Theodore Roosevelt’s Unmatched Conservation Footprint and Eight Reasons He Got Away With It
Sunday, September 15 2024
Imagine America if Theodore Roosevelt had never been president. During his tenure, the “Cowboy President” set aside an astounding 230 million acres of U.S. public land as National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, and National Game Preserves.
- Published in Features
Clay drops in at Sagamore Hill, Theodore Roosevelt’s Beloved Home on Long Island — Video Dispatch
Monday, June 03 2024
Clay visits Sagamore Hill, Theodore Roosevelt’s home on Long Island.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders at Montauk Point, New York — Video Dispatch
Tuesday, May 21 2024
When Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders returned from their heroics in Cuba in August 1898, they were quarantined at Montauk Point at the tip of Long Island.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Rereading Blue Highways — An Enduring Backroads Journal
Monday, March 25 2024
Originally published is 1982, Clay says William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways is still our best backroads manifesto.
- Published in Books
Wild Horses in the Badlands: Wildlife or Livestock?
Monday, March 18 2024
There’s horse trouble in Theodore Roosevelt National Park which is home to a feral herd of about 200 equines.
- Published in Features
Theodore Roosevelt’s Literary Mastery
Tuesday, October 03 2023
Roosevelt was a serious writer and one of America’s great readers — in addition to being the 26th president of the United States, the Governor of New York, Police Commissioner of New York, a U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, and the hero of San Juan Hill.
- Published in Features
The American Buffalo: Past and Future — Video Dispatch
Monday, September 11 2023
A video dispatch from my visit to Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s North Unit, where buffalo roam the Great Plains today.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Quest for an Ancient Tree
Friday, June 16 2023
I co-led a hike in the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park recently. There were about a dozen of us. Our goal was a very old cottonwood tree in an obscure corner of the park down by the Little Missouri River. The tree is said to date to 1641.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road