobleman turned Western rancher and Dakota neighbor of Theodore Roosevelt.

The enterprise, which began operations in 1883, failed for a variety of reasons, but mainly because of the marquis' inexperience. In the winter months the marquis had to buy feed at exorbitant prices. Thousands of dollars had to be spent before any meat was sold. Moreover, Eastern packers undersold De Mores and forced ruinously low prices. De Mores ran sheep, but hundreds died. A foreigner, and a wealthy one at that, he was not popular in the community. Worst of all, he began to fence his land—a major sin in open-range country. After a fight with some local enemies, in which a man was killed, the marquis faced trial. Acquitted in 1886, by which time his meatpacking operation was a failure, he returned to Europe.

The ruins of the meat-packing plant are still in evidence today, and the smokestack has survived. The Chateau de Mores, home of the marquis, and the site of the meatpacking plant are administered by the State Historical Society of North Dakota. A portion of Medora is included in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.