Dakota Drifters

32 X 32 (framed)

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is one of the few national parks where visitors can observe free-roaming horses. Their presence represents Theodore Roosevelt’s experiences here during the open-range ranching era. By the late 1800s European settlement of the plains had reached the Dakotas. Ranchers turned horses out on the open range to live and breed. When needed, they would round up horses and their offspring for use as ranch horses. For generations, ranchers used land that would later become the park for open-range grazing.