Black Hills: Deadwood

Earlier this year I watched the HBO series "Deadwood" and found it brilliant. The place is a very historic site, I think the whole town is considered a national landmark these days. Sadly I felt it suffered from the same problems as Jackson, WY - it's too touristy, too fake. Additionally the town's main source of income is gambling, which may be the tackiest activity of all. Gambling may have given the town the money to preserve the historic district, but to me it's also ensured that it's no longer really a place worth visiting.

I quickly made my way up the hillside to the one place I can still recommend - the cemetary. Several of the town's most famous inhabitants rest here, the most famous of them Wild Bill Hickock, the gunslinger and gambler who was shot in the back in a saloon in town at the age of 39. Others are sheriff and frontiersman Seth Bullock, brothel owner Dora DuFran - who was only 15 when she started her first "establishment" in town - and Calamity Jane, who claimed she'd been a lover of Wild Bill and was therefore buried next to him. Modern day historians have shown Jane to be a serial liar, in addition to a heavy alcoholic and part time prostitute (she worked for DuFran) and she barely even knew Wild Bill.

The graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane.


Madame DuFran.


Sheriff Bullock's grave is a very steep 750 feet climb above the rest of the field. I nearly joined him up there, as it was almost 30C (86F) and I'm not exactly fit...


More Deadwood pics here.