The town of Deadwood

Old West legends like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane still reign supreme in Deadwood, South Dakota. The town holds on to its wild and woolly days, and promotes it wholeheartedly.



The small city has recently developed casinos to generate dollars to go toward preserving the town's history. The casinos are quite substandard. They look like the dinky ones that are on the outskirts of Shreveport. The food was your standard casino fare. The shops were packed full of touristy junk that really wasn't that interesting. You know those cheap cedar boxes that have some cheesy logo on the top? Lots of those and souvenir spoons too. In all, a bit disappointing. If you aren't a gambler and you wanted to skip this city in a Black Hills vacation, you wouldn't miss much.





Kevin Costner has a casino here called Midnight Star and a few restaurants. He's got alot of his movie posters and costumes on the wall. Since "Dances with Wolves" was based out here, several tourist stops advertise props from the movie. Costner even built his own museum, dedicated to the buffalo.





The most interesting part was visiting the Adams Museum, which had nice exhibits featuring the history of Deadwood. We also went to the top of the city to see the cemetery and graves of the famous residents--Wild Bill, Calamity Jane, Potato Creek Johnny, and more.



Two things that I learned that suprised me here the most--prostitution was legal here until 1980. 1980?! Can you believe that?!



Also, Deadwood had a large Chinese population, lured here to build a railroad and then mine gold to send back home. Thousands came and thousands went right back home--they had no intention of staying. Out of the hundreds of Chinese buried in the cemetery, only two graves are there today. When the Chinese left to go back home, they took the bones of their ancestors with them.