President Donald Trump visited the newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota’s Badlands on Wednesday. The library, a $450 million project, explores the life of America’s 26th president and is set to officially open on Saturday, coinciding with July Fourth celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The Library’s Significance

The 96,000-square-foot library is located in the rugged, lonely landscape where Roosevelt built his conservation values while ranching and hunting in the 1880s. Trump praised Roosevelt’s bravery in his personal life and politics, saying, ‘He had a freakin’ wild life. He didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to be great.’

Trump’s administration is giving $750,000 to support the library’s first year. The event was run by Freedom 250, the Trump-created group billed as nonpartisan that organized the festivities he will participate in this week. All living presidents were invited to the grand opening of the library, which joins more than a dozen throughout the country examining the lives and legacies of U.S. presidents.

Conservation and Legacy

The library will showcase Roosevelt’s ideas and artifacts, including his conservation ideas and his Rough Riders regiment of the Spanish-American War. Visitors will learn about his ‘horrific comments’ about Native Americans and other issues ‘that have obviously aged poorly,’ according to the library’s executive director, Robbie Lauf.

Artifacts, many of them out of public view for decades, will tell Roosevelt’s story. Visitors will see his Rough Riders uniform; the 1884 diary grieving his terrible loss; and the eyeglasses case, speech, and shirt from the 1912 assassination attempt against him.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.