Deadwood grew quickly from a mining camp to the region’s largest settlement after the discovery of gold in 1874. Many of the town’s citizens were notorious chancers and villains drawn to the settlement to make their fortune. Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Al Swearengen, Charlie Utter and Kitty LeRoy were just some of the characters who walked the line between right and wrong, and frequently crossed it.
Deadwood was named by early settlers after the dead trees found in its gulch. The city had its heyday from 1876 to 1879, after gold deposits had been discovered there, leading to the Black Hills Gold Rush. At its height, the city had a population of 25,000 and attracted larger-than-life Old West figures including Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hickok, who was killed there.
The entire town has been designated as a National Historic Landmark District, for its well-preserved Gold Rush-era architecture. Deadwood’s proximity to Lead often leads to the two towns being collectively named “Lead-Deadwood”.
The settlement of Deadwood began illegally in the 1870s, on land which had been granted to the Lakota people in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The treaty had guaranteed ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota people, who considered this area to be sacred. The settlers’ squatting led to numerous land disputes, several of which reached the United States Supreme Court.
Everything changed after Colonel George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills and announced the discovery of gold in 1874, on French Creek near present-day Custer, South Dakota. This announcement was a catalyst for the Black Hills Gold Rush, and miners and entrepreneurs swept into the area. They created the new and lawless town of Deadwood, which quickly reached a population of approximately 5,000. By 1876, over 25,000 people settled in Deadwood.
In early 1876, frontiersman Charlie Utter and his brother Steve led to Deadwood a wagon train containing what they believed were needed commodities, to bolster business. The town’s numerous gamblers and prostitutes staffed several profitable ventures. Madame Mustache and Dirty Em were on the wagon train, and set up shop in what was referred to as Deadwood Gulch. Women were in high demand by the miners, and the business of prostitution proved to have a good market. Madam Dora DuFran eventually became the most profitable brothel owner in Deadwood, closely followed by Madam Mollie Johnson.
Deadwood became known for its lawlessness; murders were common, and justice for murders not always fair and impartial. The town attained further notoriety when gunman Wild Bill Hickok was killed on August 2, 1876. Both he and Calamity Jane were buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery, as well as other notable figures such as Seth Bullock.
A Western Folk Figure, he arrived in Helena, Montana, in 1867 and was later elected as a Republican member of the Territorial Senate of Montana in 1871 to 1872. He also introduced a resolution that prompted Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park. In 1873, he was elected Sheriff of Montana territory in Lewis and Clark County. In 1876, he followed the gold rush to Deadwood, South Dakota, opened a hardware store and a horse ranch. Befriending Wild Bill Hickok and after Hickok’s death in August 1876, which triggered a growing demand for law and order, resulted in Bullock’s appointment as the first Sheriff of Deadwood. As Sheriff, he was called upon to settle various disputes but never had to resort to killing anyone while serving as chief lawman. As an established citizen in the community he built the Bullock Hotel in 1895, which is still in use today. During the Spanish-American War 1898, he volunteered for active service in the Cavalry and was the Captain of Troop A in Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders Regiment. Roosevelt, as the newly elected Vice President under McKinley, appointed Bullock as the first Forest Supervisor of the Black Hills Reserve. Invited to Roosevelt’s own presidential inaugural in 1905, Bullock startled citizens by recruiting 50 young cowboys, including Tom Mix, to ride their horses in the inaugural parade. Roosevelt’s death came as a personal blow to Bullock, he erected a monument to Roosevelt made of native Black Hills stone on a mountain near Deadwood, renamed the peak Mount Roosevelt and it was formally dedicated on July 4, 1919. He passed away in his own motel and it has been reported that his ghost still wanders the hallways of his old hotel at 633 Main Street in Deadwood. Seth Bullock is one of the pivotal characters in the HBO historical fiction series DEADWOOD.
Hickok’s murderer, Jack McCall, was prosecuted twice, despite the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against double jeopardy. Because Deadwood was an illegal town in Indian Territory, non-native civil authorities lacked the jurisdiction to prosecute McCall. McCall’s trial was moved to a Dakota Territory court, where he was found guilty of murder and hanged.
Beginning August 12, 1876, a smallpox epidemic swept through. So many people fell ill that tents were erected to quarantine the stricken.
In 1876, General George Crook pursued the Lakota from the Battle of Little Big Horn, on an expedition that ended in Deadwood in early September, known as the Horsemeat March. The same month, businessman Tom Miller opened the Bella Union Saloon.
On April 7, 1877, Al Swearengen, who controlled Deadwood’s opium trade, also opened a saloon; his was called the Gem Variety Theater. The saloon burned down and was rebuilt in 1879. When it burned down again in 1899, Swearengen left town.
As the economy changed from gold panning to deep mining, the individual miners went elsewhere or began to work in other fields; thus, Deadwood lost some of its rough and rowdy character and began to develop into a prosperous town.
The Homestake Mine in nearby Lead was established in October 1877. It operated for more than a century, becoming the longest continuously operating gold mine in the United States. Gold mining operations did not cease until 2002. The mine has been open for visiting by tourists.
On September 26, 1879, a fire devastated Deadwood, destroying more than 300 buildings and consuming the belongings of many inhabitants. Many of the newly impoverished left town to start again elsewhere.
In 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrated the incandescent lamp in New Jersey, and on September 17, 1883, Judge Squire P. Romans took a gamble and founded the “Pilcher Electric Light Company of Deadwood”. He ordered an Edison dynamo, wiring, and 15 incandescent lights with globes. After delays, the equipment arrived without the globes. Romans had been advertising an event to show off the new lights and decided to continue with the lighting, which was a success. His company grew. Deadwood had electricity service fewer than four years after Edison invented it, less than a year after commercial service was started in Roselle, New Jersey, and around the same time that many larger cities around the country established the service.
In 1888, J.K.P. Miller and his associates founded a narrow-gauge railroad, the Deadwood Central Railroad, to serve their mining interests. In 1893, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad purchased the railroad. In 1902, a portion of the railroad between Deadwood and Lead was electrified for operation as an interurban passenger system, which operated until 1924. In 1930, the railroad was abandoned, apart from a portion from Kirk to Fantail Junction, which was converted to standard gauge. In 1984, Burlington Northern Railroad abandoned the remaining section.
Some of the other early town residents and frequent visitors included Martha Bullock, Aaron Dunn, E. B. Farnum, Samuel Fields, A. W. Merrick, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, Reverend Henry Weston Smith, Sol Star, and Charlie and Steve Utter.
The gold rush attracted Chinese immigrants to the area; their population peaked at 250. A few engaged in mining; most worked in service enterprises. A Chinese quarter arose on Main Street, as there were no restrictions on foreign property ownership in Dakota Territory, and a relatively high level of tolerance of different peoples existed in the frontier town. Wong Fee Lee arrived in Deadwood in 1876 and became a leading merchant. He was a community leader among the Chinese Americans until his death in 1921.
The quarter’s residents also included African Americans and European Americans. During the 2000s, the state sponsored an archaeological dig in the area, to study the history of this community of diverse residents.
Another major fire in September 1959 came close to destroying the town again. About 4,500 acres (1,800 ha) were burned and an evacuation order was issued. Nearly 3,600 volunteer and professional firefighters, including personnel from the Homestake Mine, Ellsworth Air Force Base, and the South Dakota National Guard’s 109th Engineer Battalion, worked to contain the fire. The property losses resulted in a major regional economic downturn.
In 1961, the entire town was designated a National Historic Landmark, for its well-preserved collection of late 19th-century frontier architecture. Most of the town’s buildings were built before 1900, with only modest development after that. The town’s population continued to decline through the 1960s and 1970s. Interstate 90 bypassed Deadwood in 1964, diverting travellers and businesses elsewhere. On May 21, 1980, a raid by county, state, and federal agents on the town’s three remaining brothels — “The White Door”, “Pam’s Purple Door” and “Dixie’s Green Door” — accomplished, as one reporter put it, “what Marshal Hickok never would have done,” and the houses of prostitution were padlocked. A fire in December 1987 destroyed the historic Syndicate Building and a neighboring structure.
The fire prompted new interest in the area and hopes to redevelop it. Organizers planned the “Deadwood Experiment,” in which gambling was tested as a means of stimulating growth in the city center. At the time, gambling was legal only in the state of Nevada and in Atlantic City.
Deadwood was the first small community in the U.S. to seek legal gambling revenues in order to maintain local historic assets. The state legislature legalized gambling in Deadwood in 1989, which rapidly generated significant new revenues and development. The pressure of development since then may have an effect on the historical integrity of the landmark district. Heritage tourism is important for Deadwood and the state.
Highlights of a trip to Deadwood include Saloon 10, where visitors can see the chair where supposedly Wild Bill Hickok was sitting when shot to death by Jack McCall. Sometimes, reenactments of McCall’s trial are held in the saloon as well. Wonderful historic photos line the walls of the saloon, and of course, there’s a small gift shop.
Days of 76 Museum is located just outside downtown at #18 Seventy-Six Drive. Within are exhibits of covered wagons, coaches, carriages, firearms, and Native American artifacts.
The Adams House and Museum, founded in 1930 by businessman W.E. Adams to preserve and display the history of the Black Hills, has artifacts which include Potato Creek Johnny’s 7.346 troy ounce gold nugget, beloved illustrator N.C. Wyeth’s pencil sketch drawing of Western legend Wild Bill Hickok, a rare one-of-a-kind plesiosaur (a marine reptile) and the mysterious Thoen Stone. Discovered in 1887, but dated 1834, the stone and its inscription purports to be evidence of the discovery of gold in the Black Hills 40 years before its official find at French Creek during the Custer Expedition of 1874. The inscription reads like a thriller as its author Ezra Kind recounts how he is the last survivor of his party, having found the gold they had sought but also the unwanted attention of Indians. Chillingly, the inscription ends: “I have lost my gun and nothing to eat and (unclear) hunting me.” No one knows if the stone, named after the man who found it, is genuine or not, but the impact on the imagination is no less direct or titillating.
Mt. Mariah Cemetery is where the legends of Deadwood lie -Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Potato Creek Johnny. On a walkway further up, you can also see Seth Bullock’s grave.
Seth Bullock was actually a friend of President Teddy Roosevelt, serving in his Rough Riders. Upon Roosevelt’s death, Bullock built the Friendship Tower to commemorate him. The hike up Mt. Roosevelt is short and easy, and ends at the tower, which you can climb up. The views are great!