Theodore Roosevelt ~ October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919

26th President 1901-1909

Theodore Roosevelt sites visited:

Here is his birthplace at 28 E. 20th Street in New York City. The original building is gone and this reproduction was built on the site.

On September 7, 1900, Roosevelt addressed the City of Grand Rapids as a Vice Presidential Candidate. The speech was entitled "Free Silver, Trusts, and the Philippines." It was given from this building at 40 Pearl Street. Remarkably, there is no historic marker to be found. But the building was placed on the Register of National Historic Places in 1983.

On what was probably the same trip, Roosevelt addressed a crowd in front of the Allegan County Courthouse, Allegan, Michigan, in 1900 (picture hanging in the Allegan County Museum).

Rapid City, South Dakota, City of Presidents statue:

The McKinley Birthplace Memorial in Niles, Ohio, contains a bust of Teddy.

Roosevelt was sworn in as President in Buffalo, New York, where President McKinley died eight days after being shot. In the old County Hall where McKinley lay in state, there's a plaque to Roosevelt taking his oath of office in the Wilcox Mansion in Buffalo.

The mansion is now a National Historic site.

Roosevelt's beloved Sagamore Estate is located at 20 Sagamore Hill Rd, Oyster Bay, New York.

Near the end of his life, Roosevelt said to his wife "I wonder if you will ever know how much I love Sagamore Hill."

It's a pretty grand place. We took the house tour but no photos were allowed inside.

Visitors were permitted to sit in the chairs on the porch.

At the nearby flagpole, there is a memorial to Roosevelt's son, Quentin, who was killed in World War I.

There's a small museum on the estate.

This portrait is hanging in the Clinton Presidential Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas.

These items, including his Vice Presidential portrait, were found in a 2023 exhibit at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

Besides visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota (which is incredibly beautiful!) we found a few other Roosevelt tributes out West.

Find this life-size statue at 360 3rd St in Medora, North Dakota.

The AmericInn in Medora displays these in the lobby.

The town of  Minot in North Dakota created Roosevelt Park, which features a Roughrider statue of Roosevelt.

Presidents Park in South Dakota, featuring giant heads of all the Presidents, closed in 2010. The owner of The Roosevelt Inn in Watford City, North Dakota, bought Roosevelt's statue and moved it to the front of his motel. And it is huge 😊

After Roosevelt's 1912 election loss, he went on a lecture tour in South America and then took a expedition that almost ended his life. He decided to journey down an uncharted tributary of the Amazon River. His crew of 22 was reduced to 3 by the time they reached The River of Doubt, one of whom was his son, Kermit. It's a great read.

I bought this old book for a dollar at a used books store many years ago; it has an introduction by William H. Taft.

Roosevelt passed away at his home on January 6 in 1919.

Youngs Memorial Cemetery is located about a mile and a half away from Sagamore Hill.

Theodore Roosevelt led an extraordinary life and is known for many things of which I am mentioning just a few. He was the first of four presidents (to date) to have been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. He is also the first president to earn the Medal of Honor, ride in an airplane, and in a submarine. Roosevelt designated the first National Wildlife Refuge (Pelican Island, Florida). And on a much less grand scale, the stuffed animal, the Teddy Bear, was named after him.

Roosevelt is one of seven presidents to have been alive for three presidential assassinations (Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley). 

"The worst of all fears is the fear of living."