At 24 years old, Theodore Roosevelt came from New York City to the North Dakota badlands to hunt his first buffalo. After a week of nothing but rain, some fresh tracks finally appeared, and after hard riding and many missed shots, he brought down a large bull. He had come seeking Wild West adventure, but the badlands affected him more deeply through swift early morning rides, the songs of unfamiliar birds, and the nighttime rock formations, drawing him back often in the years before his presidency. Even during his earliest stays there, he sensed that a unique era was passing as land became overgrazed and wild animals were hunted away, and he feared that a wilderness way of life he had come to prize might disappear.