50 free Theodore Roosevelt National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Theodore Roosevelt National Park trivia quiz covers the badlands of western North Dakota where a grieving young New Yorker went to ranch in the 1880s and came back a conservationist. It is the only U.S. national park named for a single person, split into a North Unit, a South Unit and the remote Elkhorn Ranch site, all threaded by the Little Missouri River and the Maah Daah Hey Trail. Questions cover the bison, wild horses, prairie dogs and elk, the scenic drives and wilderness, and the little cowboy town of Medora at the gate. There is plenty of history too: TR's 1883 buffalo hunt, the death of his wife and mother on the same day, the Maltese Cross Cabin and the Elkhorn Ranch, the boat thieves he marched to Dickinson, the starvation winter of 1886-87, the French Marquis de Morès and his meat-packing scheme, the CCC camps, and the park's odd path from wildlife refuge to 'national memorial park' to national park in 1978. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for an I-94 road-trip game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Badlands, Yellowstone and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Theodore Roosevelt National Park is in the badlands of which U.S. state?
North Dakota
It is the state's only national park, and its badlands are a good deal greener than South Dakota's.
Q 02What distinction does the park hold among all U.S. national parks?
Only one named after a single person
It honours the years the future president spent ranching in Dakota Territory before statehood.
Q 03How many geographically separate units make up the park?
Three
The North and South units are about 80 miles apart, with the old ranch site in between.
Q 04Which river flows through all three units of the park?
Little Missouri
It rises in Wyoming near Devils Tower and empties into the Missouri at Lake Sakakawea after 560 miles.
Q 05Medora, the town at the South Unit gate, had roughly how many residents in 2024?
About 160
It is the only incorporated place in Billings County and still its county seat, with plank sidewalks and buggy rides for the summer crowds.
Q 06Roosevelt first came to the Dakota badlands in September 1883 to hunt what?
Bison
He got his animal, fell for the 'perfect freedom' of the West and sank $14,000 into a ranch before going home.
Q 07In what year did Roosevelt's wife and mother die on the same day, sending him back to the badlands?
1884
They died hours apart on Valentine's Day; that summer he started his second ranch.
Q 08Roosevelt's first ranch, seven miles south of Medora, was known by what name?
Maltese Cross
It was also called the Chimney Butte Ranch and was already being run by Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merrifield.
Q 09Roosevelt's second, larger and more private ranch, 35 miles north of Medora, was called what?
Elkhorn
Only the foundations survive; the site is now its own park unit, reached by gravel roads.
Q 10Roosevelt hired two woodsmen from which state to run his second ranch?
Maine
Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow built the 'long, low house of logs' over the winter of 1884-85.
Q 11In spring 1886, after thieves stole his boat, what did Roosevelt do?
Chased them downriver on a raft and marched them to jail
He guarded the three men with a shotgun on the way to Dickinson and collected a $50 reward.
Q 12Which brutal season wiped out most of Roosevelt's cattle and pushed him toward conservation politics?
The starvation winter of 1886-87
He lost about 60 percent of his stock, quit active ranching in 1887 and kept a small share of cattle only until 1898.
Q 13Which is NOT one of the three major books Roosevelt wrote about his ranching years?
Q 21Roughly how many acres does the park cover?
About 70,000
That is about 110 square miles, small by western park standards.
Q 22Roughly how many recreational visitors did the park receive in 2021?
850,000
Most stop at the South Unit off I-94; the North Unit near Watford City is far quieter.
Q 23Which trail connects the park's North and South units across the national grassland between them?
Maah Daah Hey
At 144 miles it is the longest continuous singletrack mountain-bike trail in America, though bikes must bypass the park units.
The Winning of the West
The Winning of the West was his multi-volume history of the frontier, not a memoir of ranching.
Q 14Roosevelt stopped ranching actively in 1887 but kept ranching interests in the badlands until what year?
1898
That was the year he rode off to Cuba with the Rough Riders; he later said he would never have been president without his badlands years.
Q 15Where has Roosevelt's first ranch cabin been displayed since 1959?
At the South Unit Visitor Center
It toured the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and Portland's 1905 exposition, then sat at the Bismarck capitol until 1959.
Q 16Roosevelt's first cabin was unusual for the northern plains for its steeply pitched roof, which created what?
An upstairs sleeping loft
Built of ponderosa pine with wooden floors and three rooms, it counted as a 'mansion' by badlands standards.
Q 17Which piece of furniture did Roosevelt call something no 'true American' could fail to enjoy?
A rocking chair
One believed to be his sits in the cabin, and he loved to read in one on the veranda of his second ranch in the shade of the cottonwoods.
Q 18Which president created the park's South Unit in 1947, the only 'National Memorial Park' ever?
Harry Truman
Congressman William Lemke had campaigned for five years; the North Unit followed in 1948.
Q 19In what year was the park's designation changed to a full national park?
1978
The same act created 29,920 acres of wilderness, more than a third of the park.
Q 20Before it was a park, the area spent 1946-47 under which agency as a national refuge for animals?
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Before that it had been the Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area, developed by CCC camps from 1934 to 1941.
Q 24The trail linking the park's units takes its name from which people's language?
Mandan
Nine fenced campgrounds with hitching rails line the route for horse riders and hikers.
Q 25How many bison were first reintroduced to the South Unit in 1956?
29
Surplus animals are given to Native American tribes to build up and diversify their own herds.
Q 26Which free-roaming animals, recognised as 'historical setting' in 1970, descend from bands that eluded a 1954 round-up?
Wild horses
For years the Park Service tried to remove them all; a 1978 plan set a goal of 35 to 60 head.
Q 27How many longhorn cattle roam the North Unit as a nod to the open-range era?
Nine
They commemorate the trail-drive days that Roosevelt himself lived through.
Q 28Which burrowing rodent is the park's keystone species, mixing soils and feeding predators?
Prairie dog
Their towns dot the South Unit's loop road, and they feed everything from coyotes to golden eagles.
Q 29How tall is the woven-wire fence around the entire park that keeps bison in and livestock out?
7 feet
Other wildlife pass over, under or through it at spots built for the purpose, and elk use the park as a refuge from hunters.
Q 30Roosevelt called the snowbound winter badlands 'an abode of' what?
Iron desolation
The brown dormant grass explodes into green each early summer with hundreds of flowering plants.