Fun Times in the Wild West

deadwood is a small town in a gulch surrounded by the black hills and started as a mining camp during the gold rush days.

We had a great time visiting Deadwood and Sturgis over the Memorial Day weekend. Deadwood was very busy when we arrived early Saturday afternoon; filled with a mix of families, gamblers and many who just wanted to party. Definitely a great place to people watch.

It was quite entertaining, even if the street performers overacted and were somewhat silly. The families and children seemed to really enjoy that part. We watched a couple of their shows in between checking out the many establishments along Main Street.

main street was pretty crowded but we didn’t have any issue finding places to stop and get a table for a drink or food.

Even though none of the buildings are original, you definitely felt the Wild West atmosphere walking down the street. Maybe it was all of the bars and gambling halls; you could really envision the miners and gun slingers playing poker and drinking whiskey while the saloon girls circulated and drummed up business for the brothels upstairs.

interesting that main street is now 12 feet higher than it was in the late 1800s.

Yes, prostitution and gambling were key businesses for this town in the late 1800s; almost as much of an attraction as gold mining. This was definitely a very rough and unlawful place in its heyday and we enjoyed learning some of the history as well as visiting some of the establishments in town. Neither of us did any gambling but we enjoyed the stores, restaurants, musuems and saloons. I also did a bourbon tasting in a distillery which was quite good and informative. I picked up a bottle their America’s 250th bourbon that we plan to open on July 4th.

Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon (original saloon no 10)

On August 2, 1876, Wild Bill Hickok was assassinated while playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon (often remembered as Saloon No. 10) when Jack McCall walked up behind him and shot him point-blank in the back of the head. He was holding two pair, Aces and Eights; hence the name Dead Man’s Hand. He was also sitting with his back to the door which he didn’t like to do. I know many people still today who won’t sit with their back to the door which I guess this is where that comes from. We also went to Old Style Saloon No 10, where the Wild Bill Hickok Death Chair is displayed above the door.

Deadwood Kodi can be found in the Soda Saloon. This place was a fun store with a saloon in the back serving homemade soda’s - no alcohol. We both had the Root Beer float that was delicious! The owner makes the rootbeer and his wife runs the shop in the front. We found some good buys on leather belts in her store.

As for prostitution, we learned that was the primary industry in town after the gold rush died away. Most mining towns became ghost towns but Deadwood survived primarily from prostitution. We toured the brothel museum and learned quite a bit about it. It seems that the madams who ran a few brothels in town, supported the town by funding the fire department, police and even Little League teams. They paid their taxes as well as extra bribes to police over the years. These brothels were in business for 101 years, until they were closed in 1980 by the FBI. It sounded like if the local police had their way, they would still be operational today.

After the brothels were closed, the town petitioned the state to allow gambling which is why just about every building on Main Street has gaming tables and slots. It definitely seemed to bring in lots of business, especially on a holiday weekend.

wild bill can be found at the entrance to main street

After checking out on Monday morning, we drove up to Mt. Moriah Cemetery. This cemetery was established in 1878 and has approximately 3,600 individuals interred there, including some famous western legends like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. The cemetery includes a a Jewish section, Chinese section and a Masonic section. Since the cemetery sits on a hill above town, it provides a pretty overlook of the town and the surrounding Black Hills. Definitely an interesting and historic stop.

As we left Deadwood, we decided to take a drive through the Black Hills on US Hwy 14A through Spearfish Canyon. Wow! What a beautiful drive. We started at the south entrance and drove to the north entrance in Spearfish. This canyon is a deep gorge descending from the northern most reaches of the Black Hills.

it was hard to get a good picture but there was some water flowing in the waterfall

We stopped at a few pull offs along the way to capture pictures of the rustling Spearfish Creek and a few waterfalls. They have been having a drought but the waterfalls did have flowing water. I am guessing that it was less than usual. One stop provided a view of the Homestake Gold Mine hydroelectric power plant. This plant powered the mine and helped turn it into the biggest gold producer for decades and made South Dakota the nation’s number one gold producing state. More history for me - I would have expected that to be California or Alaska.

After that drive, we headed to Sturgis where we spent the rest of the holiday. Memorial Day was fairly quiet in Sturgis but we found a few things to do. This is another small town in the Black Hills that attracts many motorcyclists, especially in August every year when they hold the huge bike rally. I think the town makes its money for the year during that week.

There wasn’t any gambling in this town but definitely lots of biker bars and T-shirt shops on every block. Most of the shops were selling last year’s shirts at great discounts as they made room for this year’s shirts. Of course we picked up a few shirts since the price was right!

Since it was Memorial Day, we participated in the memorial service held in the town square by the VFW. They had a very nice service honoring our fallen service men and women.

We decided to stay in a hotel again knowing that we had the next 4 nights at a campground in the van. The Hotel Sturgis is located in the center of town in the old Benevolent Hall building. The building was originally built in 1892. The fully renovated hotel rooms all include a loft so we had an extra king bed in the loft area. Definitely a bit different.

Before heading onto Rapid City on Tuesday morning, I decided to see if I could find where my cousin Jim was buried. A few years ago, I had promised Aunt Gerry that I would stop at the cemetery if I ever made it to S. Dakota. She said the cemetery was at a beautiful location in the Black Hills. My cousin Kathy told me that he was buried in the Black Hills National Cemetery.

I am glad I decided to look for this when we were in Sturgis. The cemetery was just a quick 7 minute drive from our hotel. A very nice woman in the office helped Tim look him up and find where he was buried. With the section and site number in hand, we easily found his grave. A very fitting end to the Memorial Day weekend.

More to come on our time in S. Dakota in the next post………

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