Anyway, I forgot where I left off in the tales of my travel and the saga of McAdams and her quest to avoid human contact and 50’s music. She doesn’t like people, generally, though she is fond of bears, and she is unreasonably afraid of any music that even approaches doo-wap, as she believes those smooth soul stylings are harbingers of doom. Other than these and a few other idiosyncrasies, she is the perfect traveling companion.

OK, so I told you about Mount Rushmore (boo!) and The Crazy Horse Memorial (yay!), Keystone and the shacklet, Porter Sculpture Park and the 1880’s train. That brings us, without further doodoo, to Deadwood! Yay! FINALLY!

Deadwood Gulch, as it was originally known, was so named because it had a bunch of dead trees in a gulch. (What exactly were you expecting?!) It was an illegal settlement, because due to the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, it was part of the Black Hills territory ceded in perpetuity to the Lakota Sioux, and early on, the government sent troops to several forts to keep people from entering the Hills.

The Black Hills are magnificent and rich in minerals and resources, and settlers took notice and sneaked in to exploit them, despite the military presence. By 1873, the U.S. government began trying to buy the land back from the Sioux to open it for mining. In 1874, the coc – the conquered commander George Armstrong Custer was sent to investigate rumors of gold, which instigated the rush.

(A word here about Custer… I don’t like him. After barely graduating at the bottom of his class at Westpoint in 1861, he was known for not obeying rules and playing assholey practical jokes on his fellow soldiers – just the kind of guy you’d like to serve next to in a combat situation, right? He excelled in self-promotion, travelling with a 16 piece band, a small group of journalists, and dressing up in stupid costumes, like buckskins and boots. He wore his blonde, flowing hair down and loose, like an 1800’s Jim Morrison, and more than once his recklessness caused unnecessary danger to his troops. He was only made a general because of social promotion; his title was an honorarium from a high-ranking fan, and it was temporary. After the Civil War, his permanent rank was that of captain. He invented fancy-pants social events for his inner circle, which included young and dashing favored officers and his family members. This group was known as ‘the royal circle’ by resentful enlisted men.

He was sent to scout the Hills because he had already fought and won some battles against small bands of Sioux, when he was charged with protecting railroad interests. Prior to this, Custer had skirmished with the Cheyenne at the Battle of the Washita River, where he claimed to have killed 103 warriors. The Cheyenne estimated their own losses at 11 warriors and 19 women and children, plus Custer took 53 women and children prisoner, and shot most of their 500 plus ponies. Dick. Because he was arrogant, he assumed a quick and easy victory if he met up with the Sioux again.

Custer took about a thousand men into the Black Hills, and he took his time doing it. He hunted and shot a grizzly, hiked (but didn’t scale -wuss!) Mt. [Me So] Harney, played a lot of baseball, and threw nightly champagne parties for the winning teams.

By the time Custer and his men encountered the tribes, tensions between the Indians and the U.S. government were running high, on account of constant treaty-breaking and continuing American advancement on Indian landed. The government decided that all remaining free Plains Indians be rounded up and “corralled.” Instead of willingly reporting to designated areas, Sitting Bull gathered together the largest ever gathering of Cheyenne, Lakota, and Arapaho Indians at Little Big Horn River, to discuss what to do about the white devils that were destroying their way of life, stealing their land and murdering their people.

Custer had no idea what he was getting into. His famous last words were: “Hurrah, boys, we’ve got them! We’ll finish them up and then go home to our station!” WRONG!!!)

Right. So back to Deadwood. In 1875, a miner found gold in Deadwood Gulch, and it was on like Donkey Kong. In no time a-tall, the population of the still-on-the-DL town reached an estimated 5,000. In 1876, Charlie Utter and his brother Sam rode up in a covered wagon train filled with prostitutes and gamblers. That same year Wild Bill Hickok (Hickok-sucker?) was shot in the back of the head in the Number 10 Saloon, and shortly after that Calamity Jane began making up rumors that she had been romantically involved with the famous marksman, though by all accounts he was said to have found her somewhat repugnant. Al Swearengen (I admit, I just said it, LOUDLY, but I didn’t write it, so it doesn’t count!) opened up the Gem Variety Theater in 1877 and quickly cornered the opium trade. The Homestake Mine, the largest and most profitable in the area, thrived, and Sheriff Seth Bullock kept order, if not law, in town. 1878 saw the first telephone exchange in Deadwood. In 1879 a fire almost destroyed the town (this would happen three more times, the last being in the 1950’s), by 1880 there was a Chinatown, and in 1883 Deadwood was almost wiped out by a flood. In 1890, the railroad pushed through the Black Hills.

I know all of this stuff is true because I read two books, a bunch of pamphlets, and consulted the Internet.

The coolest part of Deadwood is Mt. Moriah, the cemetery, which was created between 1877 and 1878. You can see famous graves like these:

Mt. Moriah has a big section for children, many of whom died in epidemics, one headstone for an unidentified Chinese man, and a large Jewish section.