Maltese Cross Cabin

The Maltese Cross Cabin is the oldest surviving structure connected to Theodore Roosevelt's North Dakota ranching years. Built in eighteen eighty-three by Roosevelt's ranch managers Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merrifield, it served as the headquarters of his first Badlands ranch. Roosevelt branded his cattle with a Maltese cross, the emblem that gave the operation its name.

The cabin was moved to several locations over the decades, including a stint at the St. Louis World's Fair in nineteen oh four, before landing at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park visitor center, where it sits today. It is a squat, practical log structure, about twenty by thirty feet, a reminder that the man who would become the conservation president began here, in a three-room cabin on the Dakota frontier.