theodore roosevelt inaugural national historic site

At dawn, he boarded a special train that took him to Buffalo. A hired wagon carried him 35 miles through the dark night over rough “ordinary wilderness roads” to reach the nearest station.

Three days later, returning from climbing the highest peak in the Adirondacks, he met a messenger bearing the fateful telegram summoning him to return. Before leaving, he gave a copy of his itinerary to his friend Ansley Wilcox, at whose house he had been staying. They encouraged Vice President Roosevelt to reassure the country by continuing with a planned family outing in the Adirondack Mountains. By September 10, doctors in Buffalo thought he was recovering. President McKinley was visiting the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, 1901, when an assassin shot him twice in the stomach.

Roosevelt had a lasting impact on the nation, expanding the powers of the presidency, advocating consumer protection laws and regulation of big business, supporting conservation, and asserting America's authority abroad. For Roosevelt, who had hoped to rise to the presidency some day, it was 'a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency in this way.” In typical Roosevelt fashion, however, he continued, “Here is the task, and I have got to do it to the best of my ability.' Three years later, he was elected to a full term in his own right. Only 42 years old, he succeeded President William McKinley, who had succumbed to an assassin’s bullet earlier that day.

On September 14, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office as the 26th and youngest president of the United States in the library of Ansley Wilcox’s fine house in Buffalo. Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation Theodore Roosevelt’s 1901 inauguration from the Nashville, Tennessee News on October 13, 1901

Theodore roosevelt inaugural national historic site