MEDORA – The French Consul General to the Midwest will be visiting Medora next week to learn about that North Dakota city’s French connection.

Guillaume Lacroix, who is based in Chicago, will be a special guest at the Meet the Pilots event on July 3, at the Dakota Territory Air Museum in Minot. On July 4-5, he will be visiting North Dakota’s popular tourist city Medora as a guest of the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation and Chateau de Mores State Historic Site.

“It is so wonderful getting to share the town of Medora and its rich French history with Mr. Lacroix especially over the 4th of July. There is no better, more patriotic weekend to be in Medora and getting to include him with that is going to be very fun!” said Kaelee Knoell, marketing specialist for the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation.

Medora was founded in the 1880s by Antoine de Vallombrosa, the Marquis de Mores, who was born in Paris, France, according to historical information. He named the town in honor of his wife, Medora von Hoffman, the daughter of a New York banker, whom he married in Cannes, France, a year or so before he arrived in the Badlands in what was then Dakota Territory in the 1880s. He founded a meatpacking industry there that operated for a time. The influence of the Marquis and his family on Medora have lived on.

Lacroix is scheduled to attend the Pitchfork Steak Fondue, Medora Musical and then enjoy Fourth of July fireworks that evening. Knoell, marketing specialist for the TR Medora Foundation, said he will be recognized at the Medora Musical.

Knoell and Anna Killian, new site supervisor at the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site, will accompany Lacroix on the various stops while he is in Medora.

Lacroix will also tour the Chateau de Mores, explore the Von Hoffman House and take a walking tour of Medora, including the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame’s Center of Western Heritage & Cultures. The Marquis was inducted in the N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame’s Hall of Honorees in 2013 in the Great Westerner category.