Nestled on a mountainous plateau overlooking Deadwood's downtown core district is one of the premier historic cemeteries in Black Hills: Mount Moriah Cemetery. Established in 1878, this cemetery contains some of North America's most recognized Western legends, including James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, Martha "Calamity Jane" Canary, Seth Bullock, John "Potato Creek Johnny" Perrett, and Henry Weston "Preacher" Smith. They represent a small portion of the more than 3,600 people buried in Mount Moriah whose memories have been carved, chiseled, and etched into the monuments within this cemetery. Deadwood's Mount Moriah Cemetery is a combination of historic and contemporary photographs chronicling the history of the cemetery and the stories of the individuals--both colorful and illustrious--who helped carve Deadwood into the annals of the American West.
Nestled on a mountainous plateau overlooking Deadwood's downtown core district is one of the premier historic cemeteries in Black Hills: Mount Moriah Cemetery. Established in 1878, this cemetery contains some of North America's most recognized Western legends, including James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, Martha "Calamity Jane" Canary, Seth Bullock, John "Potato Creek Johnny" Perrett, and Henry Weston "Preacher" Smith. They represent a small portion of the more than 3,600 people buried in Mount Moriah whose memories have been carved, chiseled, and etched into the monuments within this cemetery. Deadwood's Mount Moriah Cemetery is a combination of historic and contemporary photographs chronicling the history of the cemetery and the stories of the individuals--both colorful and illustrious--who helped carve Deadwood into the annals of the American West.
Unearth a gold mine of spooky history and meet the spirits that haunt this South Dakota landmark—photos included. The Wild West may be tamed, but Deadwood's notorious past has not relinquished its hold on its corner of the Badlands or its place in popular imagination. And no wonder. If Wild Bill Hickok found its streets a little too rough, it should come as no surprise that the gamblers, gunslingers, and general mischief-makers who put down roots at Deadwood's saloons and brothels did so in a ferocious and unforgettable manner. In this book, paranormal investigators Mark Shadley and Josh Wennes prospect for ghostly activity as industriously as the town’s former inhabitants dug for gold—and strike it just as rich. Greet Calamity Jane, Al Swearingen, and a host of other characters as ready-made for haunting as they ever were for television.
Of the many iconic towns of the old West, none has quite captured our imagination like Deadwood. From the legacy of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane to the current resurgence in mining and gambling, this city in the Black Hills of South Dakota continues to occupy a central place in the American mythos. Deadwood brings together the most captivating writings about the wildest town in the West, including excerpts from novels, period newspaper articles, biographies, and even song lyrics.
Everyone knows the name Calamity Jane. Scores of dime novels and movie and TV Westerns have portrayed this original Wild West woman as an adventuresome, gun-toting hellion. Although Calamity Jane has probably been written about more than any other woman of the nineteenth-century American West, fiction and legend have largely obscured the facts of her life. This lively, concise, and exhaustively researched biography traces the real person from the Missouri farm where she was born in 1856 through the development of her notorious persona as a Wild West heroine. Before Calamity Jane became a legend, she was Martha Canary, orphaned when she was only eleven years old. From a young age she traveled fearlessly, worked with men, smoked, chewed tobacco, and drank. By the time she arrived in the boomtown of Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1876, she had become Calamity Jane, and the real Martha Canary had disappeared under a landslide of purple prose. Calamity became a hostess and dancer in Deadwood’s saloons and theaters. She imbibed heavily, and she might have been a prostitute, but she had other qualities, as well, including those of an angel of mercy who ministered to the sick and the down-and-out. Journalists and dime novelists couldn’t get enough of either version, nor, in the following century, could filmmakers. Sorting through the stories, veteran western historian Richard W. Etulain’s account begins with a biography that offers new information on Calamity’s several “husbands” (including one she legally married), her two children, and a woman who claimed to be the daughter of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity, a story Etulain discredits. In the second half of the book, Etulain traces the stories that have shaped Calamity Jane’s reputation. Some Calamity portraits, he says, suggest that she aspired to a quiet life with a husband and family. As the 2004–2006 HBO series Deadwood makes clear, well more than a century after her first appearance as a heroine in the Deadwood Dick dime novels, Calamity Jane lives on—raunchy, unabashed, contradictory, and ambiguous as ever.
“Shootin’—Lynchin’—Hangin’,” announces the advertisement for Tombstone’s Helldorado Days festival. Dodge City’s Boot Hill Cemetery sports an “authentic hangman’s tree.” Not to be outdone, Deadwood’s Days of ’76 celebration promises “miners, cowboys, Indians, cavalry, bars, dance halls and gambling dens.” The Wild West may be long gone, but its legend lives on in Tombstone, Arizona; Deadwood, South Dakota; and Dodge City, Kansas. In Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City, Kevin Britz and Roger L. Nichols conduct a tour of these iconic towns, revealing how over time they became repositories of western America’s defining myth. Beginning with the founding of the communities in the 1860s and 1870s, this book traces the circumstances, conversations, and clashes that shaped the settlements over the course of a century. Drawing extensively on literature, newspapers, magazines, municipal reports, political correspondence, and films and television, the authors show how Hollywood and popular novels, as well as major historical events such as the Great Depression and both world wars, shaped public memories of these three towns. Along the way, Britz and Nichols document the forces—from business interests to political struggles—that influenced dreams and decisions in Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City. After the so-called rowdy times of the open frontier had passed, town promoters tried to sell these towns by remaking their reputations as peaceful, law-abiding communities. Hard times made boosters think again, however, and they turned back to their communities’ rowdy pasts to sell the towns as exemplars of the western frontier. An exploration of the changing times that led these towns to be marketed as reflections of the Old West, Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City opens an illuminating new perspective on the crafting and marketing of America’s mythic self-image.
A definitive visitor’s guide to the beauty and tranquility of South Dakota, covering not only historical sites and tourist attractions, but also hiking, hunting, fishing and camping as well as other forms of outdoor exploration. The first and most comprehensive guide to South Dakota highlights the state’s natural beauty and includes coverage of its major historical sites and tourist attractions, from Mount Rushmore and Deadwood to the Black Hills. The guide is especially family-friendly, outlining free or inexpensive activities as well as little known treasures that were discovered through personal experience and research on the ground. As in all Explorer's Guides, this book includes up-to-date maps and handy icons that point out places of extra value, family- and pet-friendly establishments, those that provide wheelchair access, and even selective shopping and special events listings.
