Trump to speak at Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library dedication

Theodore Roosevelt is known for his time in Washington as president, for his governorship in New York, for leading the Rough Riders against the Spanish Army in Cuba and for the construction of the Panama Canal.

But it was the years he spent as a young man in North Dakota that shaped him the most.

That's why a privately run library focusing on Roosevelt's presidency will open in Medora, North Dakota, July 4.

"North Dakota is the fulcrum of the hero’s journey in TR’s almost unbelievable life story," Edward F. O'Keefe, CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, said in a statement explaining the location choice.

Roosevelt lived and ranched in North Dakota intermittently for about two years after the deaths of his wife and mother on the same day in 1884, a day he famously marked in his diary with the words “The light has gone out of my life.”

Roosevelt returned to the Badlands and Medora frequently until he died in 1919. North Dakota is home to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which features an entrance and visitor center in Medora.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak July 1 at the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora.

After the dedication, the library will be open to donors for two days before opening to the general public on July 4.

Among the items on display will be the portrait of President Abraham Lincoln that hung in Roosevelt's White House office – to which Roosevelt often looked for advice.

Like the Obama Presidential Center, which opened earlier this month, the Roosevelt Library is privately operated. It's not part of the National Archives and Records Administration’s presidential library system, which comprises 16 presidential libraries.

The presidential library system administered by the National Archives did not begin until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt donated his presidential papers to the federal government.