SOUTH UNIT

South Unit Visitor Center in Medora

The South Unit Visitor Center is located in Medora at the entrance of the park. It has a staffed information desk, museum, theater where a park orientation film is shown upon request, and a bookstore operated by Theodore Roosevelt Nature and History Association. The visitor center is open daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Visitor center staff can provide information on the park and surrounding area, road and trail conditions, and park activities. Restrooms and a drinking fountain are located inside the visitor center.

The museum focuses on Theodore Roosevelt's ranching days in the Badlands during the 1880s and has personal items of Theodore Roosevelt. The museum also has other cultural and natural history exhibits, including an exhibit on the Civilian Conservation Corps and their role in the development of the park.  

Roosevelt's Maltese Cross Cabin is located behind the visitor center and is open for guided tours mid-June to early September. During the rest of the year the cabin is open for self-guided tours while the visitor center is open.

Park rangers present a variety of programs mid-June through September.  Check at the visitor center or on park bulletin boards for dates, times, and more information. 

Painted Canyon Visitor Center

When traveling west on I-94, your first introduction to the South Unit is the Painted Canyon Overlook (exit 32), about seven miles east of Medora.

In addition to the magnificent view, the Painted Canyon Visitor Center has a staffed information desk, Theodore Roosevelt Nature and History Association bookstore, and exhibits on the park. Restrooms, picnic shelters, public phone, drinking water, and a pop machine are also available at the overlook. The Painted Canyon area is open April 1 through November 11. A short walk provides access during winter months when facilities are closed. You can often see wild horses and elk from the overlook and bison frequently roam the visitor center grounds.

The name itself evokes an image of color and light playing across the face of a wild and broken land.Of the countless individuals who have stood transfixed at the canyon rim -- Native Americans, fur traders, a cavalry general, a man who would become the twenty-sixth President, naturalists, travelers, and writers -- all have tried to express the feeling of the moment. To many, the view has a quiet, haunting beauty. Wind and water still shape the canyons; light and shadows add depth and contrast to define their character. Following a rain, the landscape appears closer to the overlook, and the eye is greeted by a kaleidoscope of colors: pinks, reds, blacks, ochres, and greens. On cloudy days, grays and browns seem dull and cold. The golden glow of dawn gives way to harsh, shadow-seeking sun rays at midday. Evening introduces soft blue silhouettes, and purple shadows fade beneath a brilliant vault of stars.

These scenes and others like them are found throughout Theodore Roosevelt National Park...the images and thoughts that are discovered at Painted Canyon are an invitation to enjoy the magic of an ever-changing scene:

"And then the late afternoon changed everything. As the sun angled, the buttes and coulees, the cliffs and sculptured hills and ravines lost their burned and dreadful look and glowed with yellow and rich browns and a hundred variations of red and silver gray, all picked out by streaks of coal black. It was so beautiful that I stopped near a thicket of dwarfed and wind-warped cedars and junipers, and once stopped I was caught, trapped in color and dazzled by the clarity of the light ... I can easily see how people are driven back to the Bad Lands."

         John Steinbeck, 1961, From Travels With Charley