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Western Entertainment & Arts

Ted Cornell
1999 Hall of Fame Western Arts and Entertainment Inductee

  Frederick Louis “Ted” Cornell was a self-taught western artist. Born in 1918 at Belfield, he was one of six children born to Charles and Lulu (Anderson) Cornell. He was raised in a log cabin at the family’s Teepee Bottom Ranch south of Medora.

 After graduation from the eighth grade, Ted began working on Medora area ranches. In the 1940s, he worked as a police officer in Dickinson and as Belfield’s police chief. Ted was elected Billings County Sheriff in 1957, holding that office for 30 years. He also worked as a brand inspector. Ted and wife Betty (Johnson) Leppart raised nine children.

  Even as a child attending country school, Ted was known for his drawings of cowboys and horses. With hard work and a keen eye, he became an accomplished western artist, specializing in painting, sculpting and sketching. Betty says, “We sold a lot of paintings, but we gave away a lot, too. Ted was that kind of fella.”

  One of Ted’s paintings hung in U.S. Congressman Don Short’s office in Washington, D.C. Another one, of a large buffalo, hung in the Jamestown Buffalo Museum for years. Ted also illustrated several books and designed the Billings County Veterans Memorial.

  Ted died in 1995 at age 77 and is buried in the Medora Cemetery, overlooking Medora, a place he cared for deeply. For nearly 30 years, he was the cemetery’s unofficial caretaker.