The 1883 hunting-lodge mansion of Medora's founder, now a State Historic Site offering October lantern tours
3426 Chateau Rd, Medora, ND 58645
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
General admission to the Chateau and Interpretive Center is charged by the State Historical Society of North Dakota. The seasonal lantern tours are a separately ticketed evening program; see the Medora event calendar for pricing.
Access
Limited Access
The Chateau sits on a butte above the Little Missouri River; the walk from the Interpretive Center to the house is on a graded path. The historic two-story house has original stairs and thresholds.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1883 · Built 1883 by the Marquis de Morès, founder of Medora · 26-room frame house retaining original de Mores family furnishings · Center of an 1880s Badlands cattle and meatpacking venture · State Historical Society of North Dakota historic site
Antoine-Amédée-Marie-Vincent Manca de Vallombrosa, the Marquis de Morès, arrived in the Dakota Badlands in 1883 and founded the town of Medora, naming it for his wife, Medora von Hoffman, the daughter of a New York banker. That same year he built a 26-room frame house on a butte above the Little Missouri River as a family residence and hunting lodge.
The Marquis's ambition was to build an integrated cattle and meatpacking operation, slaughtering animals in Medora and shipping dressed beef east by refrigerated rail car. The venture drew investment and attention but collapsed within a few years amid logistical problems and competition from the established Chicago packers. The de Mores family left the Badlands; the Marquis was later killed in North Africa in 1896.
The Marquis was a contentious figure on the frontier. He was tried more than once in connection with shootings, including the 1883 death of a local man during a dispute over land and fencing, and was acquitted. These episodes are part of the documented record the State Historical Society presents at the site.
The State Historical Society of North Dakota acquired the property and operates it as the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site. The house retains a large collection of original de Mores furnishings and belongings, and an adjacent Interpretive Center covers the family, the town's founding, and the rise and fall of the meatpacking enterprise. The site sits a short distance from Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Sources
The most repeated story at the Chateau concerns a female apparition guides and visitors associate with Medora de Mores, who died abroad and, by the telling, never returned to the Badlands house she had lived in. Visitors describe a figure in white seen in various rooms, an impression left on Medora's side of the bed as though someone had been lying there, and personal belongings found shifted from where staff had placed them.
Guides and overnight accounts also report cold spots, lights coming on in rooms no one is occupying, and the occasional sound of laughter in the house. These reports appear in regional coverage, including the Minot Daily News, and in North Dakota paranormal listings, and the State Historical Society leans into the lore for its seasonal lantern tours rather than treating it as off-limits.
The October lantern tour walks visitors from the Interpretive Center to the darkened Chateau and recounts both the legends and the harder history of the de Mores years, including a fatal 1883 shooting connected to the Marquis. HauntBound presents the apparition accounts as reported lore. The identification of the figure as Medora is part of local tradition, not a documented event, and the historical record establishes only that she lived in and left the house, not that anything supernatural occurred there.
Notable Entities
An evening lantern-lit tour offered in October. The walk begins at the Interpretive Center and continues to the Chateau, where guides recount the history of the de Mores family and the local legends tied to the house, including the reported apparition of Medora de Mores. The tour is operated by the State Historical Society of North Dakota in partnership with the Medora organization.
A guided daytime tour of the 26-room frame house, furnished with many original de Mores family belongings, plus the on-site Interpretive Center covering the founding of Medora and the cattle and meatpacking ventures of the Marquis de Morès.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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