State to repair hole in wall that made town of Medora mad

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - North Dakota’s State Historical Society has agreed to repair a hole in a sandstone wall that caused an uproar in the tourist town of Medora at the doorstep of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

The state agency in April paid a contractor more than $66,000 to cut a 10-foot entrance in the wall surrounding the quarter-acre De Mores Memorial Park, which is being considered for the National Register of Historic Places. The downtown park includes a bronze statue of French nobleman Marquis de Mores, a larger-than-life businessman in the storied history of the small town built with a distinct Old West atmosphere in the western Badlands.

Civilian Conservation Corps workers built the wall during the Great Depression with locally mined stone. The hole was cut at the request of the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the community and wanted a second entrance to the park to allow for easier access for food and beverage carts serving events there.

City officials said the work was done without their knowledge or a city permit, and they threatened a lawsuit against the state. Residents in the town of 100 people who think the opening in the wall damages the historical integrity of the park submitted a petition with 38 signatures to the Historical Society asking for the wall to be restored.

The society board voted unanimously Friday to do just that, after a public meeting held in Medora.

“We did the right thing, and I think that’s what democracy should be - the ability to listen to a community and then admit that maybe we can change our mind,” board President Terrance Rockstad said Tuesday.

“The society has a long history with Medora, and the town and the people,” he said. “Obviously it was important that we maintain that relationship going forward.”

Derwin Zuroff, who owns a Medora gift shop with his wife and has been an outspoken opponent of the wall opening, called the society’s decision “great news.”

Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation President Randy Hatzenbuhler was out of the office and not immediately available for comment.

All of the stone blocks and railing taken from the wall have been saved. They will be restored when weather allows, possibly not until spring, Rockstad said. The society did not immediately decide how to fund the work.

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