deadwood as seen from mt. moriah
deadwood was so named because when people came there in the 1870s looking for gold, all of the trees were...dead. they aren't anymore, thanks to deadwood capitalizing on its image as the classic old west town. but before i get started on that subject, on our way from rapid city up to deadwood we stopped at a local dive called the sugar shack, which served me on the most delicious burgers i've had, ever. and that really is saying something, considering that half of my caloric intake in the past week has been beef of some sort.
now back to deadwood. we rolled into town and checked into the saloon we were going to spend the night at: a place called deadwood dick's, named after a fictional character 'from' deadwood. the entire town has been declared a national historic landmark, and they have taken a novel approach to funding the restoration of the town: casinos. since they started allowing limited stakes gambling in the early 1990s, the town has boomed. now it is essentially a tourist trap, but one that is a far cry from gatlinburg, tn and other such towns. while it is kitschy, it is a historic kitschy. the town really is cute, down to the very informative visitors center located in the renovated train station. while it was raining, it wasn't too bad. to be honest, the re-enactors who perform every hour or half hour were more bothered by it than we were: they did not like to get their antique guns wet. the shootout in the street that we saw began, as i'm sure so many of them did, with a game of poker. i thought that they did a good job--it was certainly interesting.
in addition to the re-enactment in the street, we climbed up to mt. moriah cemetery, also known as boot hill. it is here that wild bill hickok and calamity jane are buried. it was quite a hike--they put the cemetery on the top of a daunting hill because they didn't want to put it anyplace that someone might, someday, want to build. wild bill was one of the biggest characters in the 1860s and 70s. he was the fasted draw in the west, killing as many as 100 people, depending on who you listen to, and worked as everything from a professional gambler to a texas ranger. calamity jane, while she knew hickok while he was alive, became famous for capitalizing on him after his death: she claimed that they were lovers, thus making herself a national sensation. she too had numerous professions: everything from the world's oldest to dressing like a man to achieve her means. her dying request was to be buried next to hickok, and so she is.
the image to the right is of a make-shift shrine to wild bill--it's kind of small, but there is a mini bottle of jack daniel and a red lipstick up there amidst the flowers. which leads me to the second re-enactment we saw in deadwood: the murder of wild bill hickok by jack mccall. this took place in the saloon no. 10 downtown, where the murder actually went down--they still cover the floors with sawdust to give you an 'authentic' experience. this one was kind of neat because bill and jack were played by professionals, but they got audience members to fill in the other four characters. the story went something like this: wild bill had killed jack's brother. jack goes to find wild bill, who for the first and only time was sitting with his back to the door of the saloon--something he was normally very
careful not to do. this is deadwood, after all. he and three other men were playing poker when jack comes in, circles around the table, and then shoots bill in the back of his head. the hand he was holding: black aces and eights, called a dead man's hand to this day. jack was tried in a kangaroo court and found innocent (bill had killed his brother), but was found guilty in an actual court and hung. thus ended wild bill. the man playing bill actually looked like him too--that's him to the left. if i look somewhat crazed it's because he was pointing a gun at my gut.the only other thing we really did in deadwood was what the town was, and still is, famous for--gambling. i won a whole five dollars playing quarter slots! i couldn't convince mum to play poker, so that was pretty much the end of the gambling. between the two of us our final tally was minus one dollar. oh well, i never planned on being a professional gambler anyway.
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