Deadwood

“ The influx of "pilgrims" into the Black Hills for the last few days has been something more than wonderful, every stage coming in overcharged with feverish passengers, and from two to a dozen trains arriving daily.
Of course Deadwood receives a larger share of all this immigration—nothing is more natural, for the young metropolis of the hills is the miner's rendezvous, being in the center of the best yielding locates. ”

“ It was a large placard tacked up in plain view of all passers-by who took the route north through Custer gulch in order to reach the infant city of the Northwest—Deadwood.
Deadwood! the scene of the most astonishing bustle and activity, this year (1877.) The place where men are literally made rich and poor in one day and night. Prior to 1877 the Black Hills have been for a greater part undeveloped, but now, what a change! In Deadwood districts every foot of available ground has been "claimed" and staked out; the population has increased from fifteen to more than twenty-five hundred souls. ”

“ The streets are swarming with constantly arriving new-comers; the stores and saloons are literally crammed at all hours; dance-houses and can-can dens exist; hundreds of eager, expectant, and hopeful miners are working in the mines, and the harvest reaped by them is not at all discouraging. All along the gulch are strung a profusion of cabins, tents and shanties, making Deadwood in reality a town of a dozen miles in length, though some enterprising individual has paired off a couple more infant cities above Deadwood proper, named respectively Elizabeth City and Ten Strike. ”

“ With the opening of the Homestake, the conquest of the Black Hills was effectively 77 completed, and the region entered into a period of rapid development and expansion. Although the great mine at Lead was run solely as a business enterprise, devoid of glamour and excitement, the town of Deadwood, two miles away, enjoyed a decade of the lustiest history ever to be known by a bonanza town. During its years of activity and arrogance Deadwood contributed to our national folklore several great figures, among them Calamity Jane, Deadwood Dick, Wild Bill Hickok, and Preacher Smith. ”

“ After the return to Deadwood we must by all means spend some time in this metropolis of the interior of the “Hills.” The gold rush days are not much in evidence. Deadwood is a modern city and a thriving business center. The stores, curio shops, and souvenir sellers invite our curiosity, and are likely to hold us for sometime. The remains of mines, the slag heaps from smelting days, and the open mine shafts are indeed curiosities. While in Deadwood we must not forget the fine municipal bathing pool and park. ”

“ The town of Deadwood was the terminal of all freight and stage outfits, and as there was very little law and order those days, it was sure a wild town. There was another town about 20 miles before you got to Deadwood. It was called Scooptown those days, but afterwards was changed to the more dignified name of Sturgis, which it still has today. I have seen that town at night full of bull whackers, mule skinners, cowboys and soldiers, and the dance halls going full blast—when I think back at it today, it seems like a dream. ”

“ The date is one month later—one long, eventful month since Justin McKenzie shot down Ned Harris under the noonday sun, a short distance above Deadwood.
Returning to the Flower Pocket by the route to the rugged transverse gulch, and thence through the gaping fissure, we find before us a scene—not of slumbering beauty, but of active industry and labor, such as was not here when we last looked into the flower-strewn paradise of the Hills.
The flowers are for the most part still intact, though occasionally you will come across a spot where the hand of man hath blighted their growth. ”

“ The jingling of a spur and a laugh on the highway over Payne's Ridge sounded clearly across the river. The rattling of harness and hoofs foretold for many minutes the approach of the Wingdam coach, that at last, with flashing lights, passed within a few feet of the rock. Then for an hour all again was quiet. Presently the moon, round and full, lifted herself above the serried ridge and looked down upon the river. At first the bared peak of Deadwood Hill gleamed white and skull-like. ”

“ Not dead, nor even sleeping, is this headquarters of the Black Hills population at midnight, twenty-four hours subsequent to the rush of the daring road-agents through Camp Crook.
Deadwood is just as lively and hilarious a place during the interval between sunset and sunrise as during the day. Saloons, dance-houses, and gambling dens keep open all night, and stores do not close until a late hour. At one, two and three o'clock in the morning the streets present as lively an appearance as at any period earlier in the evening. ”

“ The main street of Deadwood, twenty yards wide, was packed by a force of men, drawn from all quarters, aggregating thousands; and the windows of both upper and lower stories of the eating-houses, saloons, hotels, and wash-houses were occupied by women of good, bad, and indifferent reputation. There were vociferous cheers, clappings of hands, wavings of handkerchiefs, shrieks from the whistles of the planing mills, reports from powder blown off in anvils, and every other manifestation of welcome known to the populations of mining towns. ”

“ Without the mad March winds the forest would lose much of its fresh virility, the old deadwood would cumber the new growth,{49} and the mild melancholy of decay would prevail as it does in some swamps where sheltering surrounding hills and close growth shunt the gales. ”

“ If there had been daily showers for weeks, and the needles and the deadwood, as well as the ground itself, were soaked, or if in winter the deadwood were buried beneath snow and the dead limbs of standing trees difficult to break off, it was a discouraging task. ”

“ It was midnight, and Deadwood lay basking in a flood of mellow moonlight that cast long shadows from the pine forest on the peaks, and glinted upon the rapid, muddy waters of Whitewood creek, which rumbles noisily by the infant metropolis on its wild journey toward the south.
All the saloons and dance-houses are in full blast; shouts and maudlin yells rend the air. In front of one insignificant board, "ten-by-twenty," an old wretch is singing out lustily:
"Right this way ye cum, pilgrims, ter ther great Black Hills Thee'ter ”

“ Every person in Deadwood can tell you where the "Met" is, as it is general head-quarters.
We mount the mud-splashed steps and disappear behind the screen that stands in front of the door. Then the merry clink of glasses, snatches of ribald song, and loud curses from the polluted lips of some wretch who has lost heavily at the gaming-table, reach our hearing, while our gaze wanders over as motley a crowd as it has ever been our fortune to behold.
Men from the States—lawyers, doctors, speculators, adventurers, pilgrims, and dead-beats; men from the western side of the Missouri ”

“ Building was rapid, so that three years after the miners staked their first claims in the Hills, Deadwood had become a place of 5,000 inhabitants and was rapidly flowering into a great city. Then a dreadful fire broke out, which ravaged and swept the town, leaving scarcely a house uninjured, and nearly every citizen homeless. ”

“ Deadwood is in the heart of the pictueresque “Playgrounds of South Dakota”, where fishing, hunting, camping and fine automobile roads through the pine clad Hills and Canyons form a part of the attractions that make it the Mecca of Tourists. Mosquitos and heat are unknown. The hub of all points of interest in the Hills is Deadwood. The famous Homestake, the largest gold mine in the world, and Crystal Cave, the great underground cavern that extends for miles are reached from Deadwood. ”

“ We will have to get tools, though, before we can accomplish much of anything."
"My brother has a miner's outfit here," said Anita. "That will save you a trip to Deadwood, for the present."
And so it was all satisfactorily arranged. During the remainder of the day the old "General" and Redburn wandered about through the flower-meadows of the pocket, here and there examining a little soil now chipping rock among the rugged foothills, then "feeling" in the bed of the creek. ”

“ There are many interesting points within a few miles of Deadwood; for aside from the rugged character of the scenery, in the near vicinity are several of the largest wealth-producing mines in the world. The trip to Bald Mountain over the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley narrow-gauge Road is one filled with pleasure and surprise. The way is almost incomparably winding, and exhibits remarkable examples of engineering skill and enormous investment. In several places the grade is four hundred and thirty feet to the mile, while the curves are said to be of one hundred and fifty feet radius. ”

“ This group covers an area of an irregularly oval shape, about 120 miles in length and from 40 to 50 in width; the average elevation is from 2000 to 3000 feet above the surrounding country; but the highest point—Mount Harney—reaches 9700 feet. Deadwood, the principal mining settlement, has an elevation of 4630 feet. The geological structure of this range is comparatively simple, and typical of that of a very considerable portion of the Rocky Mountains, especially of the ranges of the northern division. ”

“ Many thrilling stories of the dare-devil work of these highwaymen are told, and will long be remembered as a part of the history of the settlement and development of the region round about Deadwood. Large treasures of gold dust taken from the mines were frequently shipped out on the stages, and many men of wealth traveled over the line, going in for the purpose of starting in business or making mining investments. ”

“ I was in Deadwood at the time and on hearing of the killing made my way at once to the scene of the shooting and found that my friend had been killed by McCall. ”

“ There are great tracts where fire has killed part or all of the timber but left much of it standing, while in other places nature has defied the power of fire and the hills are re-clothed with young trees. A recent storm had further beautified the region with a few inches of snow, but as the day advanced a chinook began to blow so that when Deadwood was reached, soon after noon, only the northern exposures retained an appearance of winter. ”

“ Through one of the last rifts in the walls that confine the track of the railroad a glimpse of Central City is obtained, several miles away, and a few minutes later we roll into the great mining town that is celebrated for its wealth, energy, golden prospects, and as being the place where Wild Bill was killed, and Calamity Jane broke the biggest faro bank in the settlement. Though Deadwood is only sixteen years old, few cities have passed through so many terrible vicissitudes. In 1876 the gold prospectors in the Hills were harried by Indians ”

“ Let us pile up the fire anew with drift-wood, Annie. We can choose at random; for our logs came from no single forest. It is considered an important branch of skill in the country to know the varieties of firewood, and to choose among them well. But to-night we have the whole Atlantic shore for our wood-pile, and the Gulf Stream for a teamster. Every foreign tree of rarest name may, for aught we know, send its treasures to our hearth. Logwood and satinwood may mingle with cedar and maple; the old cellar floors of this once princely town are of mahogany, and why not our fire? ”

“ Hallo! away down there in the dark, grim wood. Who is talking at this time of night? Hallo!
She went to sleep, so did Robert Jeffries, and the window was open.
The moon rose into the zenith and looked down from her pale face upon three different objects: a forest, a river, and a cabin.
In the forest a silent form lay cold, still and bloody, near a thick tree; a man stood over him, looking quietly down upon him.
The watcher spoke in a strange, far-away voice. ”

“ From here on, Dede was in an unending ecstasy. By the spring that gurgled among the redwoods grew another great wild lily, bearing on its slender stalk the prodigious outburst of white waxen bells. This time he did not dismount, but led the way to the deep canon where the stream had cut a passage among the knolls. He had been at work here, and a steep and slippery horse trail now crossed the creek, so they rode up beyond, through the somber redwood twilight, and, farther on, through a tangled wood of oak and madrono. ”

“ A forest is in all mythologies a sacred place; as the oaks among the Druids, and the grove of Egeria, and even in more familiar and common life, as "Barnsdale wood" and "Sherwood." Had Robin Hood no Sherwood to resort to, it would be difficult to invest his story with the charms it has got. It is always the tale that is untold, the deeds done, and the life lived in the unexplored scenery of the wood, that charm us and make us children again, to read his ballads and hear of the greenwood tree. ”

“ Yet these tangled tips with those already frozen firmly to the trees, and made a wonderful snow growth the whole woodland through. The next morning it hung there untouched in the crystal stillness and as the{172} woodland people waked they might well have rubbed their eyes, for they had found a new world.
It was a mystical white world that had crowded in and mocked the slender growth of all trees and shrubs with swollen facsimiles in white. The northerly side of tree-trunks, large or small, showed no longer gray bark or brown, rough or smooth. ”