Deadwood, South Dakota

The Black Hills boomtown celebrates the Old West every day of the year.

- LEO W. BANKS

Founded in America’s centennial year, Deadwood, South Dakota, has always celebrated Independence Day with great fanfare and parades, even in its earliest decades. On July 4, 1888, following a grand parade, two hub-and-hub firehose races were held: one between a Deadwood and a Council Bluffs, Iowa, team, and one between two local Chinese hose teams. According to the Rapid City Journal of July 6, 1888, Hi-Kee’s team won the race and the $50 prize money, while the Deadwoods, in a record 29 seconds, beat the Independents of Council Bluffs for the prize money of $500.

The discovery of gold in a treelined gulch brought Deadwood to life in 1876. The Black Hills boomtown was guaranteed immortality when Wild Bill Hickok, one of the West’s great shootists, met his end there at the hand of back-shooter “Broken Nose” Jack McCall.

Was Hickock holding aces and eights, the dead man’s hand, when the deed was done? We’ll quote from the great Western film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Deadwood’s Wild West past thrives during Wild Bill Days in June. The event takes over the town with lots food and dancing to live music by popular country acts.

“We stop vehicle traffic and put a stage in the middle of Main Street, so our historic buildings become an amphitheater for two days,” says Amanda Kille, Deadwood Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau’s marketing and sponsorship director. “It’s great fun.”

A prospecting club teaches gold panning and how to use a rocker box. On Saturday afternoon, actors from the Deadwood Alive troop put on the play Trial of Jack McCall on the outdoor stage, the only time the venerable show is free to the public.