Monday, August 2, 2010,TRNP, ND to Deadwood, SD

9:57 AM we left Red Trail Campground in Medora, North Dakota to drive to Deadwood, South Dakota. Today I am 60 years old; maybe I need to stop counting the years. Sometimes I wonder where all the years have gone! 11:39 AM we crossed into South Dakota and the sign was so small we almost missed it. Lots of wheat fields and cattle. We actually saw 1 corn field. Haven't seen them in months!
Deadwood, South Dakota was incorporated in 1876 and named for the dead trees found in the narrow canyon, called Deadwood Gulch. The town was built around Deadwood Gulch and Whitewood Creek in the Black Hills area. Main and Sherman streets are the historic streets of the bustling gold mining town. Main Street was built on 1 side of the creek and Sherman Street on the other.Eventually, Sherman Street was built on top of the creek. Now they are still a gold mining town, but also are known for lumbering and tourism.
Deadwood is located in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. For 10,000 years the Ponca, Kiowa-Apache, Arapahoe, Kiowa and Cheyenne lived here using the hills as the Sacred Vision Quest and for hunting and trade. The Lakota Indian name is "Paha Sopa" which means "hills that are black". The early settlers called it the Laramie Range. From 1771 to 1781 smallpox killed off the Arikara Indians who had kept the Sioux Indians east of the Missouri River. After the 1780s the Sioux became a large presence.
President Cleveland in 1893 created the Black Hills Forest Preservation because of the wildfires that year. In 1905, it was transferred to the National Forest Service and then in 1907 it was given to the US Department of Agriculture. It is covered with ponderosa pine, aspen, burr oak, birch and grassland prairie. There are some spruce but only at the higher elevations. One-seventh of this forest acreage is in Wyoming. Hanley Peak is the tallest peak in South Dakota and the highest peak east of the Rockies. Elk, mule deer, white tailed deer, pronghorns, big horn sheep, mountain goats, coyotes, mountain lions, bald eagles, hawks, osprey and peregrine falcons live here. The population of mountain lions are growing because the populations of deer and elk are large.
The town of Deadwood has many famous names in it's history: Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Colorado Charley Utter, Wyatt Earp, Potato Head Charley and Crooked Nose Jack McCall. Because it had the richest placer claim in North America it became a booming metro with nuggets bigger than " horse turds". In the town of Deadwood there are 85 casinos, one of which is called Midnight Star, owned by Kevin Costner, with a sports bar called Diamond Lil's, movie and costume memorabilia displays of Costner's and a white tablecloth restaurant on the third floor. Originally this building was the 1879 Phoenix Block Building that burned down in 1879 and was the first building rebuilt in brick. For 105 years the first floor
housed the New York Clothing Store and the third floor was removed in the late 1950s. When Costner saw old photos with 3 floors, he wanted it restored with all 3 floors. On the upper floor is the restaurant, Jake's, with a 96 foot skylight featuring premier fine dining. Diamond Lil's is based upon a purely fictitious character who is a bawdy, flirtatious, shapely lady; a combination of Calamity Jane, Poker Alice and Madame Fannie Hill and every known and unknown character rolled into one. We ate lunch at Diamond Lil's and dinner at Jake's. I ordered buffalo at both.
We boarded a bus for a Deadwood City Tour with a guide who knew everything about the town. Six weeks ago they had 8" of snow here. Today it is at least 82 degrees outside; but the bus has AC. The bus driver has a picture of his wife hugging Kevin Costner because he became one of their friends when he filmed "Dances With Wolves". Deadwood is the town the HBO series Deadwood was based on and Unsolved Mysteries did a show on the Bullock Hotel, which they say is haunted. The Sheriff Bullock , who owned the hotel, was 6 foot 6 inches tall in a day when the average man was only 5 foot 4 inches. The Mount Moriah Cemetery is up a very steep winding road above the town with an altitude of almost a mile. The Masons laid out the cemetery so the headstones would face east because all of their bad weather comes from the west; therefore, the engravings on the headstones will last longer because of this. It is also laid out in sections by religions: Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Jewish, and even a Civil War section. There are no Catholics buried here because they were buried at their church cemetery. When smallpox hit this area 350 children died and are buried here. One little girl was from an affluent family who erected a statue of a little girl in bronze in memory of her.
All of the streets have Biblical names and the cemetery is named after a mount in the Bible. There is even a Potters Field where the poor were buried. This area is not maintained because the bodies were only buried about 3 inches down instead of 6 feet. Then rocks were piled on top. The town had to place cement walls around the coffins because when their gully washer rains come, literally the bodies start coming out because of the erosion on the steep hillsides. The first sheriff of Deadwood, John Gray, was buried at the very top of the hill because "He wanted to rise up the very next morning and be able to salute his best friend, Teddy Roosevelt" who is at Mount Rushmore. Since WWI the flag has been flying 24-7 because this town had the largest gold discovery in North America.
When the Chinese immigrated here to be laborers, merchants, laundresses, and cooks, the U.S. Government had to sign a contact with the Chinese Government to ship any Chinese back to their homeland within 10 years of their death. There are only 2 Chinese buried in this cemetery by their own will. Last week a Chinese infant from the last century was found buried underneath a building in the old Chinatown section when they were excavating. The town buried her in this cemetery when the Wong family had a reunion here. It was also when the town had it's "Days of '76 Festival".
Located 1 mile from the cemetery is the Homestake Gold Mine in the town of Lead ( pronounced Leed) because when you search for gold you follow a lead. It is the second largest gold mine in the world; largest in North America. It's tunnels are the deepest in the world with some 8000 feet deep. Potato Creek Johnny was a 4 foot 8 inch tall immigrant who found the largest nugget in Potato Creek. It was in the shape of a lady's leg! From then on he was called Potato Head. It was not uncommon for the bartenders to be sure their hair was greasy because once they handled gold or gold dust they would run their hands through their hair depositing some of the gold. Then later that night they would wash the gold dust out of their hair and keep it! It had to recently close down because when the European economy devalued their money, their gold currency flooded the market making it too costly to mine anymore gold from this mine.
Deadwood's historic buildings were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There are many old Victorian houses complete with the multi colored gingerbread trims. The Midnight Star casino is in the restored 1879 Phoenix Block Building. The citizens have a very good committee for the upkeep of these historic buildings and in charge of where the tax money goes. Even though the 3 vices of historic Deadwood: gambling, gold and gunpowder; are gone, the town committee has allowed limited stakes gambling in their 86 gaming halls. Slots are 1 cent to 1 dollar; they have live black jack and live poker. This has brought enough revenue into the town for it to be successful and alive with tourists. The town looks exactly as it did in the gold rush days with restoration to certain historic guidelines.
We went inside the #10 Saloon to view the re-enactment of Wild Bill Hickok's murder on August 2, 1876, sitting at a poker game. The saloon's floor is covered in sawdust; a wooden beamed ceiling of rough planked dark wood, wooden walls with deer and elk heads and waitresses dressed as if it were the 1870s. The bar is made of old carved mahogany with mirrors behind it. Hanging from the ceiling are kerosene lights with fake crystals hanging from their shades. On the walls are pictures of rodeos and parades. The table is made from a wooden barrel topped with a wooden circle and covered with a tablecloth. Around the table are 3 people (taken from the audience) and the man playing Wild Bill. Being a cautious man Wild Bill always sat with his back to the wall so he could see everyone that walked into the saloon. When the one man already playing would not relinquish his seat to Wild Bill, he wanted to play poker so bad he decided to take a chance and sat down anyway with his back to the front door. Crooked Nose Jack McCall came in and circled the poker table two times pretending to check out every body's hands. On the second time around he shot Wild Bill in the back of his head, killing him instantly. Then McCall ran away to hide in the stables .The bartender came over and poked Wild Bill with a stick to see if he was still alive. When he looked at Wild Bill's cards he saw all black aces and eights. This is now called a "Deadman's Hand". Daddy took my picture with Wild Bill Hickok!
Wild Bill Hickok had many jobs that helped build his reputation well before he arrived in Deadwood. He started as a driver for a freight wagon, but when he was attacked by a bear, he need a new job. During the Civil War he became a scout for the army of the southwest); became a spy, and a Provo Marshall with the ability to infiltrates the south. So he was well known as an excellent gunfighter. He wore his ivory handled guns backwards in the holsters in order to draw faster. He was never a Marshall of Deadwood as the old legends say. In fact, he had only been here for 6 weeks when he was murdered.
In 1876 Deadwood had 200 men to 1 woman; so prostitution was quickly started and readily accepted .Two madams and their girls arrived and promptly set up business. Surprisingly, this profession continued until the 1980s. The Jewish population tried to civilize the town and eventually, years later, they succeeded. Into this arena stepped Calamity Jane and Poker Alice. Calamity Jane was abandoned as a child and did anything to be able to survive, including prostitution. She collected many husbands and children, but she was always on the move. She was 5 foot 10 inches tall( which is tall for even the men of this era) and very homely looking. Only when she was in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show did she wear leather chaps; in real life she wore dresses. Calamity Jane was an illiterate, bawdy, tough and crude woman who eventually died of alcohol poisoning and liver failure when she was 43 years old. She worked with Wild Bill when they both worked in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show; but was never his girlfriend and she wanted to be buried next to him. When she died at 10 minutes to Midnight on August 1, 1903, she was hoping to hold on until the anniversary of Wild Bill's. When she died she was a drunken sot and a prostitute. Poker Alice was almost as homely as Calamity Jane and she lived a very similar life. She had been married 3 or 4 times, was a faro dealer in several towns, a prostitute and a madam.
We had eaten lunch at Costner's Diamond Lil's. Daddy had a taco chicken salad. I had a buffalo burger with French fries! Our diets are shot to hell! Tonight, for my birthday we went to dinner at Costner's fancy restaurant, Jake's. Daddy ordered a rib eye and I ordered a bison steak almost rare! Both meals were yummy!!!!!!! Since it was my birthday I told Daddy the least he could do was fan me. And he actually did it!!!! Check out the picture the waitress took! I was given a free dessert for my birthday- it was rum raisin cheesecake. yummy!!!!!
When we rode the trolley back to the RV Park, there was a group of senior adults in the back of the trolley that must have been 3 sheets to the wind!!! They were singing songs and not in tune! But they were really funny! it's funny. I was so apprehensive about this town because I never enjoyed watching the HBO show, Deadwood, because of the bad language permeating it. But this town is one that we will come back to. In the winter they have 2 ski resorts that are close by.