Historic Deadwood
While it was gold that summoned Deadwood into existence, pioneer and prospector Frank Bryant was hunting for deer, not gold, that autumn afternoon on November 13, 1875, when he made a discovery in Deadwood Gulch that would change the Northern Black Hills forever. Within a few months thousands of prospectors divided the Gulch from Gayville to Crook City into mine claims, and Deadwood became a boomtown, flaring hot and bright with the fire of opportunity. Deadwood’s gold rush of 1875-76 was the last great gold rush in the continental United States.

As the United States celebrated its Centennial in 1876, those in search of a brighter future flooded the gulch that soon came to be known as Deadwood. The mining town was named after the dense growth of pine timber, much of it dead, which covered the hillsides. Deadwood’s 4th of July activities that year were so exuberant and so patriotic that it was hard to believe the celebrants were actually not in the United States at all but were illegally occupying land belonging to the Lakota.

Shacks and shanties filled the slopes as people poured into the gulch with population estimates ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 people, mostly men. Deadwood was a boomtown, not made for permanence, and its Main Street wound along the gulch floor, around tree stumps and rocks, with canvas and log make-shift buildings fronting each side. With the miners came those who served the miners – the merchants, priests, doctors, bankers, blacksmiths, saloon keepers, liquor salesman, lawyers, photographers, theater owners, and prostitutes. Prepared to record the activities of the boomtown were Denver news publishers A.W. Merrick and W.A. Laughlin who set up the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper in June 1876. The first paper was published on June 8, 1876.

The Grand Central Hotel, owned by Charles H. Wagner, was one of the first hotels to open. The cook was Lucretia Marchbanks, a former slave who went on to become a highly successful business woman. Miners were able to buy a meal for $1 from places like the Grand Central. Typical fare was flapjacks, bacon, beans, and black coffee.

Deadwood was noisy, chaotic, energetic, and ethnically diverse. The streets literally hummed with activity and potential. In the summer of 1876, the town was lawless and dangerous with saloons, gambling houses, and bawdy theaters lining the streets of the Badlands where the upper floors were the domain of prostitutes. A vibrant Chinatown held the lure of opium dens. Miners could find themselves separated from their gold in any number of ways, legal and illegal, pleasant and unpleasant.

The lawless town slowly evolved into a law-abiding community. Seth Bullock was appointed sheriff shortly after Wild Bill’s murder in August 1876, and E.B. Farnum became Deadwood’s first mayor that same month.

As the notorious beginnings of Deadwood slowly faded with each passing decade, so also did the landmarks and evidence of the city’s unique early history. The early mining camp burned to the ground in 1879, and subsequent fires and floods further erased Deadwood’s pioneer roots. By the 1980s, city leaders saw that the fascinating history of the city was in danger of disappearing altogether. They proposed a marriage of Deadwood’s gambling past with the vital need to care for its historic treasures. South Dakota voters passed a constitutional amendment legalizing gaming in Deadwood in 1989, with gaming tax receipts earmarked for the historic preservation of the community.

For Deadwood, a city that was founded on the gamble of finding gold, limited stakes gaming has continued a hundred-year tradition and given the city a new lease on life. Now with the creation of a HBO® series called Deadwood, the former mining camp has a new vein of gold to tap.