In the Footsteps of the Dandy Cattlemen
Two Frenchmen arrived in the Great
Plains in the 1880s, with dreams of ruling the beef industry.
By DAVID LASKIN
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The Painted Canyon Overlook,
about seven miles east of Medora, N.D. ( NPS) |
The statue of the Marquis de Mores stands on a concrete
pedestal in the town of Medora, in the stark Badlands
of North Dakota. I first saw it early one June morning,
as the sun was clearing the crumpled clay ramparts that
loom over town. The odor of fried food, from the nearby
Chuck Wagon Buffet, wafted past as I gazed up at this
bronze likeness of the archetypal French nobleman—waxed
mustache, haughty stare, wasp-waist girt with ammunition
belt, the business end of a rifle clenched in his left
fist. Back in the 1880s, the marquis and other deep-pocketed
plutocrats tried to rule a cattle kingdom on the Great
Plains. But to me, the presence of this dashing French
aristocrat amid the silent emptiness of the Badlands
seemed as incongruous as a herd of bison thundering
down the Champs Élysées.
Half a mile from his statue in downtown Medora,
the marquis' house commands a panoramic hilltop.
Snide locals christened the 26-room, wood-frame house
a chateau. The marquis thought of it as a rustic hunting
lodge. Ed Sahlstrom, the interpretive coordinator
of the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site, took
me into the marquis' dusky blue dining room,
and we peered at the long linen-covered table set
for eight, with green glass finger bowls upon it.
"The Marquis de Mores wouldn't have liked
any of us," Sahlstrom said. "And I doubt
I would have liked him either. But he wouldn't
have cared. He was a typical aristocrat."
About 120 years ago, Russian dukes and American politicians,
including fellow Badlands rancher Teddy Roosevelt,
dined at this table on plovers' eggs and claret ordered
from New York City, as well as salmon and pigeon from
St. Paul. In those days, the marquis employed some
200 to 300 people to work his bovine fiefdom, where
thousands of cattle grazed the broken hills and the
deep eroded coulees that stretch for miles in every
direction.
For more of this article, look for the January/February
2005 issue on newsstands, e-mail
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