Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site

06/17/2026

Polls are about to open for early NYS Primary voting at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site . . .

Any eligible Erie County (NY) voter — regardless of where they live — can vote early at the TR Site!! Questions about voter eligibility should be directed to the Erie Co. Board of Elections (716) 858-8891.

While you're here, be sure to check out our:
- Kids Voting USA booth, which is part a nonpartisan voter education program committed to creating lifelong voting habits in children.
- Special Exhibit: WINNERS OF THE 2026 BUFFALO NEWS EDITORIAL CARTOON CONTEST, featuring local middle & high school student artwork!

Early Voting continues through Sunday, June 21st.
Weekdays: Noon - 9pm | Weekends: 9am - 5pm

06/16/2026

06/15/2026

Tomorrow is our first "Unusual Inauguration" Double Decker Bus Tour of the year . . . and it looks like the weather is going to be perfect!! Get your tickets today! Don't miss this bus!!
https://www.trsite.org/events/double-decker-bus-tour-2/event/2026-06-16/

06/12/2026

06/11/2026

EARLY VOTING STARTS THIS WEEKEND!

641 Delaware Ave, Buffalo, NY 14202

06/06/2026

in 1944, a fifty-six-year-old brigadier general waded ashore at Utah Beach, walking with a cane.

He was the oldest man in the D-Day invasion, and the only general to land with the first wave at Utah Beach. He was Theodore Roosevelt Jr. — eldest son of the twenty-sixth president, a soldier who had been wounded and gassed in the trenches of the First World War a quarter-century earlier, and who had asked three times for permission to lead the assault before the Army said yes.

The currents at Utah Beach pushed the first landing craft about a mile off course. The men who came ashore looked up to find an unfamiliar shoreline and no clear plan. Roosevelt walked the beach, took his bearings against the landscape, and made a decision: they would attack from where they were. "We'll start the war from right here," he said.

Thirty-six days later, on July 12, 1944, Roosevelt died in his sleep of a heart attack in Normandy. He never made it home. His Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously — for the morning he steadied a beach full of men under fire, on terrain that was not the terrain he had been promised, and decided the war would go forward anyway.

He was the son of a man who once charged up Kettle Hill at the head of the Rough Riders. He died serving the country his father had served, in a war his father did not live to see.

06/04/2026

Go back to the fall of 1901 & experience the world-changing events that took place here in Buffalo from a new perspective! Join us on Tuesday evening, June 16th for an unforgettable narrated tour that pinpoints pivotal locations in the story of President William McKinley's assassination & Theodore Roosevelt's unexpected inauguration. More info & tickets: https://www.trsite.org/events/double-decker-bus-tour-2/event/2026-06-16/

06/04/2026

in 1903, Theodore Roosevelt stood at Lincoln's Tomb in Springfield, Illinois — and used the moment to say something he believed to his core.

Roosevelt noticed that the guard around Lincoln's tomb was made up of African American soldiers, and it moved him. He had served beside Black troops at Santiago in Cuba five years earlier, and he never forgot it. Standing there, he said: "A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterward. More than that no man is entitled to, and less than that no man shall have."

That phrase — the square deal — became one of the defining ideas of his presidency. It wasn't a promise that everyone would succeed. It was a promise that everyone would get a fair chance and an honest hand: no crookedness in the dealing.

There was real weight in saying it on that spot — Lincoln's tomb, in Lincoln's hometown, with Lincoln's legacy of union and freedom all around. Roosevelt was placing his own creed in that long line, and tying it directly to the men who had earned it under fire.

It was the next-to-last day of a 14,000-mile journey. Of all the hundreds of things he said on that tour, these are among the words best worth remembering.