Deadwood: A History from Beginning to Present

In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led a US Army expedition into the Black Hills of South Dakota, which was at that time under the control of the Lakota people. To the expedition members, this was unknown territory on the leading edge of the American frontier. The purpose of the expedition was not only to find a possible location for a fort and a route through the Black Hills to the Southwest but also to investigate rumors of gold deposits. Custer’s cavalry and infantry were accompanied by specialist miners and geologists whose role was to search for that gold. In August, Custer sent back a dispatch that electrified Washington, “Examinations at numerous points confirm and strengthen the fact of the existence of gold in the Black Hills.”

The following year, prospectors and miners began to flock to the Black Hills. Before long, substantial amounts of gold were discovered in a canyon named Deadwood Gulch because of the dead trees that covered its steep slopes. When news of this discovery spread, more than 20,000 hopeful gold-seekers descended on the area hoping to discover riches. Few struck it lucky, but a temporary camp established to house the incomers grew to become one of the most famous towns of the Wild West: Deadwood. Deadwood would feature in countless dime novels and, much later, in movies and a television series, becoming a legendary part of the mythology of the Wild West. Let’s take a look at the real history of this iconic town.