This location commemorates the July 4, 1886 speech by a young Theodore Roosevelt in Dickinson ND. It later became the site of the Stark County Courthouse.
Roosevelt had been asked by Dr. Victor Stickney to give the Independence Day speech. Dickinson was celebrating the 4th in a big way and one witness noted that all the bystanders kept joining the parade until there was no one left to watch it.
Roosevelt is quoted as follows...
…Like all Americans, I like big things; big parades, big forests and mountains, big wheat fields, railroads – and herds of cattle too; big factories, steamboats and everything else. But we must keep steadily in mind that no people were ever yet benefited by riches if their property corrupted their virtue. It is more important that we should show ourselves honest, brave, truthful, and intelligent than that we should own all the railways and grain elevators in the world…I am myself at heart as much a westerner as an easterner; I am proud indeed to be considered one of yourselves, and I address you in this rather solemn strain today only because of my pride in you and because your welfare, moral as well as material, is so near my heart.
He also remarked about being in the fresh open air, but said he would not like to speak during a blizzard.
He discussed the colonization of the west and the responsibility to do what is right and be proud of the work to build up the great state of Dakota.
I wonder how the spectators would have felt had they known that eventually this young man would become president and have such an influence on the United States.
Some famous quotes by Theodore Roosevelt showing the impact that his time spent in North Dakota had on his life.
"I have always said I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota."
"It was here that the romance of my life began."
"I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me."
"Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one and the faint after-glow of the red sunset filled the west."
"The beauty and charm of the wilderness are his for the asking, for the edges of the wilderness lie close beside the beaten roads of the present travel."
"I heartily enjoy this life, with its perfect freedom, for I am very fond of hunting, and there are few sensations I prefer to that of galloping over these rolling limitless prairies, with rifle in hand, or winding my way among the barren, fantastic and grimly picturesque deserts of the so-called Bad Lands…"
"...its toughness and hardy endurance fitted it to contend with purely natural forces...to resist cold and wintery blasts or the heat of the thirsty summer, to wander away to new pastures, to plunge over the broken ground, and to plow its way through snow drifts or quagmires."
"There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm."
"The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it."
To claim this find please post a pic of yourself with the statue. You do not have to show your face. Please read the information signs to gather more insight into the historic significance of the speech.
Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.