Submitted Photo Many of the items on display in this replica line shack belonged to “Badlands Bill” McCarty, a colorful, rugged, horse-trading cowboy who ranched in the Medora area in the early 1900s. The shack, on permanent display at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, gives visitors an idea of the rustic lifestyle of North Dakota’s first ranchers and pioneers.

MEDORA — Nestled in the beauty of the Badlands beats the heart of North Dakota’s western culture – The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. Those who know it love it, and they come back year after year.

With its 15,000-square-foot interpretive center, the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame’s Center of Western Heritage and Cultures features permanent and traveling western culture and art exhibits, a theater, multi-purpose meeting and event spaces, historic archives and a gift shop. Visitors from all over the world journey to southwest North Dakota each summer, spending hours immersing themselves in the stories of North Dakota’s pioneer families.

Daily presentations in the theater tell the stories of the men and women who developed the plains horse culture, as well as those who live the lifestyle of our ancestors, still today. But the facility’s centerpiece is its Hall of Honorees where Native American, Ranching and Rodeo culture are celebrated through the induction of those who have made a significant mark on North Dakota’s history. Among them, Theodore Roosevelt, Sitting Bull, Sakakawea and Louis L’Amour. Homage is paid to North Dakota’s first World Champion Saddle Bronc rider, Alvin Nelson, the famed North Dakota Six Pack and other champions of rodeo like Brad Gjermundson and Wayne Herman.

As guests journey through the Native American gallery, they get a true sense of what life was like in the Dakotas before the European settlers made the prairies their home, and what the arrival of homesteaders meant to the Native tribes. Moving through the Ranching and Homesteading exhibits, they learn how challenging it was for the pioneers to care for the cattle and crops that would feed their families, surviving life-threatening winters, and enduring brutal drought. In the Rodeo Gallery, visitors are introduced to the roughest, toughest cowboys North Dakota has produced.

Often, what these travelers take away from their time at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame is their own connection to cowboy culture. For some, it’s a new-found appreciation for the people who care for the land and produce the food that sustains us. Others discover an inner longing to live more simply, with a deeper connection to the land. Still others just wish they had a cowboy hat and boots…and they leave the museum on a mission to find them.

Raised and educated in Phoenix, Arizona, Tess Howie began work as a copy writer and editor at age 18.

Now a resident of North Dakota, having followed her talented husband home, Tess works alongside Ken, producing films that capture and share the stories that comprise North Dakota’s ranch and rodeo history. Tess was story editor and video editor for Special Cowboy Moments on RFD-TV, producer and story editor on the Ken Howie Studios documentary “Hardship to Freedom,” and is producer and writer on Ken’s latest film, “Feek’s Vision,” documenting the origin of the champion-producing Tooke Bucking Horse bloodlines.

Since 2016, Tess has been editor of The Cowboy Chronicle, the official newsletter of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. In 2021, Tess added museum curator to her resume, working with Executive Director Rick Thompson in the management of the NDCHF Center of Western Heritage & Culture archives, and maintaining and updating the exhibits and displays.