De Mores Packing Plant Ruins
NW of Medora boundary, Medora, NDThe de Mores meat packing plant was built by Antone Amedee Marie Vincent de Vallombrosa, the Marquis de Mores, a pretender to the French throne, determined and resourceful, who arrived at the tiny settlement of Little Missouri, Dakota Territory, in April of 1883 for the purpose of establishing a meat packing enterprise utilizing some innovative ideas that he was convinced could revolutionize the meat producing industry. De Mores believed that by slaughtering and processing meat animals close to the producing range and shipping the carcasses by refrigerated railroad car (thereby eliminating the costs of feeding and caring for live animals and reducing weight loss or volume shrinkage) economies could be obtained that would permit successful competition both economically and qualitatively with the operations of the Eastern packers.
The Badlands of the Little Missouri provided everything de Mores needed for his undertaking; a railroad, a producing range, a cattle raising industry, and lots of open space in which to operate. He selected the vicinity of the Northern Pacific Railway's crossing of the Little Missouri River, just east of the town of Little Missouri, to be the seat of his operations. East of the river, he built the huge abattoir that would, he hoped, turn 150 beeves a day into food for the nation's consumers. He built cold storage facilities at Helena, Billings, Miles City, Medora, Bismarck, Fargo, Brainard, Duluth, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago to facilitate the shipment of his products; and he purchased 15,000 acres of land another innovation for the previously "free" range area) to use as grazing and pasture land.
Also east of the Little Missouri and next to his packing plant, the ever optimistic Mores platted a new town which, in his gallant manner, he named Medora after his recent bride. Intended and designed to better serve his needs than could its rough ,west river neighbor, Little Missouri, Medora prospered and grew as rapidly as the ambitions of its founder. It soon boasted a brick yard, church, newspaper, three hotels, several stores and saloons, and by the end of 1884, boasted of a permanent population of 251.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.