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Deadwood's history and heritage of the American West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The gulches of South Dakota’s Black Hills region were the sites of the American West’s last great gold strikes, and Deadwood was the focal point for the region’s gold rushes and subsequent hard rock mining booms. It has been a significant legal, mercantile, entertainment, railroad, and financial center in the Black Hills region since the beginning of white settlement. In the mid 1800s, a steady westward movement of settlers skirted both north and south of the Black Hills. That area of the Dakota Territory was part of the Sioux Indian Reservation established in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The treaty prevented white settlers from entering the region and was enforced by the U. S. military. As long as gold fields farther west were profitable, rumors of gold in the Black Hills were left uninvestigated. All of this changed when Lieutenant Colonel George Custer arrived in the Black Hills in the summer of 1874. Custer was establishing a new military post and his company included at least two experienced miners who panned gold as they forded the region’s creeks. Custer reported the presence of gold on August 3, 1874. Coinciding with the financial Panic of 1873 causing high unemployment in the East, Custer’s report suddenly attracted hundreds of people to the Black Hills region. The rush started in 1875 and exploded in 1876. Although it was illegal, the lure of gold caused many people to trespass into the Sioux reservation. Prospectors first found gold during the winter of 1874, and by 1875 there were 5,000 miners on the borders of the region. The development of Deadwood began in the spring of 1876 as illegal entry was overlooked by government troops. In September, the Sioux Treaty of 1876 ceded the Black Hills to the U. S. government and legally opened the region to whites in February 1877. Gold was first discovered in Deadwood sometime in August or September of 1875. The camps that sprang up in Deadwood Gulch were like many other mining camps located up and down streams in the area. Claims were strips of ground extending from rim to rim across the gulch and 300 feet along a stream. Sluice boxes and rockers were set up in the streams, and miners washed gold from the gravel of the creek beds On April 26, 1876, the City of Deadwood was platted over the mining claims just below Whitewood and Deadwood creeks. Deadwood began as a city of tents, but the opening of sawmills in 1876 soon facilitated the construction of log cabins and false-fronted frame buildings. The town’s permanent population was estimated at 5,000 in 1876. Deadwood became the supply center for the area’s surrounding mining camps and mines. In 1877, the mining camp of Lead City had twice the population of Deadwood, but Deadwood did ten times the business. It provided food and supplies and sources of financing and entertainment. Citizens had erected over 200 buildings and established as many as 173 established businesses by the end of September 1876. The Collins 1878-79 Directory contained listings for seven hotels, nine clothiers, six breweries, five bakeries, two newspapers, and forty lawyers. The city gained its current configuration at this time. Deadwood’s early population had representatives from many nationalities. There were sizeable groups of Chinese, English, Italians, Slovenians, Scots, Irish, French, Norwegians, Finns Swedes, Danes, Germans, Jews, and African-Americans. By the end of 1878, supplies of gold extracted by placer mining were exhausted and hard rock mining became more and more important. These changes altered Deadwood’s population as many people moved on to new gold strikes. Those that remained settled into the hard work of extracting gold from rock. Companies began establishing stamp mills locally, and by 1878 there were 47 mills with 700 stamps. Few hard rock mines existed in, or adjacent, to Deadwood proper, but there were many small mining operations and company towns scattered throughout the northern Black Hills. Deadwood provided the communities with auxiliary services such as restaurants, hotels, saloons, clothing stores, law offices, and several extraction mills. Despite its success, Deadwood was ravaged by flood and fire like most other nineteenth century cities. In the midst of these catastrophes, high-grade free milling ore had nearly diminished when two new processes of ore mining were established. Chlorination and pyretic matte smelting revived mining fortunes by allowing the extraction of gold from lower grade ores. A number of chlorination plants were built in the area, including two in lower Deadwood. By the end of 1880s, however, supplies of gold in even the lower-grade free milling ores were exhausted. Deadwood’s business boom tapered off, but the town continued to serve as a supplier to surrounding areas In 1890, two events coincided to create another boom in Deadwood and in the surrounding Black Hills. First, a newly discovered cyanide process allowed the extraction of gold from refractory ores. This process consequently provided the investment potential for these low grade ores and attracted financiers. Second, the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad reached Deadwood late in 1890. Until this time, Deadwood had obtained supplies via stagecoaches and freight wagons from distant railheads. The railroad’s arrival consequently initiated a building and mining boom and caused Deadwood to become a center of culture and industry. The boom brought engineers and other well-educated workers to the area who had an inclination to culture and a familiarity with mechanical improvements. This new population facilitated Deadwood’s move away from its origin as a gold rush community and more toward its role as a service, shopping, and distribution center. The bulk of the present city of Deadwood was built by 1914. It had a substantial commercial area and several desirable residential areas perched on the surrounding hillsides. A shabby underworld known as the Badlands existed on the north side of town and Chinatown purportedly resembled a small Chinese village. There were few real mansions in the city because little room existed to build them and few servants to run them. As a result, Deadwood’s wealth did not manifest itself in large, ornate houses. The city’s living conditions and social customs were similar to any small Victorian city, but there were more than the usual number of businessmen, technically-educated engineers, and available wealth to implement public improvements such as electric service, telephones, and electric railway. The boom in gold production that began with the cyanide process ended as World War I increased the cost of supplies and caused a labor shortage. These conditions caused most of the area’s larger mines to close by 1923. After the war’s end, production rose in the 1920s and expanded again in the 1930s causing Deadwood to thrive even after the stock market crash of 1920. Business during this period was strongly supported by the continued operations of the Homestake Mining Company and the city’s notoriety for gambling, bootlegging, and prostitution. Unfortunately, mining again dwindled as a wartime order closed the gold mines in 1942. The advent of the automobile also played a large role in Deadwood’s development in the early twentieth century. It was during this period that the city gained status as a tourist mecca. Both the Burlington and the Northwestern Railroads had promoted tours into the Black Hills during the late nineteenth century, but it was not until the automobile’s arrival that the Black Hills became a popular tourist destination. The first car appeared in Deadwood in 1901, but it was not until the federal and state governments launched a road and bridge building campaign in 1916 that people were able to tour the country by automobile. Deadwood made a significant effort to attract tourists in the 1920s to replace lost revenues from closing businesses. One of Deadwood’s most important and long-lived events – The Days of ’76 – was begun in 1924. President Coolidge’s visit to the Black Hills and its subsequent publicity also encouraged 400,000 tourists to follow the President to the area in 1929. Throughout most of the twentieth century, mining and tourism have been important economic factors for Deadwood. The Homestake Mining Company remains in operation as the world’s largest producer of gold, and the city exists as a National Historic Landmark, designated in 1961. More recently, the citizens of South Dakota voted to allow legalized limited-stakes gaming in Deadwood with the proceeds dedicated to preserving city’s heritage. Gaming has produced the latest in a series of booms that have characterized Deadwood’s history since 1875. |
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