Theodore Roosevelt Sites

0:28Hi, I'm Ryan Davis. Is it in the rearview mirror? Well, since RFK Jr. made it illegal to test for COVID, I can't speak to that. Yeah, but you're not here. You're not in the U.S. I'm surprised you didn't keep up on the news. Yeah, nobody's tested for COVID in Colombia in a couple of years. The reason I think I had COVID is because I came back from my, you know, a lot of flights to get nowhere trip. Hey, you got a suit out of it. Yeah, yeah. I came back sick. And then I and then I was sick for a couple of days, sore throat, little cough. And then and then I felt fine. And then a couple of days later, I felt the sore throat come back again for two days.

1:10And that that is what they call my covid rebound. That's why. Yeah, thanks for it's 2022. And I've never heard that before. Thank you. Well, you know, just, you know, I know our listeners might call it Paxlovid rebound. They are more conservative listeners. So that's where I'm at. podcast we omni democrats here you are welcome now uh ryan as much as i would love to dig uh deep into your covet we've got a lot of so much we got teddy roosevelt travel never had covid it's sort of shocking that we've not done this episode yet that it took to episode 211 because it's a passion point for me and uh yeah this is uh places to travel to to experience to uh to commune with the spirit of my favorite president and yours, Theodore Roosevelt.

2:01Your favorite president, one of mine. Yeah, you're kind of I feel like this is kind of teeing up. We're going to eventually have to do the version for Lincoln where you're going to be more the lead. Or FDR. You know, if the problem is we like we share our favorite president. It's not like I'm well, I'm a bigger Nixon guy than you. probably. No, Hey, I, if you think I don't follow the Nixon residential library on Instagram, you are wrong. But what's nice about both TR and Lincoln is we've experienced some of these places together on various trips we've taken. Um, we did the Abraham Lincoln birthplace on our trip to Kentucky.

2:39So we'll be able to start it off there. And similarly, we, uh, we used to work one block away from the TR birthplace, but I don't want to lift the curtain. Yeah. We got too much. Yeah, we got it. We got to take off real quick, though. We got a lot of response to the last episode where I talked about my adventures not going to Ireland. Indeed. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. So thank you for all the DMS and and the comments. We appreciate them. And I'm mostly supportive of you. Some, I think a little they know who you are. They're a little skeptical. Some gate agent sympathizers. Yeah, well, my mother's the most skeptical of the story.

3:21So, you know what? That makes me skeptical because I believe in Judy. You know, my mom just thinks that I'm still the 25-year-old Ryan that I once was. Well, you still act like that. Your body just can't handle it as well. So she has a good point. But I am here in Bogota where I'll be for the next couple of weeks before I head down to Maryland. So I think maybe the next I think it's up. I think that's technically up from Bogota. It depends the way which way you go. I'm not the captain. He might want to he might want to fly. I think it's 50 50. You even get up to get allowed on the plane at this point.

4:01And then we wanted to give another shout out to our listener and friend of the pot at this point, Andres Galvin, who. Do you know Andres? I'm picking up that, you know, Andres. I've never met Andres in real life. He's just been a fan. He's a fan and a follower since the early days. Like I remember he had posted a comment months. We've talked about Andres at the top of the show before. Well, Andres took the time to write one of the most beautiful emails we've ever received at outofofficepod at gmail.com. And we thank you for it. To be fair, most of the emails we receive are pitches for CEOs of, you know, kind of sketchy travel companies.

4:39Which, by the way, you know, I've booked a CEO. I've got an interview next week. I'm excited. We've got the Royal Caribbean CEO coming on. Well, that's a big CEO, yeah. Well, for sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, usually it's like people from, like, what, Getaway or whatever. I remember I had that guy on. Oh, nice guy. Anyway, they sold. He was quite successful. Anyway, Andres came back on and he said, I've been a massive fan since the summer of 2023, going back and listening to every single episode. I just wanted to reach out and tell you how fantastic and integral you've become in my life. I look forward every other Tuesday morning like you would not believe the way you both view not just travel, but culture, cuisine and politics really speak to my soul.

5:23You know that getting something like that is like a shot of adrenaline right in the arm, isn't it, Ryan? It makes me want to just record all day. It does. And it certainly reaffirms your belief in our posting schedule. So thank you for that. I mean, my belief is we should go back to weekly. Ryan is on this. He's thinking maybe one five to ten minute episode every other month. That is not true. Every other year. Not true. But you know who overstayed his welcome? Teddy Roosevelt by at least one election. No, no. OK, that's not fair. But you're right. We're going to have to get into Teddy. I'm going to give a very brief history, but mostly we'll be telling the history through through the different sites that you can visit.

6:04So I think it's time to take off. There's going to be a busy plane ride. Tell the cabin crew. Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff, please. All right, Ryan. Well, for those who don't know, I mean, Theodore Roosevelt is he's one of the biggest presidents we've ever had. He's one of the most historically significant presidents. I would say he's a controversial president. And in some ways, I've been reevaluating his legacy in terms of what's going on today, because he was one of the first imperial presidents, I would say. And sometimes in histories of the imperial presidency, Theodore Roosevelt looms large.

6:41Yeah, he was he was certainly a proponent of the Monroe Doctrine. You know, he was extreme. I mean, he pushed the limits and he came up with really creative ways to kind of gain power. And I think in his personal life, he was just an incredibly interesting character. I mean, he was very odd. He was he was strange looking. He had strange interests. He was incredibly energetic. He was known for just tirelessly going on and on and on and on, pushing the limits, getting up early, running, swimming, wrestling with his staff. He he wrote an enormous number of books. He read an enormous amount of books.

7:22He had incredible famous, famous reader. Yeah. I mean, he would read one or two books in a day. And he, you know, he grew up wealthy in New York City, but then he was enamored with the idea of the American West. And he owned a cattle ranch, two cattle ranches actually out in in North Dakota. And and he also had a lot of tragedy in his life. He had a young wife, Alice, who died, and then he kind of retreated to the West to get over that. And then, you know, he had this kind of uncertain future. He was obviously super well connected. He went to Harvard. He knew he wanted to be in government, but had kind of these not, you know, terribly notable posts.

8:08He was a police commissioner in New York City. He was in the federal bureaucracy and then kind of out of the blue became vice president. And then McKinley, President McKinley was assassinated. And that's what put Theodore Roosevelt in the president's chair. And he became a hugely popular figure since then. And then famously, like, well, couldn't they not find him? We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about where he was and where he got inaugurated. It's a great story. And he he famously vowed to only serve one term. So he had three years from vice president. like McKinley got shot early in the term.

8:47Then he got reelected. And then he deeply, deeply regretted handing off the presidency. He chose Taft as his successor. Taft ran. Then TR was super disappointed with him. And he tried to take the presidency back running as a third party candidate of the Bull Moose Party and was crushed not to win that election, especially because he was so popular. And you don't want to be crushed by Taft because that's. Well, Oh, he wasn't crushed by Taft, but he he didn't win. Sorry, that was a that was a that was a mean joke about Taft. I apologize. And then he sort of goes through this soul searching and he goes all around the world.

9:25He famously takes this insane trip on the Amazon. There's a great book called The River of Doubt that covers that where he nearly dies trying to map this river in in South America. and then comes back and he kind of settles into a famous person's life of trying to advise, trying to stay in the game, but also enjoying his semi-retirement. But he was a man who liked activity, so that was very hard for him. So the first place that it makes sense to explore TR is, of course, his birthplace. And Ryan, when you and I were at the agency, Blue State Digital, together where we first met, we were half a block away from the TR birthplace.

10:14We were, and we were doing a project with the American Museum of Natural History. So I remember going over there as a group with some of our Blue State colleagues and taking the tour. That's right. We did the big tour midday. It was a really nice excuse to get over there because we're going to talk about the American Museum of Natural History, too. So TR was born in New York City. There's a townhouse at 28 East 20th Street, and that's where he was born. Is that where he was born physically, or did they leave the house? Yeah, he was physically born there. And he grew up. That was like where he was a child.

10:49The birthplace that's preserved is a recreation of it. Right. And so not everything's authentic, but they've done their best to be as authentic as possible. and they have a nice museum gallery too so they tell a lot of a good you know they really encapsulate tr's childhood but it's facing the wrong it's facing the wrong street right because the famous famously lincoln lincoln's casket goes by and teddy young teddy looks out and sees it and that's right he wouldn't have been able to do that if it was on the street further into the block than it would have been and what ryan is mentioning is when lincoln's uh body went on tour around the United States, it came up New York and you can actually see TR in a picture looking out the original house's window at a pretty amazing, pretty amazing photo.

11:36Incredible. And there's only a handful of photos like that of future presidents with JFK and young, of course. Yeah. And and then I think there's like a John Adams and Biden picture out there when Biden was like 20 or 30. I think Biden's pushing 40 at that point. But yeah, we got some listeners are going to love that we made a Biden his old joke. All right. Very timely. And yeah, so it's it's it's a fun it's a fun historic house to go. I would say it doesn't you know, it's not like a top rank historic house. If you're a real Ted head like like I am, you enjoy it. It's got a nice gift shop. The museum gallery, probably my favorite thing that they have is they have the glasses case that saved TR's life when he was out campaigning in 1912.

12:28He was shot while making a speech by a saloon keeper named John Schrank. And John Schrank had had these dreams that the slain President McKinley was speaking to him and said, TR murdered me. And Schrank decided to take matters into his own hands and shot TR. TR had a full, a very thick speech. He had very bad vision and thick glasses, and he had a thick speech printed out and had it folded in his pocket with a glasses case behind. The bullet went through the speech through the glasses case, which was made of steel, and it did go into his chest, but it was so slowed by the speech in the eyeglasses case that he finished the speech and survived.

13:15It's an incredible story. It really speaks to TR's sort of machismo, that he was very obsessed with the kind of manliness and being seen as vital and energetic. And yet they have that glasses case preserved at the birthplace, which makes it well worth a visit, even just for that. One of my favorite glasses cases. historic glasses cases future episode yeah future episode we're gonna do better than for what it's worth the library of congress actually has a very interesting write-up of the company that made the glasses that's that's beyond this um now tr uh a big story of his youth is that he was a very sickly child and he suffered from really debilitating asthma and he kind of built himself up with physical activity.

14:02And one piece of his legacy is his great care for nature and conservation. And he he he really supercharged the national park movement. And we're going to talk about the parks that he set aside. But he also greatly cared about animals, which seems kind of odd because he's also famous as a hunter. But in this period of the early 20th century, those two things really went hand in hand. People who hunted were often the most outspoken conservationists. I think it's very strange to modern sensibilities. And you'll see this a little bit when we get to his other historic house where it's covered in animal heads.

14:43But yeah, he really believed in the preservation of nature. And while he was a great hunter. He also really felt deeply about animals and their preservation and using them to teach others about the value of nature. And so his father was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History, the Great Natural History Museum in New York, right on Central Park West. As Ryan mentioned, he and I did a campaign where we, if you know what Flat Stanley is. We basically made these little TRs. I'll post a few pictures from around the world with me holding TR. I tend to take them on a lot of trips with me.

15:23And the whole idea was to get people out of the museum, out into Central Park, exploring nature with TR as he would have wanted it to be. And what's interesting about the museum is that it is the official New York State memorial to Theodore Roosevelt. And if you actually look at the signage and all the different parts of the museum, you come to realize, oh, the entrance hall is the Theodore Roosevelt entrance hall. And there's a rotunda named after him. And the park that surrounds the Natural Museum of History is called Roosevelt Park. And my particular favorite piece that you could walk by and not realize it, when you're going into the entrance and like to pay your ticket, look at the murals that are on these enormously high walls.

16:10And they are dedicated, It's a 15 panel mural series about Theodore Roosevelt's great international conquests and activities. And so you can really read the history of him, especially as an adult. And he's in many of the paintings. And there's great quotes from TR. He was great at sort of like being quotable and pulling out brilliant sentences that were inspirational about nature and power and the presidency. see. And that's the entire display that greets you to the American Museum of Natural History very fittingly. Yes. And you used to be greeted with the big sculpture of Teddy that was deeply problematic.

16:53But now there's a new sculpture, new-ish, I guess, that you and I helped the marketing of. It's there of Teddy sitting down, hanging out. Yeah. So outside on the front steps, There used to be Theodore Roosevelt looking much svelter than he typically looked in his life. Atop a great steed. And on one side was an African-American and on one side was a Native American. I mean, when you describe it like that, it sounds really bad. It is bad. It is bad. It's a pretty bad statue. I think, in fact, I mean, we were recording at the time these decisions were being made. And we both said we we did think that this statue wasn't wasn't for modern times.

17:36Yeah. And what's especially odd about it is it's not. So, yes, it was taken down. And I've always I was curious as to what was going to happen to it. Well, it's going to a Theodore Roosevelt presidential library that is currently under construction and set to open in 2026. They finally got the donors together and only took. Look, it's a mix of private donors and state funds, and it's going to be in Medora, North Dakota. And they are the the Museum of American American Museum of Natural History is doing a long term loan to the presidential library of that statue. So it's not going away. But that's that's where it belongs in a museum with context, not outside with no context.

18:16Correct. Correct. And the new statue, which is inside, if you go into the museum, go down the stairs, there's the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda, which has a lot of history about him. And there's a great statue on a bench that you can take a picture right next to. I guess we're going to have to post the picture of you and me with TR and that statue, because as Ryan said, we launched it. This was long before they removed the statue outside, but it seemed like the writing was on the wall. Yeah. So we'll post that picture. I also have a picture of me and a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator from that day, which I will post.

18:51Ryan, you know, I got to say, when I discovered this Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is set for 2026, I think that you and I should try to go together to this next year. Let's do it. I think we should try to go. This is the one one the one big site on this tour that I haven't been to and you haven't been to is the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which is in North Dakota. This presidential library is right next to the national park. And so, you know, we could do a combined trip where we visit it. It's just that North Dakota is kind of a slog to get to. Yeah, well, I can get out there.

19:27So let's let's do it. Great. Well, one place that we have visited together is Sagamore Hill. Sagamore Hill, S-A-G-A-M-O-R-E, is in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. It's just a quick ride out of New York City. I think maybe it was like a 40-minute train ride for us, and then you got to hop an Uber or a taxi. And this was known during his presidency as TR's summer White House. You know, presidents back then, they used to take these long trips. I mean, they would essentially take the summer off and only the most pressing matters would be brought to the president at that time. And so Theodore Roosevelt would decamp from D.C.

20:08And he set up at his house in Sagamore Hill. He was this was his home from 1885. So well before the presidency, all the way to his death in 1919. So a lot of TR in this house. And I would say that this this home is one of the best historic houses to fit my test, which is if I dropped you in it and you were blindfolded and I ripped the blindfold off and I said, whose house is this? You would guess Theodore Roosevelt in a minute. because it looks like Gaston's hunting lodge from Beauty and the Beast. A lot of his hunting trophies all over the walls, you know, his famous Rough Rider hat hanging up on the wall.

20:55There's a waste paper basket made out of, I believe it's an elephant's leg. It's just, it's almost to the point of absurdity. It's almost a caricature of what people think of as TR. are yeah i've probably been to 100 historic homes and i can i can visualize walking around this living room like like we did it yesterday even though it was probably like 10 years ago it was really fun we we had a we had a great time there um it's i actually i think there's a picture of it on our website maybe of us out there we have a lot of photos yeah we got a lot of photos to do on this one it's fun um we had a great time out there they too have a great museum galleries in addition to the house.

21:35The house was restored just in the past few years. They ripped every, all the walls down, they restored all the electric and it's very well preserved for the future. And it, it really is well worth the trip. And another thing that I think is under, under sung about this site is even though you're so close to New York city, it is incredibly rural. You might remember Ryan, we could like walk down to a little beach where you could, you know, TR and his family would go boating and have picnics and things. And you actually lose cell phone service out in this area. And I discovered that particularly when I went to the nearby gravesite, which we did not do this together.

22:16And I did this on a separate trip because the gravesite is not at the house. It's about a mile and a half away. And so when TR died, January 6, 1919, he was laid to rest in a room at Sagamore Hill, which you'll be in that room when you visit, and then transported a mile down the road to a cemetery called Young's Cemetery. And my story at Young's Cemetery was it's on its website. It's it's it's open until dusk. That's dusk is the line that it's open till. And I got there right at dusk one night I was driving out further out into Long Island. And I was like, I have time to stop at TR's grave. And I got there and it was locked already.

22:58And I was absolutely crushed. And I realized that if you kind of lifted the gate a little bit and turned to the side, you could like just scamper up the hill just to the gravesite and out. And I did that. And I, what was magical about it was it's a super bucolic area, just where you would think TR would want to spend eternity. And I, as such a devoted follower of TR, really felt like I got a moment of kind of quiet and peace to say a little prayer and honor this president. That is a lovely story. I'm glad you got to, you know, got to get up close. Now, again, one place we haven't been, but which I'm going to pitch to you, Ryan, as our destination together next year is Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

23:44So Theodore Roosevelt National Park is a huge national park in North Dakota that preserves an area that's known as the Badlands. Don't confuse it with Badlands National Park, which is in South Dakota, even though the terrain is somewhat similar. I mean, this is really traditional prairie, middle of the country, beautiful rock formations, very desolate, kind of the land where the buffalo roam. And TR was always enamored with the idea of the West. And he went out West to the Dakota territory at that time as a skinny, young, really nerdy, squinty looking guy from New York and Boston and was, you know, immediately kind of the talk of the area, because who is this like Eastern cowboy who's showing up and who actually is like very bookish, but also, you know, put in more energy than any of the rest of them.

24:43And he was he quickly became very popular with the local ranchers. He bought a ranch out there. He bought two ranches, actually. And the first ranch had a cabin that is well preserved in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. And it's super accessible. It's right near the visitor center. And so he would kind of ping pong back between the Dakota Territory and New York in 1884, 85. But then his wife and his mother died in the birthplace site on the exact same day. And Theodore Roosevelt went into a deep depression. He marked the day in his diary with just an ex, a very depressed looking ex, kind of like my life is over.

25:27I've lost these two most important people in the world. And he retreated to the West. And that's really where he grew into himself. And he would go on to get married and have more children. And he obviously accomplished a great deal after this huge setback. But it was ranching and solitude and reading and writing in the West that really restored him and made him the Theodore Roosevelt we know as president. And so this cabin, I think, is super fascinating to see. It's called the Maltese Cross Cabin. That was the name of the first ranch. And in fact, during his presidency, the cabin traveled all over the places.

26:05It was at the World's Fair in St. Louis. Then it went from Missouri to Portland, Oregon for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. Then it eventually went back to Fargo, North Dakota, was put up near the state capital in Bismarck, North Dakota, and then found its final restoration and resting place in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Oh, my gosh, that's traveled more than Teddy has. No, that is not true. Teddy was an insane traveler. That's what makes this, to be honest, we've like cut down on the number of places we could talk about here because he was a world traveler and, and just fearless.

26:41And so, you know, someday we could maybe add some more international. I know we're going to touch on the Panama Canal, but other places that you could visit that he, he has a legacy. Now, another sort of off the beaten path one is in Buffalo, New York. Now, this was one that I visited when Catherine and I were at a wedding in Rochester and I said, okay, we can go to this wedding, but I need to add two hours onto the trip so that we can pop out to a Theodore Roosevelt inaugural national historic site. It's in a house called the Ansley Wilcox house. And it was the local judge's personal home when William McKinley was killed.

27:19And so Theodore Roosevelt VP, as I said, the jobs were a little different then. He had taken off to go hiking in the Adirondack Mountains. And he was in the Adirondacks, particularly on a mountain that you can still visit. I've been up near this site called Mount Marcy. And Mount Marcy is a super intense mountain to hike. He was out hiking it, out of contact, even though he knew McKinley was having after effects of being shot and that it was possible he was going to die. And indeed, McKinley dies. They send out folks to go find Theodore Roosevelt and say, hey, you got to get back to civilization here.

28:01You're the president. And so they brought him to the local judge's house in Buffalo. And this is where he was inaugurated. And I have to say, of all the places on this list, the inaugural site in Buffalo has one of the best, most professional presentations of all Theodore Roosevelt history. Huge history of his presidency, his personality. I mean, they really make a lot with a little. You know, he was only here to get sworn in, but it's an important moment in history and they make the most of it. It's a super fun place. I actually didn't know that there was. I've been to Buffalo and I did not go there.