Submitted Photo Items on display in a replica line shack belonged to “Badlands Bill” McCarty, who ranched in the Medora area in the early 1900s. The shack is displayed at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame: Center of Western Heritage & Cultures in Medora.

The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame’s Center of Western Heritage & Cultures is located in the heart of Medora in the North Dakota Badlands.

According to N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame information, the 15,000-square-foot interpretive center, the N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame: Center of Western Heritage & Cultures, gives visitors from throughout the United States and globally the history of the northern plains and North Dakota’s western life through its exhibits and information about the plains horse culture, Native Americans, homesteaders, ranchers and rodeo cowboys.

The museum includes permanent and traveling exhibits, a theater, meeting and event spaces, historic archives and a gift shop.

Executive Director Rick Thompson and Museum Curator Tess Howie spend considerable time on ideas and developing them so visitors have reasons to return to the center each year.

“We have a responsibility, clearly defined by our organizational founders, to present North Dakota’s impressive, exciting history and to promote the cultures that shaped it. We don’t feel that we can be fully effective in that mission if our repeat guests see the same displays every summer,” said Howie, in a Jan. 17 story in The Minot Daily News’ Inside Ag publication.

The Native American Gallery includes the importance of the horse in Native culture.

The ranching and homesteading exhibits explain the lives of the pioneer men and women who lived on the land.

Visitors also learn about North Dakota’s rodeo cowboys. In the Rodeo Room, the Alvin Nelson, Brad Gjermundson and Wayne Herman exhibits have been combined into one major display about North Dakota’s world champions. A North Dakota Historic Rodeos exhibit has been added and the Steve Tomac and Native Riders exhibits have been updated.

New touch screen kiosks in the museum are filled with photos, videos and data.

Howie said they are continually adding more content, and creating new, virtual exhibits every season.

The Hall of Honorees presents a tribute to the men, women, events and livestock. Each year finalists in the N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame inducted in the Hall of Fame and added to the Hall of Honorees.

Inductees in the Hall of Fame include:

-Theodore Roosevelt, who ranched in in the Medora area in Dakota Territory before he became president of the United States.

-Sakakawea, who was a guide for the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the West Coast.

-Sitting Bull, the last of the great Sioux spiritual leaders and leader of Indian forces at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 who became one of the world’s most famous men.

-Louis L’Amour, one of the world’s most widely read authors.

-Alvin Nelson, North Dakota’s first World Champion saddle bronc rider.

-Why Not Minot, a bucking bull that took part in events in the United States and Canada, with a name to promote North Dakota at each event.

Many others including ranches and events have been inducted in the Hall of Fame over the years.

The idea for a North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame organization was conceived along a stretch of U.S. Highway 83 south of Minot in October 1994 when rodeo author Phil Baird, western icon Evelyn Neuens and her sister Goldie Nutter were driving home from the 40th anniversary of the Y’s Men’s Rodeo in Minot.

Baird told the two women about his idea for an organization to honor North Dakota rodeo competitors. Immediately, Neuens was all for the idea. With Neuens and Baird at the helm, meetings were held in various communities to determine interest in such an organization.

The organization was formally established and officially incorporated in 1995. Darrell Dorgan, Bismarck, became the organization’s first executive director in 1997. After extensive fundraising efforts, the ribbon was cut in May 2005 for the N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame: Center of Western Heritage & Cultures in Medora.

The museum is open from May-October.