History is in just a bunch of names and dates and facts.

It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explain how and why we

got here.

Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,

and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.

I'm your host, Scott Rank.

Welcome to part three of our series forging a president, looking at the time that Teddy Roosevelt

spent in the Dakota Badlands and how it arguably made him the man that he was.

In the previous episode, we looked at the tragedies that hit Roosevelt when he was 25, when

his wife and mother died on the same day and it causes him to go out west.

But before his wife and his mother died the year before, he went out west in 1883 to go

on a buffalo hunt.

We left off in the last episode where he was with a hired hand Joe Ferris, who was used

to taking dudes from the east coast out on these buffalo hunts.

In this episode, we're going to see what happens when Roosevelt tries to kill his first buffalo

when one charges him and how Joe Ferris constantly thinks that this dude from out east and his

cowboy get up uniform is going to be weak and soft and eventually return back on the

nearest train after a few days of hardship.

Well, we're going to see what happens when Teddy Roosevelt faces the grit and the hardship

of the badlands.

So, being Ferris stared at this dude from New York.

So, being Ferris was what others consider to be toughest tree bark.

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