Editor’s note: A longer version of this article was originally published in North Dakota Living, the statewide magazine for North Dakota’s electric cooperatives.
One of America’s most iconic presidents will be honored with a new presidential library in North Dakota served by one of the state’s electric cooperatives.
The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library will open July 4, 2026—the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence—and be powered by Roughrider Electric Cooperative, which has offices in Dickinson and Hazen.
Although born in New York City, Roosevelt spent time as a rancher in North Dakota, inspiring his later efforts to conserve natural spaces. During his presidency, Roosevelt created five national parks and signed the Antiquities Act into law, giving presidents the power to create national monuments.
“We’re going to open up on America’s 250th birthday and connect people to a president who’s loved by both the left and the right. There is nobody else that unites people to that level,” said Robbie Lauf, the library’s executive director.
The library hopes to attract 7,000 to 15,000 people to its grand opening in the tiny town of Medora, which has just 100 full-time residents. The library, along with other projects and tourist destinations in the area, is expanding the region’s energy needs.
To meet that growth, Roughrider Electric has upgraded the circuits from its Knutson substation 12 miles northwest of Medora. The co-op replaced 12 miles of aging, underground cable with new, larger cable and removed overhead lines.
This upgrade will serve the library and accommodate future growth, while providing redundancy and improved reliability and safety for existing members.
“New infrastructure is much more reliable, which helps the general membership,” said Shawn Olson, Roughrider Electric operations manager and chief of staff. “And when growth keeps happening, then we have to build more transmission lines and more substations, which means you have more redundant feeds.”
North Dakota’s Badlands can present unique challenges for electric service.
“We have to do more underground boring because of the creeks and steep hills. It is tough,” Olson said.
But that didn’t slow Roughrider Electric’s progress. Thanks to the nice spring weather, the cooperative began plowing cable on March 18 and completed the project April 24.
“That is pretty amazing what our folks and our contractors were able to pull off,” Olson said. “We would like to thank the U.S. Forest Service, who were able to get permits and environmental concerns taken care of quickly, and we had private landowners that granted us easements to help with this process, including [the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation]. Had we not all been working together, we would have never been able to get it done in that timeframe.”
The town of Medora has changed immensely over the years, even since Olson’s parents first brought him home there as a newborn. His dad was an employee at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora.
But what hasn’t changed is the cooperative commitment to serving communities of all sizes, all the way to the member—or the presidential library—at the end of the line.
“North Dakota people are glass half full instead of empty people. There’s a will to make things work,” Olson said.
Cally Peterson is the editor of North Dakota Living. NRECA’s Molly Christian contributed to this report.