Medora North Dakota Lynching Dummy Jurors Real Photo Postcard

The de Mores Brick Hotel, identified as existing in 1882 in Medora, North Dakota, was a significant structure tied to the ventures of the French aristocrat Marquis de Mores. De Mores founded Medora in 1883, intending to establish a vast cattle and meatpacking empire in the Badlands. Buildings like this hotel were central to his ambitious frontier settlement, providing essential services and reflecting the rapid development driven by entrepreneurial spirit in the late 19th-century Dakota Territory.

The protest scene captured in the photograph, featuring mock-lynched figures and a banner denouncing "packed juries" and "Burleigh County," directly references the Marquis de Mores's murder trial in 1883. Following a fatal shooting of a cowboy, de Mores was controversially acquitted in Bismarck (Burleigh County). This public display, likely from Billings County residents, conveyed intense frustration and a perceived miscarriage of justice, illustrating the volatile social and legal climate of the American frontier in response to the Marquis's land and business practices.