Memories of the Medora Musical

I arrived in Beach, North Dakota, as a cub reporter for the Golden Valley News and the Billings County Pioneer in June 1980. My first story assignment was a feature about the nearby musical in Medora, a restored town that had its hey-day in the 1880s. To this day, I can remember some of the jokes (Why do cowboys turn up the brims of their hats? So they can fit three to a pickup.) and some of the songs (I'm just a girl who can't say 'No.' and Marty Robbin's 'El Paso') that floated on the summer wind that night. The newspaper hired a young college kid to be a photographer. I don’t remember his name anymore, but I remember that he was from Park River, ND, and we traveled together in a little red pickup. At the Musical, I sat beside a family from Lemmon, SD. The mom was married to a pastor and she tried her best to “save” this Montana transplant right before the musical started.

Anyway, that was my introduction to the Medora Musical. Between the photos and my narrative, the weekly paper had a great spread about the Musical.

The Musical always ends with a patriotic number. 

By the next year, I had moved from Beach to Baker, MT. Whenever I needed to get out of town or entertain someone in Baker, I always made sure we went to Medora. The Musical just got better with the passing years. At the time, the stage wasn’t as nice as it is today and we didn’t have chairs, just benches to sit on.

A couple of years later I had moved from Baker to Glendive. When I took my future wife to the Musical, we picked one of those very busy nights and we ended up sitting on the hillside, on a blanket.

My mom and dad had the “enjoyment” of going to the musical with me several times when I was in my early 20s. Now they have an elevator to get you up and down the outdoor amphitheater in style, but in the early days, you had only a never ending flight of stairs that wound down the hill, which my mom despised.

By 1985, I had moved to Bismarck to work for MDU Resources, but my love for the Musical continued. John Stewart, who retired as the MDU vice president of communications in about 1987, joined the Theodore Roosevelt Foundation and helped raise money for improvements to the amphitheater. When it was completed, the Medora Musical had more than a facelift, it was a complete makeover. The fore-mentioned elevator and ample plastic seats made watching the Musical a true night of enjoyment.

Lots of people from Bismarck would come to Medora every night, so it didn’t matter when you went, there were always people you knew at the Cowboy Café or Ye Olde Ice Cream Parlor. When my boys were born, we made it a point to take them with us. One time, when Scott was a little baby, the hostess -- Chuck Wagon Charlie -- came out into the crowd and took Scott back with her to show him off to the audience. At the time, Scott was in love with his little hand and he admired his hand all the time. That was the case this particular night. He held out his arm and started admiring his hand. However, the audience was sure that the little baby was waving to them and they started cheering and applauding as Scott continued to admire his little hand.

Later that night as the musical continued, Scott fell asleep. When we were leaving the amphitheater and riding the elevator, the crowd was still whispering about the little boy who had waved to them from the stage.

As the editor of the employee magazine for MDU, I somehow got my name on a list of North Dakota media…mostly weekly newspapers. Anyway, the Foundation would send me an invitation every year to take my family for an all-expense paid vacation to see the Musical, stay at a Medora motel and take in any of the sites in town that we wanted to. We also got to eat at the various cafes and the pitchfork fondue all free of charge. Well, you can bet that we went to Medora every summer when the boys were growing up…and it was all free.

Over the past 33 years that I’ve lived in or near North Dakota, I’ve been to the Musical more than 30 times. Heck, there were some summers when I went to the Musical a half dozen times, especially when I lived in Baker, Beach and Glendive. I often had all the songs memorized by the time the summer was over.

I don’t know if I’ll get to Medora this summer or not, but if I don’t, I’ll still remember all the memories of the Musical when I drive by the exit to Historic Medora on the Interstate. Over the years, I’ve taken several nephews and both of my sisters to the Musical and I have promoted the Musical to all of my relatives. It’s one of the truly great events in the Flickertail State. If you have the opportunity to go, I would encourage you to attend. It will become one of your favorite memories.