A curved red-brick corner building where two brick-paved streets meet, with pine-covered hills behind

History

From the Lakota homeland of Paha Sapa to a National Historic Landmark on brick streets.

The long reads

Aerial view of granite spires and pine forest in the Black Elk Wilderness in the central Black Hills

Paha Sapa: The Lakota Homeland

Before it was a gold field, the Black Hills were and are sacred Lakota homeland. How the land was promised, taken and never sold.

Long column of cavalry, artillery and wagons under Custer crossing open Dakota plains, photographed by W. H. Illingworth in 1874

The Gold Rush and the Founding of Deadwood

How an illegal rush onto treaty land became a town of thousands in a matter of months, and how its first year played out.

Rebuilt Deadwood filling its narrow valley below wooded ridges, seen from Forest Hill by John C. H. Grabill in 1888

Fire, Flood and Rebuilding

Deadwood has been knocked down repeatedly. The fires of 1879, 1889, 1894 and 1987 and the flood of 1883 shaped the town you see today.

Mount Moriah Cemetery

The hilltop cemetery that holds Hickok, Calamity Jane and Seth Bullock is also a record of the ordinary people and communities who built Deadwood.

Main Street under a blue sky, looking down a line of historic brick buildings

How Legal Gaming Came to Deadwood

A fading town staked its survival on a preservation bargain with South Dakota voters. It worked, and it had costs.

Front of the three-story stone Bullock Hotel on Main Street in Deadwood, photographed by Carol M. Highsmith; the real hotel opened long after the events of the series

HBO's Deadwood and the Real Deadwood

David Milch's series made Deadwood famous for a new generation. Here is what it borrowed, what it invented and what it did for the town.

Open cut of the Homestake mine with a rail spur in the foreground, Lead City, photographed by John C. H. Grabill in 1888

The Homestake: Gold, Lead and a Company Town

For about 125 years the Homestake Mine in nearby Lead was the economic engine of the northern Black Hills. What it made, who paid, and what became of it.

Famous figures

Early portrait of Alice Ivers, later known as Poker Alice, with long curled hair

Alice "Poker Alice" Ivers Tubbs

1851 (or 1853)-1930. Gambler and brothel owner

Steve and Charlie Utter beside the wooden grave marker of Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood's first cemetery

Charles H. "Colorado Charlie" Utter

1838-1915. Freighter and friend of Hickok

AI-generated illustration: Lakota rider on horseback seen from behind, looking out over the Black Hills

Crazy Horse

c. 1840-1877. Oglala Lakota war leader

AI-generated illustration

Dora DuFran

1868-1934. Brothel owner and Calamity Jane's biographer

AI-generated illustration: man with a heavy mustache in an ornate vest and red neckerchief

Ellis Albert "Al" Swearengen

1845-1904. Owner of the Gem Theater

AI-generated illustration

Ethan Bennett "E.B." Farnum

1826-after 1900. Merchant and Deadwood's first mayor

AI-generated illustration

Henry Weston "Preacher" Smith

1827-1876. Methodist preacher

AI-generated illustration

Oval studio portrait of Wild Bill Hickok with long hair, mustache and wide-brimmed hat, by George G. Rockwood, 1873

James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok

1837-1876. Scout, lawman and gambler; killed in Deadwood

AI-generated illustration: weathered man in a worn hat and dusty coat

John "Jack" McCall

c. 1852-1877. Killer of Wild Bill Hickok

AI-generated illustration

John "Potato Creek Johnny" Perrett

1866 (or 1868)-1943. Prospector and local celebrity

AI-generated illustration

Full-length studio portrait of Calamity Jane in buckskins holding a rifle, by C. E. Finn of Livingston, Montana

Martha "Calamity Jane" Canary

c. 1856-1903. Frontier personality and self-mythologizer

Seth Bullock

1849 (or 1847)-1919. Merchant, first sheriff of Lawrence County, U.S. marshal

Sitting Bull

c. 1831-1890. Hunkpapa Lakota leader

Sol Star

1840-1917. Merchant, postmaster, longtime mayor of Deadwood

AI-generated illustration: man with a mustache in a brown three-piece suit

William Emery "W.E." Adams

1854-1934. Merchant, six-term mayor, museum founder

AI-generated illustration