Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, in Buffalo, New York, memorializes the inauguration (swearing in) of Theodore Roosevelt as the 26th president of the United States. The inauguration took place at the home of a friend of Roosevelt’s, lawyer Ansley Wilcox. The historic site includes the Wilcox mansion and its grounds. Roosevelt’s inauguration was the first to take place in a city that was not the capital of the United States.
On Sept. 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot and wounded while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Roosevelt, who was McKinley’s vice president, came to Buffalo to be by the president’s side. Wilcox invited the vice president to stay in his home. After a few days, confident that the president would recover, Roosevelt left to vacation with his family in northern New York state. When he returned to Buffalo on September 14, President McKinley had died. That same day, Roosevelt took the presidential oath of office in the library of Wilcox’s home.
The Wilcox house was built about 1839 as officers’ quarters for the Buffalo Barracks. The barracks housed federal troops protecting the area from British troops in Canada. Wilcox expanded the house to its present size in the 1890’s. The restored Wilcox mansion contains four rooms decorated as they would have been when Roosevelt stayed there: the library, an office, the dining room, and a bedroom. It also houses a museum of exhibits that deal with the events surrounding McKinley’s assassination and Roosevelt’s inauguration.
