JEFFREY BROWN: It's a spectacular setting nestled in the rugged Badlands of Western North Dakota, a breathtaking tribute to the life and legacy of Theodore Roosevelt.

It's a landscape that deeply impacted T.R., who once said he'd never have become president if not for his time here.

And it continues to inspire and move people today.

CRAIG DYKERS, Co-Founder, Snohetta: We wanted it to feel that it belonged, so that it didn't feel that it just dropped out of the sky.

CRAIG DYKERS: At the same time, we wanted it to feel fresh and new and different from anything anybody had seen before.

JEFFREY BROWN: Craig Dykers, co-founder of the international architecture firm Snohetta, helped design the new 93,000-square-foot Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.

CRAIG DYKERS: There's a sensation of what the landscape means that you learn when you move through it.

JEFFREY BROWN: After settling on this remote location, Dykers camped alone for 12 days in the Badlands searching for inspiration.

CRAIG DYKERS: In the wilderness here, the more you go into it, the more you're able to experience what he called lonesome freedom, or lonely freedom.

And that's an interesting idea, that you're alone, but you feel free.

Normally, we think of being alone as a scary thing, especially in a place that's wild.

JEFFREY BROWN: Beautiful, but potentially very scary out there, right, if you're alone.

CRAIG DYKERS: Yes, if you're alone, but, at a certain point, you and the context around you become one.

JEFFREY BROWN: The son of wealthy and prominent New Yorkers, Teddy Roosevelt first came to the small town of Medora to hunt bison in 1883.

He returned the following year as a heartbroken 25-year-old after writing in his diary: "The light has gone out of my life."

EDWARD O'KEEFE, Author: Theodore Roosevelt came to North Dakota at a time of incredible stress and distress in his life.

He had lost his wife and his mother on the same day of different causes in the same house.

He healed and he recovered in the Badlands of North Dakota.

JEFFREY BROWN: Edward O'Keefe is the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, a nonprofit that raised more than $500 million to complete the project.

O'Keefe, author of a biography of T.R.

and who now leads public broadcasting's WNET Group in New York City, says Roosevelt's time in North Dakota would shape the rest of his life.

EDWARD O'KEEFE: He found resilience in nature.

He mourned, and he was depressed when he was in Dakota.

And he finally got to live that life that he'd only read about in books.

Theodore Roosevelt felt that North Dakota saved his life.

JEFFREY BROWN: So far, large crowds have poured in since the library opened July 4, offering visitors a chance to learn about a president who left an indelible, if complicated, impression on American life.

A champion of conservation and protector of public lands, Roosevelt was also a champion of military might and expansion abroad.

EDWARD O'KEEFE: Theodore Roosevelt is like a Rorschach test.

What you see in him says more about you than it does about him.

Republicans, Democrats, independents, everyone loves T.R., right?

That's the beauty of Theodore Roosevelt.

He brings people together.

JEFFREY BROWN: And while it's a presidential library in name only, Roosevelt's personal papers are mostly scattered elsewhere, some of his most famous speeches light up the walls, and visitors can see photos and artifacts from every part of his life, from his student days at Harvard, to a hat and single-action Colt revolver from his time as a New York City police commissioner.

EDWARD O'KEEFE: Theodore Roosevelt later said, it's better to wear out than to rust out.

And he did it every day of his life.

He lived only to 60 years old, and those were very, very packed 60 years.

JEFFREY BROWN: Other highlights include his custom-tailored Rough Rider uniform worn during the Spanish-American war.

AI ACTOR: I wanted every guest to feel the worth of their talents.

JEFFREY BROWN: And there's even an AI hologram of Roosevelt designed by Microsoft that takes questions.

Mr.

President, what do you hope people visiting your library take away from it?

AI ACTOR: I hope visitors leave knowing a single thing.

We have power to protect wild places just as I did.

EDWARD O'KEEFE: Theodore Roosevelt wrote a letter in 1918, a year before he died.

He said: "If I could keep one memory of my entire life, it would be my experiences as a rancher and a cowboy in Dakota."

JEFFREY BROWN: Using heavy timber, rammed earth walls, and many materials native to the region, Dyker says the library was designed to give visitors a chance to reflect, all while taking in the surrounding natural beauty, from a walkable roof above, to rocking chairs below.

CRAIG DYKERS: If you look at the shape, it has a shape that's characteristic of the low-lying Badlands in the distance.

It's not the same, but it has the feeling of something you might find out here.

NARRATOR: Here we have a group of beings who are not able to protect themselves.

JEFFREY BROWN: The library also uses educational videos like this one to address some of Roosevelt's troubling legacies.

WOMAN: He believed in the social Darwinism of that time.

JEFFREY BROWN: His belief that whites were a superior race.

MAN: We have to remember that these efforts to eradicate Native American cultures... JEFFREY BROWN: His views on Native Americans.

MAN: Removing their language, removing their religion, removing their cultural practices in the name of -- quote, unquote -- "assimilation," Theodore Roosevelt saw this all as a good thing.

CANDACE STOCK, Chef, Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library: We can acknowledge the truth.

But how we move forward in this, we want partnership.

JEFFREY BROWN: Candace Stock, the library's head chef, is a Native American who grew up on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.

Her way into thinking about the library and the legacy, through food.

CANDACE STOCK: We have a great opportunity to share our culture here.

And maybe some of the uncomfortable truths, we heal with a good meal.

This land is as Native land.

It's holy land.

And so for him to come here and heal from his past traumas, that is how I process pain.

I go out and I forage.

I connect with the land.

MAN: Small towns like Medora are the very fabric of this nation.

JEFFREY BROWN: This area was already heavily reliant on T.R.-inspired tourism.

The "Medora Musical," a song and dance extravaganza on the history of the region, has long been a summer mainstay on a stage just a few miles from the entrance to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

TRENT TABER, Actor: "Medora" itself wouldn't exist without Teddy Roosevelt.

JEFFREY BROWN: New York-based actor Trent Taber, great mustache and all, has played the part of Teddy Roosevelt for three years.

TRENT TABER: We have had over 1,000 people here every night, some massive crowds, and it absolutely has to do with the library.

JEFFREY BROWN: Roosevelt returned often to North Dakota for the rest of his life.

Now, with the new library, the story goes on.

CRAIG DYKERS: He was the bridge between where the country began and where we are now, right in that spot.

And he understood the future.

He understood where we are today.

He understood all of the politics that are happening now, all of the challenges that are happening with our national resources.

And he dedicated his life to looking to that future.

And so we're still living with his legacy.

JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Medora, North Dakota.