A Nostalgic Town: The History of Deadwood

Introductions, Heat, And Beer

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Okay there.

SPEAKER_04 0:19

Hi. What were you just doing before that?

SPEAKER_03 0:23

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 0:24

Okay. Hi, I'm Bradley.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

I'm Kate.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

This is the History of Buffoons.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Welcome. To another History of Buffoons.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

How are you?

SPEAKER_04 0:33

I am well. How are you? I mean I'm warm, but I am well.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Yes, we have the fan going. So on high.

SPEAKER_04 0:39

I apologize. I'll do my best to edit as much of that sound sound out as possible. But oh my god, I would die otherwise. I would not make it to the end of the episode. So we need that. My apologies. We're back up at your house to record uh after a couple episodes at the pod left, I believe, right? Yep. Sounds right. Um so yeah. Um what do you got for us today?

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Ho.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Ho.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

So I'm about to go on vacation.

SPEAKER_04 1:10

Yeah, with your family.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

To South Dakota.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

Sure am.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

How would you say that in Scani? South Dakota?

SPEAKER_04 1:19

No, that that's fucking corn husker.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

No, it ain't.

SPEAKER_04 1:23

You do you want to know how I would say it in Scani?

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

South Dakota. Jesus fuck. South Dakota. However, it's funny that you you say that though. I'm pretty I know I told you this. I might have told it on the podcast. If I have, I apologize. Probably no one's heard it, but that's okay. I was working for our local furniture company at one point, and I was a mattress store manager, and this lady came in visiting some family, and she's from Oregon. And I know you have tried to correct me uh on Oregon before, but fuck all y'all. I'll say it the way I fucking want. It's Oregon. Not Oregon.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Oregon.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

I have those inside my body. Oregon's estate.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

We have Oregon's, not Oregon.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Okay. The way you said it was Oregon.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

So because I'm about to go on vacation to South Dakota, yeah. I and I there's a place that I want to visit. And that place is what this is going to be about. Is about the history of Deadwood.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Nice. Yeah.

unknown 2:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Have you seen the show Deadwood? I love that show. Oh my gosh. Fucking Timothy Oliphant, National Treasure. Ian McShane. Oh my god, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

Did you also know that uh what's her name? Trixie? Uh, she was um oh geez, which which one of the ERP wives in Tombstone?

SPEAKER_03 2:55

Was she?

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Yeah, anywho's.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Um I told my parents to watch it years ago, and they couldn't get past the profanity because there's a lot of profanity.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

Well, and in all fairness, they said that about our podcast too.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

There's a lot of profanity.

SPEAKER_04 3:15

I mean, um, am I fucking right? Anyways, all right, well, we'll get into Deadwood in a moment. We are going to try toplane Goliath Hazy Day Sue. We saw this um uh a little bit ago. I remember seeing this like, oh, we should try that one because I've never had this one before. So we got a six-pack to share. She's got one, I got five so far. We'll see if she gets another one. I don't guarantee it. Depends on how long how long we talk about Deadwood. But uh, here we go. Cheers.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Who cares? Oh, that's fucking good. What do you think of it? Because I know you're not a huge IPA person. I think I like it.

SPEAKER_04 3:58

Sound reminds me of the life commercial. I think Mikey likes it or whatever the fuck it is.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Yeah, I think it's good.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

You also have a backup shandy.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

I do have a shandy just in case. Okay,

Gold Rush On Lakota Treaty Land

SPEAKER_03 4:10

so by July of 1876, nearly one million dollars worth of gold back then had already been pulled from the creeks around a town that technically shouldn't exist. Correct. A million dollars worth of gold in 1876 was about 29 to 31 million dollars today.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Wow, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Yeah. So gold was selling for about $20 an ounce, which would be about $600 today. Jesus. At the time. And once word got out how much was being found in the Black Hills of South Dakota, yeah, people across the country started convincing themselves that they were going to be the lucky ones to become rich.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Yeah. It was, I mean, all the gold rush stuff, like whether it be California, South Dakota, whatever, Colorado, it doesn't matter. They're like, there's gold in them, they're hills. So and those people thought they were gonna be the lucky one to find their plot, and it's gonna be all right here.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

So the problem was that the town of Deadwood sat on Lakota land, yep, protected under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Right. Now, this was an agreement between the U.S. government and the Plains tribes, correct, including the Lakota Sioux Sioux, excuse me, Lakota Sioux that officially recognized a massive area of land, including the Black Hills, as Lakota territory.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Right, but the government's never done anything shady.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

So in exchange, the Lakota agreed to stop attacks on settlers and allow safer travel along certain routes. Okay. The treaty specifically prohibited white settlements inside the Black Hills unless approved by the Lakota themselves. Gotcha. And for a short time, the government attempted to honor, but then gold was discovered.

SPEAKER_04 6:15

And the and the government's like, we could use that. They don't use it. Let's us take it.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

So legally, white settlement wasn't supposed to happen here. Nope. There was no official government, no proper uh, excuse me, no properly organized town structure.

SPEAKER_04 6:32

Yeah, it was like lawlessness.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Yes, there was no court system, no sheriff, no authority.

SPEAKER_04 6:38

I don't know. Ian Michang's character, you who is based off a real person. Um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

He seemed to kind of Do you remember his name?

SPEAKER_04 6:47

I've been mulling it over in my brain. I'm trying to blame.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

I can give you his first name if you can try his last name.

SPEAKER_04 6:54

All right, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Al.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

Yep, yep, I have it. It's a tip of my tongue. Swergeon. Swergeon. Swearing. I love that Chinaman guy in that show. Swordin. Sorry. Swordgeon. Yeah. So he was so great.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

So the nearest railroad sat more than 200 miles away. It's in Sydney, Nebraska, which meant that every wagon, every tool, barrel of whiskey, mining supply, ounce of gold had to move in and out through rough country, which could be dangerous on a good day.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Definitely.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

So, and somehow, despite all of that, thousands of people crowded themselves into this narrow, muddy canyon. Yeah, because that's what I was saying.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

It was basically a canyon that ran.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

They called it a gulch. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

Yeah. Um, do you remember when my birthday is?

SPEAKER_03 7:54

September 25th.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

Yeah. Do you know what I did on my birthday, September 25th, 2017?

SPEAKER_03 8:04

No.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

I hung out in Deadwood.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Did you?

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

We'll be there for the beginning of my brother's 50th. He turns 15 on the 7th, and we're, I think they're leaving from Deadwood or from that area on the 6th.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

So are you actually gonna get to go spend some time in Deadwood?

SPEAKER_03 8:21

Oh, I'm gonna.

SPEAKER_04 8:22

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Because it's it's whether they want to go or not. I'm gonna make Nathan go with me.

SPEAKER_04 8:26

Obviously, it's a lot different from what we're talking about. For sure. But it's it's I thought it was a cool little town and yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

So it's only like 1300 people.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

Yeah, it's really not very big. Um, but I don't know. There's something about it. There's oh yeah, casinos and shit. So but I liked it, it was pretty neat.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

So historians still argue how many people were actually there because the town grew so fast and nobody really kept track. Some estimates place the population around 5,000, more uh while others pushed it closer to 25,000. Oh wow. Either way, buildings appeared almost overnight. Right. Entire sections of town seemed to materialize between sunrise and sunset as workers hammered together pine boards as quickly as possible. Yeah. Now that I got the beer going, I'm burping.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

By the end of 1876, Deadwood already had 170 businesses jammed into the gulch. That's crazy, right? So I did specify what a gulch was. It's a deep V-shaped valley or ravine carved out by erosion. It typically has steep walls and features a fast-flowing stream or a dry creek bed at the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

And um, it's used um commonly in um the English language and is often used interchangeably with the word ravine.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Yeah. So there were saloons and gambling halls and butcher shops and hotels and restaurants and brothels and blacksmiths and laundries and barbershops and theaters and supply stores, all charging prices that could cause physical pain.

SPEAKER_04 10:13

Yeah. Well, because you either cart it in, horse it in, whatever you want to do, which could be a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

Ask Alaskans and Hawaiians. All that shit is extra expensive because of how far it takes to ship all that crap.

SPEAKER_04 10:28

You've never been to Hawaii, is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 10:30

No, but I have Alaska.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

Right. I and I have not been to Alaska.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:34

Man, do you and I was I was in Hawaii 28 years ago, 29 years ago, whatever. How much a fucking happy meal or whatever, or just a uh extra value meal or whatever the fuck they were called back then cost there. I don't it was insane. Yeah, and everything had pineapple on it. Oh I don't like cooked pineapple, I like cold pineapple.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

So even a crude little two-room cabin could rent for $25 to $40 a month, which would be about $725 to $1,200 per month. Oh, that's actually pretty much it. No, that's pretty good. Yeah, unless my math is wrong, which is probably possible.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Because we actually had a comment. I don't remember if I told you this. I've I've been meaning to ask you about one of your like it was this and then it was this today.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

Oh, the inflation?

SPEAKER_04 11:24

Yeah, and they're like basically the math isn't mathing. Like, how'd she get to that? I'm like, I don't know, I'll have to ask her.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_04 11:31

So maybe it was a mistake, maybe it was you transposed a uh a decimal or something. Oh I I've been meaning to ask you about that. I keep forgetting. Because I even I even responded to the comments, I'm not sure, I'll have to ask her. Anyways. But yeah, either way.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

Yeah. So in one of the most sorry, just uh that's okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

And that we're buffoons.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

I mean take us with a grain of salt.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

Or if if if it was you a whole fucking block, but either way.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

I do like salt.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

So um one of one of the interesting things about Deadwood is the town somehow managed to establish establish establish three sawmills before it ever had any law enforcement.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

Uh that's not surprising to me.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

You don't think so?

SPEAKER_04 12:28

I watched this show. No, um, no, it's not surprising because again, this was like an unsanctioned town in in the Lakota territory, so you can't have official United States law here. Yeah. And it's just people like, yeah, I'm gonna build here. What are you gonna build with laws or fucking wood?

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

I actually started researching the history of Mount Rushmore. Oh, nice. Yeah, and I got bored.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

So I'm like, It's four heads on a mountain.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

Rerouting, rerouting.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

That was bad. I know. That was just awesome.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

Okay, so even the name Deadwood came from the landscape. So the gulch was filled with gray dead timber standing along the hillsides above Whitewood

A Boomtown Built Overnight

SPEAKER_03 13:20

Creek and Deadwood Creek, right? Which met down at the canyon floor.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

So prospectors discovered gold in those creek beds during the fall of 1875. And by the next spring, seven separate mining camps had sprung up almost simultaneously along the gulch.

SPEAKER_04 13:40

Oh, yeah. And they're probably laying claim to their their plots and whatever.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

So places with names like Montana City, Fountain City, South Deadwood, Ingleside, Cleveland, and Elizabethtown eventually all merged together into one boom town. Yeah. Squeezed, I keep bourboning, I'm sorry, squeezed tightly between steep forested hillsides with no room left to grow.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

Sure. So well, yeah, you're you're pretty landlocked in a gulch. I mean, you can only go so far to those walls, basically.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Yeah, before you start climbing mountains.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

But the main street itself barely served as even a road. In the early days, it was basically a muddy trail packed through with the brush. Right. Some sections were wide enough for wagons to move through comfortably, while others turned into like bottlenecks full of stuck horses, broken wheels, and probably a bunch of profanity. Fuck. Yeah. Somehow on that muddy strip of chaos, yeah, one of the most famous communities in American history, Frontier, Frontier history, assembled itself in a matter of months. Right. The people arriving in Deadwood weren't just random drifters blindly coming into the wilderness and being like, oh, hey, what's this? A lot of them were experienced boomtown veterans who had already chased either um earlier gold rushes through places like California, Nevada, Colorado, and Montana. So they understood exactly how these towns worked because they had watched other mining camps rise and collapse across the West before. Sure. So prospectors came searching for gold, but they were quickly followed by mer merchants and gamblers and cooks and blacksmiths and lawyers and prostitutes.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

All the things that you need for a town.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Yeah, no. Maybe not some prostitutes, but basically an entire ecosystem.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

Back then, I would imagine a prostitute, whether I mean it's is what it is, probably the word of the times. Well, it's the word of today, either. I just put it on the way here. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

They call them sex workers today.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Fuck off with all that politically correct shit. They're prostitutes. Um, but if you can imagine though, the the guy to girl ratio in a town like this is gonna be very high on the on the guy side. So why wouldn't prostitutes go to this town? They'd make a fucking killing on their back.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

So by the summer of 1876, miners had reportedly pulled nearly four million dollars. Jeez, approximately a hundred and twenty million today. We'll double check the math worth of gold out of Deadwood Gulch alone.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Well, and correct me if I'm wrong, but because of like what it was too, is that you used to start having wealthy investors like say, Hey, I want you to go. I bought this plot of land, go find me gold on it. Yeah, basically. But then also a lot of those people would come to keep an eye on shit. Yeah, which I totally understand because they're probably hiring some pretty shady characters at the time, you know.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

But so that kind of money attracted a lot more than prospectors. Yeah, it attracted ambitious people who realized that real fortune might not come from mining gold at all, but from selling things to the miners chasing after it.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

Right. No, it's huge.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

One printer hauled an entire printing press north from Denver after hearing rumors that the northern diggings were richer than expected. On June 8th, oh that's coming up.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

You're gonna be out there. It's right after your brother's birthday.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

On June 8th, 1876, the Black Hills Pioneer premiered, was first distributed. Yes, it was the first issue. Yeah, yeah. So Deadwood managed to establish a newspaper before a jail. Theater arrived almost immediately as well.

SPEAKER_04 17:59

Well, you are you not entertained? I mean, you have to entertain the people at night because you can only do so much. It's not like they have floodlights to turn on. Yeah. So they could work during the day and then like, well, shit, I'm gonna drink and watch a pay.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Yeah. So um that same suner summer, actor and theater manager Jack Langshree.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

Langshree?

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Langrish.

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Wow, that's way different.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Jack Langrish brought his acting company into Deadwood and opened the town's first theater. That's crazy. In the middle of this muddy, illegal boom town full of exhausted miners and gambling halls. Audience were watching productions of plays who that were also being performed in New York and London, often paying with for tickets with the gold dust scooped right out of the creek beds. Right. Then within a week of the theater opening,

Wild Bill Hickok Gets Shot

SPEAKER_03 18:55

Wild Bill Hick was murdered in the saloon next door.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

So I always forget the the hand he had, but it's called like the Oh, I got it. Oh, you do. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

I do.

SPEAKER_04 19:07

I'm trying to blanket what they call it. What is it called?

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Dead Man's Hand.

SPEAKER_04 19:11

Dead man's hand, that's it.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

So on August 2nd, 1876, Wild Bill Wild Bill Hickhawk sat down in a saloon for a poker game.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

Yeah, and his back was to the door.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

By that point, he was already one of the most famous men in America. Sure was. Dime novels and newspaper stories had turned him into a frontier legend. Although the real man underneath that reputation was a little bit more complicated. Complex, yeah. Wild Bill was getting older, his eyesight was failing, and years of violence was starting to weigh heavily on him. Sure. But his presence in Deadwood still carried enormous weight. And people would watch him enter a room, and sometimes like his reputation alone was enough to quiet quiet a saloon.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

So normally Wild Bill Hickcock, as you have said, um, he actually liked sitting with his back against the wall. I do too.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

And it's not because of him, but it's funny because I always associate with him.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Um, and this is where he could keep on an eye on the doors and the people coming in. And after years spent around gamblers and outlaws and violent men, it had become like second nature to him. So it was a kind of survival habit a person develops after spending too much time in dangerous rooms.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Right.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

But on that particular afternoon, the seat he wanted was already taken. Sure was. Another player reportedly refused to switch places with him, and rather than argue about it, Hickok sat down with his back to the door.

SPEAKER_04 20:44

I should have never done that.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

The decision would become one of the most famous details in Frontier history. Yep. A drifter named Jack McCall entered the saloon quietly sometime during the game.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

McCall had apparently lost money gambling to Hickok the night before. And according to several accounts, while Bill had actually offered him money for breakfast afterwards, Hickok may have intended it as a kind gesture, but McCall might have taken a slight, yeah. Yeah, as humiliation. Yeah. So whatever resentment had been building between the two men, it finally boiled over in the saloon. Yep. McCall walked up behind Hickok, pressed a revolver to the back of his head, shouted something, and fired, and wild Bill died instantly.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

It wasn't like six semper tyrannis or whatever, like like uh boondoc boondock saints. No, I'm talking about what John Wilkes Booth said.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Oh, I didn't know he said anything.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

I bet he said a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Probably. He could probably speak. We don't know.

SPEAKER_04 21:49

Was it Six Semper Tyra Tyrannis? Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Oh that sounds familiar. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:54

I think that's I think that's what he said. I could be getting it wrong, but what's it mean? I'm gonna kill. I have no fucking idea. It's Latin.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

So the killing immediately became legendary, partly because of who Hickok was, and partly because what he was supposed to have been holding while he died.

SPEAKER_04 22:11

With dead man's hand, yeah. Dead man's hand. It's got an ace in it, an eight in it. Fuck. Are those two right?

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

Oh, damn.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

And that's the only two that are right.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

What do you mean? All the other ones are wrong. It's aces and eights. Yeah, it's just aces and eights. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

That's right. Black aces and black eights.

SPEAKER_04 22:33

Yeah. The dead man's hand. So how many was it? Two aces and three eights or three three aces and two aces? Oh, so they weren't playing like five-five card. It was a different kind of poker.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

I guess so. Yeah. It was just black aces and black eights.

unknown 22:49

Right.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

Either way. Yeah. I knew it was an ace and an eight. I wasn't sure if there's other things, but yes, that's right. Okay. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

So what happened after the shooting may tell you a little bit more about Deadwood.

SPEAKER_04 23:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

At that point, Deadwood barely had a functioning legal system. Correct. There was no properly recognized town government.

SPEAKER_04 23:09

It was more or less run by the community.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yes. So the citizens basically improvised a murder trial on the spot.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Yeah. With certain people that were, I don't want to say running the town, but were killers. Yeah, you know, because you had some people. Um, because like Timothy Oliphant's character, he was based off a real person as well, was he not?

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Yes. Seth Bullock.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

Thank you. Jesus. And then his brother. Right, brother? They were brothers?

SPEAKER_03 23:43

No.

SPEAKER_04 23:43

No. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Soul.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

Saul Goodman. Goodman? Soul Star. Soul Star. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck. It's been a minute since I've watched this. I want to watch it again.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

I know it's so a good show.

SPEAKER_04 23:53

I fucking did you watch the movie too? The follow-up. They finally made the movie. I think I did. I love how people are so quick. It wasn't that great. It was fucking great. It was a nice kind of fucking ending to a show that unfortunately ended way too soon because it got expensive.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Oh, is that what?

SPEAKER_04 24:12

This is funny. Like it gets expensive, but yet we still have the dumb bitches on the view still on TV. It's like, why? I'd rather watch something entertaining. I'm not wrong. Fucking Joy Behar. Are you kidding me? What the fuck? Dumb bitches on the view. They have no view. It's a one-sided view at best.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 24:43

Okay, so all I view is old bitches on TV.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

So Langrish Theater, which had opened just days earlier, remember, was quickly turned into a courtroom.

SPEAKER_04 24:54

Damn. What?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Damn bitches on the view. That might be the title. I can't put the bitch in the title.

SPEAKER_04 25:07

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Oh, my cheeks hurt.

SPEAKER_04 25:13

Good. Because I'm doing my job.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

So town leaders gathered together a judge, assembled a jury, appointed attorneys, and attempted to create something resembling. Stop it.

SPEAKER_04 25:26

Something resembling a court or courtroom or whatever. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

That entire trial lasted a couple of hours.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

Which is amazing that it lasted that fucking long.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

McCall claimed that he had been avenging a brother supposedly killed by Hickok years earlier, although historians later found no convincing evidence that this brother even existed.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

It's a fucking tall tale.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Somehow, despite openly murdering one of America's most fair most famous men in front of witnesses, McCall was acquitted and told to leave town.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

Yeah, it's like, um, all right, just get out of here.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Yeah, like it's fine. It's fine.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

We we have 20 people that saw you shot him. We're just not sure. It's like what?

SPEAKER_03 26:14

We're not sure if they're telling the truth.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

No, they are. We know they are. We're just not sure what to do with you. So since we don't have a jail, just fucking leave.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:23

I mean, Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

So McCall eventually fled into Wyoming territory where he made a fatal mistake. Fatal mistake. He bragged publicly about killing Wild Bill Hickcock. And hello, federal authorities arrested him. Arguing that the original Deadwood trial had no lawful jurisdiction.

SPEAKER_04 26:45

It didn't. You know why? Because it wasn't actually a town under government law. Yes, exactly. You dumb fuck.

unknown 26:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:54

So McCall was tried, convicted, and hanged on March 1877.

SPEAKER_04 27:01

Good for him. Yeah. What a dumb fuck.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

Years later, when workers relocated Graves from the original cemetery, they reportedly discovered McCall's body still wearing the noose around his neck. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. That's a nice tie. And while Wild Bill's murder became one of the defining moments of the American West, the larger consequences mattered just as much historically.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

I mean, more or less, it's like, and I think this would have been before it, right? It's like the what do we want to call it? Is that considered Midwest? Is it still considered Midwest? Yeah. It's like the Midwest version of the okay corral, basically, which happened in Tombstone. You know that, right? Wait, what?

SPEAKER_03 27:50

No? Is the okay corral a this sounds like a carousel or something?

SPEAKER_04 27:55

It is. No, it's not. Horses go up and down.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

No, it's not. You don't I know your sarcasm sometimes. You all right, that's another time.

SPEAKER_04 28:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Okay. So the federal government's involvement after the killing helped accelerate the push for real law and formal authority inside Deadwood.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

So the town could no longer survive entirely on improvised justice

Seth Bullock And Real Authority

SPEAKER_03 28:25

and on its own. Yeah. So one of the men arriving in Deadwood during this exact period was Seth Bullock.

SPEAKER_04 28:36

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

So although, unlike the mythology that later surrounded him, Bullock did not originally come west planning to become a legendary frontier lawman.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

No, he he left that to just go do business. Yes. And start up shop, set up shops. That's what he intended to do. And he was one of those people taking advantage of all the fucking you need a shovel? I got you.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 29:00

$800. No, whatever. I don't see what it was.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

But so he so he arrived in Deadwood the day before Wild Bill was shot. Yeah. Yeah. Um, he came to sell hardware.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:13

Hardware start, that's what it was, more or less.

SPEAKER_03 29:15

Bullock had previously served as a sheriff in Montana, but by the time he rolled into Deadwood alongside his partner, Soul Star, he was focused on business, not law. Correct. So their wagon carried wagon. Wagon carried mining tools and cookware and nails and supplies and household goods because they needed the fundamentals in this boom town. Yeah. And miners chasing fortunes needed frying pans and boots and soap and chamber pots.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

Did the boots have the fur? Boots with the fur.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Deadwood, Deadwood, everybody needed everything. Well, so why not bring a business there to do that?

SPEAKER_04 30:01

No, I mean he saw an opportunity. Him and his partner Saul took it and he got forced into his previous occupation.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Yes. More or less. Because with the chaos of Wild Bill dying the day before he gets there. After he gets there, the day after he gets there. Say it one more time. He gets pushed almost immediately into law enforcement. Yeah. So people who knew him described him as physically imposing, serious, and intense enough to make people reconsider their decisions.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

If he looks anything like Timothy Oliphant, I agree. I love Timothy Oliphant. He's so great. He's so fucking funny too.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

He is. I mean, he was in one called Justified right after.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

Which I still have yet to ever watch.

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Nathan really liked it.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

I heard it was a great show. Um, and so on. But the uh was it Alien Earth, I think is the name of the show. I don't know what outlet it's on. I think that's the name of it. Anyways, I like Timothy Elephant. Plus, his last name is like Elephant, which is my favorite animal. Anyways.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

So at the same time Bullock and Starr were establishing their business, another enormously important figure entered the Black Hills, and I have not remembered this name.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

Calamity Jane.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

She was there. I know. We do talk about her briefly. That's fine. But I'm gonna speak about George Hurst. Oh, yeah. You know of George Hurst. I didn't recognize that name. So his son is William Randolph Hearst, who would later become a famous newspaper publisher. Correct. But this was George Hearst, who already was one of the most respected mining experts in the American West.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

He was a very wealthy man.

SPEAKER_03 32:15

So Hearst had built fortunes in silver and mining operations across multiple frontier territories, and he had developed a near legendary uh reputation for evaluating mining claims. Sure. When rumors started spreading about rich quartz deposits near the neighboring settlement of Leeds, which is right next door to Deadwood, Hearst sent representatives to investigate. What they discovered changed the hit the course of Deadwood, basically. Up until that point, much of the gold rush focused on placer mining, where individual prospectors used pans, sluices. Yep, got a good old sluice, and a basic hand tool to pull gold from streams and creek beds. Now I didn't know what a freaking sluice was or sluice box. Oh no? Simple mining devices used during gold rushes to separate gold from dirt, sand, and gravel.

SPEAKER_04 33:17

All the other sediment, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:19

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

Yeah. So that kind of mining created boom towns quickly because almost anybody with a shovel and determination can do this.

SPEAKER_04 33:26

Well, yeah, because you're basically, like you said, in the river, you're just literally digging up what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Sediment, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

Usually it's pretty loose because it's underwater. Yeah. You can you put it in the box, shake it, and you know, it has a little basically a an uh we'll call it a screen, I guess. I don't know a better word for it. It's probably got an official term. You shake it through and the shake. Shake a colander. Sure. Um the shit you don't want falls through, the shit you do stays. Cool. And obviously you pick through it and yeah. I got gold.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

Yeah, so placer gold uh mining rarely lasted forever.

SPEAKER_04 34:05

So well, it's very quick.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

Tedious.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

Well, not even that, it's just there's only so much you can dig up. That's fair.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

You know, and with as many people that are out there doing that. Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

So because obviously, even though it's underwater and gold is relatively heavy, the little flakes they stop flowing because this person's got this plot, right? And then this person downstream has this plot, it's not moving.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

So I mean, there there's just not much to it. Whereas, like in mining, you find the the veins and stuff in the in the rock, whatever. I keep hitting my fucking microphone. Uh, is is quite a bit different. So yeah, there's just only so much you can do with that type of yeah uh way of mining. And it's not even mining, really. Yeah, it's just digging. Prospecting? I don't know. Either way, I just like saying that word.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

So the real wealth hidden inside Black Hill sat deep underground in enormous hard rock ore deposits, right? And extracting that gold required massive industrial operations far beyond the abilities

Hearst And The Homestake Mine

SPEAKER_03 35:15

of an ordinary prospector. Correct.

SPEAKER_04 35:17

Yeah, you needed a full operation.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

And George Hearst recognized this immediately.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Oh, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

So he pushed what became the home stake mine, which is still there. And that mine would eventually grow into one of the richest and longest running gold mines in American history.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

So I'm trying to blank now on, of course, on this name.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

It is not still operating. No, of course. But it is still there. There's a museum there. Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna visit there.

SPEAKER_04 35:47

I'm gonna call it. There's uh what do they call it? Is it strip mining? Is that the right term?

SPEAKER_03 35:53

Oh, we talked about that with Centralia.

SPEAKER_04 35:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:57

Um they kind of like went in like a more or less uh yeah, a circular yeah, what whatever the fuck you call that.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

No, but they do that out in like Colorado because like obviously Colorado is riddled with mines, and you know how much I love Colorado. I go, I go there a lot. Um it's riddled with mines, however, there's still gold in those mountains, but it's so sad because they literally are shaving the mountain. It's like don't do that. Yeah, I get why it's more efficient, it's probably less money to do that than sending people down a fucking hole and shit. Yeah, totally it's safer, yeah, all that shit, but man, it's just depressing seeing them shave a mountain away. It's like it's like shaving your face, shaving a mountain, anyways.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

So over time, Home Stake Mine produce more than 40 million ounces of gold and operated continuously for well over a century.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

Oh, it lasted that long? Holy Christ! Yeah, wow. So did excuse me, did the Hearst family like and like descendants inherit that? Did he sell it? Did other people take it over?

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Uh, did not do that research.

SPEAKER_04 37:13

Can you do me a favor next week? Find out, yes, report back. Report back? That's great.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

Here on location, uh the home stake mine.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

I just want to let you know. I still don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

I'm still a buffoon.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

Oh, that's great. So are you guys staying like in the Black Hills?

SPEAKER_03 37:36

I have no idea where we're staying.

SPEAKER_04 37:37

Because you're you're you're you said your parents got you guys a cabin.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

I have no idea where we're staying.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

Do you know where you're going besides the state and near Deadwood?

SPEAKER_03 37:47

No. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_04 37:51

Dwayne and Lorraine, I'm sorry that this is yours. Oh rude. I met your parents, they seem way more in tune with life than you. Just kidding. I know.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

I know. That's good.

SPEAKER_04 38:08

That's right. Yep. Could you try and like are you gonna try and go to this little museum that they have for this? Okay, that'd be great. Yeah, take some pictures.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

We'll uh we'll put them up on something.

SPEAKER_03 38:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

Websites of sorts.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

One of the things.

SPEAKER_04 38:24

One of the things.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

So the earliest version of Deadwood had been built around independent prospectors chasing gold with their own little pans and shovels. But once industrial and mining companies entered the picture, the economy began shifting towards corporations, wage labor, large-scale operations that required serious money and infrastructure. Yep. So slowly the Black Hill started transforming from a chaotic gold rush into something stabilized and organized.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

Which is weird because they're not supposed to do that here.

SPEAKER_03 38:59

However, Deadwood still remained fairly chaotic for a little while.

SPEAKER_04 39:04

Well, Sergeant.

SPEAKER_03 39:05

The streets stayed overly crowded, muddy, open flames constantly threatened the tightly packed wooden buildings.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

Oh, because it was all fucking timber.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

All timber. And violence was common enough that newspapers would report shootings at an unsettling rate. Rate.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

Well, we lost another five today.

SPEAKER_03 39:28

Yeah. Fuck. And civilization kept appearing anyway.

SPEAKER_04 39:32

Well, yeah. I mean, that's that's you know it's a boom town. The great migration west, really. I mean, you had the the fucking people with the foresight to go right away, but things are still moving west. The you know, can only fit so many people on the east coast, and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. There they are.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

So no, it makes sense. So businesses still expanded rapidly, churches were now being established. Oh newspapers, oh my perps! Clutch my perks. Newspapers circulated gossip, political arguments happened daily, theater staged productions for audiences, and then in September of 1879, Deadwood experienced a disaster everyone should have seen coming.

SPEAKER_04 40:21

That's a hundred years before I was born to the month.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

The town caught fire, and now it really is Deadwood.

SPEAKER_04 40:29

Well, I mean, it wasn't a live wood, but it wasn't a live wood.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

More specifically, yes, how did the fire start? A coal oil lamp reportedly tipped over, tipped over inside a bakery during their early morning hours, not knowing who did it.

SPEAKER_04 40:53

It was the mouse.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Once

The 1879 Fire Levels Deadwood

SPEAKER_03 40:55

the flames started spreading, it would not stop.

SPEAKER_04 40:59

Yeah, ouch.

SPEAKER_03 41:00

So nearly every building in Deadwood had been built from dry pine lumber cut from surrounding black hills, which essentially meant the entire town functioned as one enormous wooden tinder box squeezed narrowly into a canyon.

SPEAKER_04 41:17

Gulch. Gulch ravine.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Pardon me.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

When the fire keep thinking of Shonash Ravine from Back to the Future 3. Anyways.

SPEAKER_03 41:28

Such a great film.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

I love the third one. A lot of people give a shit. I love the third one. I think the third one is way better than the second one. Nothing beats the first, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

Yes, but the sec the third one is fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 41:40

The second one's okay, but the I love the third one being in the old west and shit. I think that was fucking great. Yeah. Shit, they had fucking Z top in that movie. God damn, that was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

That's true. I remember that. Yeah. Okay, so when the fire reached a hardware store. Owned by Unknown.

unknown 41:57

I know.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Containing kegs of gunpowder. Explosion sent burning debris flying across the gulch, igniting rooftops.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

It's like the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don't need no water. Let the motherfucker burn. Burn, motherfucker. Burn. What is that? It's from a song or two. Who sings it? Uh, the one that I was referencing is Coal Chamber.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

You should let them sing it.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

I know, because I do not sing for shit, but at least I'm aware. You, however, have no fucking clue what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

No, I sound like Cher, okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

You sound like Cher's. Don't say too much. We gotta pay for the shit. I'm not paying Cher in our plastic surgery.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

More than 300 buildings burned.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

Out of how many?

SPEAKER_03 43:04

400. I don't fucking line. Don't do that shit. No. Thousands of people were left homeless, and the town was barely three years old. God damn, that's crazy. Because Deadwood is resilient. Boom town, Boom Town. Boontown. Boom town, they um rebuilt immediately.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

Well, yeah, and they had plenty of, like you said, the wood woods of the Black Hills. I mean, well, let's let's go get some more wood, guys. Yeah. We're gonna we got some mills already. Let's do this shit.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

So the rubber had barely cooled before construction crews rubble, rubble, rubble or rubber? Rubble had barely cooled before construction crews were already rebuilding streets and storefronts and hotels.

SPEAKER_04 43:51

Do they still use just the wood? I mean, that's what was available this time. Because remember when Chicago burned?

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:59

It was dumb fuck.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Um, many residents started using brick, stone, and more permanent materials because the fire had finally convinced people that Deadwood could no longer survive as a temporary frontier camp.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

No, we just need it to be a town now.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

So that rebuilding effort shaped the version of Deadwood that people can recognize today. Many of the brick buildings and Victorian facades lining Main Street actually date back to the reconstruction period after the fire.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

When the town collectively like and made it survive instead of disappear. Sure. But no one man who rebuilt bigger than almost anybody else was Mr. Al Swearingen.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

Sweargin.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

What are you looking up?

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Actually, something for you to do out there. Uh oh.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

Do we want to talk about it an hour after?

SPEAKER_04 44:58

I I was just I was trying to get it incognito a little bit, but you had to fucking call me out on this shit. You could have kept talking. I was listening. Do you want another one of these before I drink them all? Or are you good?

SPEAKER_03 45:10

I'll have shandy.

SPEAKER_04 45:11

Okay. Um, anyways, carry on with the fucking story, and I'll tell you about it at the end.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

Okay, so by the late 1870s, Swearingen had already established himself as one of the most powerful and feared men in Deadwood through his ownership of the Gem Theater. Although calling it a theater was only one part, yeah, because the gem was simultaneously a saloon, a gambling hall, a brothel, an entertainment venue, political meeting place, and criminal enterprise all rolled into one bridge.

SPEAKER_04 45:49

He did not uh discriminate in what he did. We'll just say that.

SPEAKER_03 45:53

So Swear Engine understood

Swearengen And The Gem’s Power

SPEAKER_03 45:55

understood Boomtown psychology perfectly. Yeah. Miners arrived exhausted, lonely, hopeful, drunk, and carrying gold dust, which meant almost every vice imaginable could become profitable.

SPEAKER_04 46:11

So you know I'm not a huge fan of Fleawood Mac.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 46:16

They have a song called Gold Dust Woman. I'm also not a huge fan of Hole. Do you know the band Hole? Kirk Cobain was married to the lead singer.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Cool.

unknown 46:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

I got another.

SPEAKER_04 46:29

Do you know who Kirk Cobain is? Are you fucking kidding me?

SPEAKER_03 46:33

He died.

SPEAKER_04 46:34

How? He was murdered.

SPEAKER_03 46:37

At 27.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

See?

SPEAKER_04 46:40

Who else died at 27?

SPEAKER_03 46:41

I fucking know who that is. Amy Winehouse.

SPEAKER_04 46:43

Fuck her. And Jimi Hendrix.

SPEAKER_03 46:46

That's right. Of the doors. I listen. Of the doors? No. Was he not from the doors? No, he's black. Oh, that's Jim Morrison. My bad. My bad. My bad.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

Jim, Jimi Hendrix, like one of the greatest guitar fucking players ever?

SPEAKER_03 47:03

He sure is.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

I don't even know what your stupidity fucking derailed me. Oh my god, where the fuck was I even going with this? Jesus Christ. Gold Dust Woman. That was a song. Anyways, fucking we are going off on tangents.

SPEAKER_03 47:18

Okay, let's reel it in.

SPEAKER_04 47:20

I'm fine. You're the one who doesn't know shit.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

While respectable businessmen tried building some version of civilized society in Deadwood, Swearing. That's my favorite band. Jesus. Swear engine built an empire around the exact opposite. And it made him enormously wealthy.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

Oh fuck, yeah. He did all the shady shit. I mean, that's where people went to is like, you need something done, I take care of you, but you you're gonna pay me. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. He was he was what's a good way to put him. He was like the mob, mazia, whatever you want to call it, of Deadwood.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:59

More or less, for lack of a better description. Um, but he like I I would assume gave you protection if you paid him, kind of shit. But you know, he got shit done that wasn't favorable for everybody, yeah, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

So the gem reportedly earned staggering amounts of money. Some estimates claimed the establishment brought in thousands of dollars a night through gambling, liquor sales, prostitution, and entertainment. Sex work. So if we're talking about just $1,000 in a single night in 1879, we're talking $33,000 today.

SPEAKER_04 48:43

We'll check the math.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

Is that not insane?

SPEAKER_04 48:47

$33,000 a day.

SPEAKER_03 48:51

If we're talking just a thousand dollars and reports say a couple, potentially.

SPEAKER_04 48:57

Right. So how much is thirty-three thousand dollars a day for a whole year? All right, wasn't part of my reasoning.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

So prize fights were staged inside cramped rings while singers and dancers and comedians and gamblers performed for crowds of miners eager to spend whatever money they had dug out of them hills.

SPEAKER_04 49:23

Well, it's funny because you know they go there, these people went there to get rich, right?

SPEAKER_03 49:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 49:29

However, not everything goes goes to plan. No, so it's like, well, I got some of this. I'm gonna have a good time today.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

I'm gonna I'm gonna drink some.

SPEAKER_04 49:39

I'm gonna have some cocktails. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 49:41

And it's funny because like I'm gonna have some cocktails and some trixie.

SPEAKER_04 49:46

Well, yeah, and that's what it that's what I was getting to. But it's it's also funny because it's like they go up and they just I'll take another shot of whiskey. And it's funny because they use like I I don't know if that's actual bullet bourbon bottles in that show, but it's not that's not where that came from. That's a different story, anyways. But I think they use those bottles in there. It's a show, anyways. Um but it's like they always pour shots because obviously it's not like ice was readily available, so they just had a shot.

SPEAKER_03 50:19

If you've seen a million ways to die in the west, people die from ice.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

Yes, they do, but it's like could you imagine me living in this time? I couldn't drink warm liquor, just can't do it. But it's not like they also had like kegerators for beer, you know. Yeah, do you know what a kegerator is?

SPEAKER_03 50:43

You gave me a keg, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:44

No, that's a keg. A kegerator is what a keg goes into.

SPEAKER_03 50:48

Into a fridge, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:53

You have so much to learn, young Padawan.

SPEAKER_03 50:56

The gem also had a dark reputation. Yes, correct. Women were often recruited from eastern cities, although through, or excuse me, through misleading advertisements, correct, promising respectable work, only to arrive in Deadwood, trapped in systems of debt, coercion, and prostitution. Correct. Violence inside the gym became common enough that many residents simply accepted it as a part of life, which is wild that you that you go all this way, a lot of them from probably New York or you know, big towns from the East Coast, and then they get there and they're like, I guess I'm a whore now. Yeah. So this is wild. Gunfights between drunken customers barely counted as unusual. Frontier newspapers, which were not known for moral outrage, occasionally hinted at how brutal the place could be.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 51:52

One paper described the gem as tastefully arranged. Tastefully arranged. Wow, okay. Optimistic. Yep. Then the fire of 1879 destroyed the gem.

SPEAKER_04 52:05

It did take it down.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

And Sweringen immediately rebuilt.

SPEAKER_04 52:09

Of course, because he's not gonna let his no his whore empire go to go to ashes. He's like a phoenix.

SPEAKER_03 52:17

Fire repeatedly destroyed sections of town, but the residents kept building larger, stronger, and more permanent each time. Good. Saloons reopened, businesses returned, and hotels expanded. Yeah. Yes. At the same time, another set of Deadwood was emerging. The town was becoming surprisingly modern. Electric lights appeared in Deadwood by the early 1880s. That's wild. Not long after the technology

Chinatown, Modernity, And Exclusion

SPEAKER_03 52:45

itself became commercially available elsewhere in the country.

SPEAKER_04 52:50

It's kind of crazy that they were like a I guess call it a front runner for electricity in town. That's that's that's wild.

SPEAKER_03 52:59

A telephone, excuse me. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

We are also uh podcast for reasons why you shouldn't drink.

SPEAKER_03 53:10

So telephone, nope, telegraph lines. Oi, hoy, telegraph lines linked Deadwood to the outside world. Yep. And this and people often picture it as permanently frozen in like some rough and tumble cowboy version of the frontier. Not at all, but the town evolved so fast. So the people living there actively wanted wanted modernity. Modernity.

SPEAKER_04 53:48

Modernity?

SPEAKER_03 53:49

Modernity.

SPEAKER_04 53:50

Is that a word? Well trying to say modern. They wanted to modernize the town.

SPEAKER_03 53:57

But it's like modernity.

SPEAKER_04 53:59

Where did you come up with this word? My brain? No, you didn't.

SPEAKER_03 54:03

They wanted railroads and theaters and businesses and infrastructure. They wanted Deadwood to matter. Yeah. The town also became far more diverse than any many modern depictions of the Wild West, such as Chinese immigrants. Yeah. They established a major community in Deadwood, operating laundries and restaurants and grocery stores. At one point, I have to cough again. Excuse me. At one point, Deadwood's Chinatown became one of the largest Chinese communities anywhere east of San Francisco.

SPEAKER_04 54:42

Isn't that fucking wild?

SPEAKER_03 54:44

It's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 54:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 54:46

One businessman, Wing Tzu.

SPEAKER_04 54:49

Wing Tzu. Is that the one who always called him Spurgeon?

SPEAKER_03 54:52

I don't know. It's probably not, but reportedly arrived in Deadwood working as a cook before selling mining claims, and he eventually opened a successful mercantile business importing silk, um, porcelain, tea, herbs, and other goods in the Black Hills.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

His children attended local public schools, and members of the Chinese community participated in civic events alongside other residents of the town. At the same time, discrimination and exclusion remained constant realities.

SPEAKER_04 55:26

Well, I mean, we are talking about the wild west, not the politically correct West.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

So the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 gradually devastated many Chinese communities across the American West. And over time, Deadwood's Chinatown slowly declined despite the enormous amount of Chinese residents. Right. It banned most Chinese laborers from entering the country and made it extremely difficult for Chinese immigrants already living in America to become citizens.

SPEAKER_04 56:03

Yeah, isn't that crazy how that worked? Yes. Yeah. And now China just wants to kill everybody.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

And although through all this growth, one factor remained, Deadwood was still incredibly isolated.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

Well, yeah. I mean, look where it is.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

Before railroads finally reached the Black Hills, nearly everything entering or leaving leaving town traveled by stagecoach or freight wagon. Yes, across dangerous uh routes stretching hundreds of miles. Yeah. Gold shipments leaving the hills became prime robbery targets, which meant armed guards often accompanied treasure coaches.

SPEAKER_04 56:46

Oh, yes. That was a huge business because you would be, I mean, they would send a lot of the gold they would get back east because a lot of investors out east were funding this, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

So yeah, they they security became a huge, huge fucking business. You literally have people with shotguns sitting on your fucking stagecoach, like yeah, back the fuck off, dude, or I'm gonna shoot you.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:12

Kind of shit, or just they'll shoot and blast you later.

SPEAKER_03 57:17

Some of these guards developed reputations almost as imit as intimidating as the outlaws. Yeah, the famous Deadwood stage eventually became legendary across the country. I have not heard of the Deadwood Stage.

SPEAKER_04 57:32

I want to say I have only because I've been there.

SPEAKER_03 57:36

It was a famous stagecoach line that carried passengers, mail, gold, and supplies between Deadwood and the nearest railroad connections during the Black Hills gold rush.

SPEAKER_04 57:48

Maybe I haven't. It sounds familiar, but I I don't recall.

SPEAKER_03 57:53

So this isolation shaped the culture of the town.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

Traveling theater companies rotated through regularly because entertainment options remained limited, and goods arriving from eastern cities could take weeks or months to reach the Black Hills.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

Every object inside Deadwood carried value because replacing anything required time, expensive as fuck, money, and patience. Then finally in 1890, the railroad arrived. And in a lot of ways, that marked the true end of frontier Deadwood.

SPEAKER_04 58:32

Correct. It was now being modernized. Yes. Deadwood. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:37

The railroad connected the Black Hills directly to national markets, industrial supply chains, immigration routes, and transportation networks across the country. Right. Suddenly goods became easier to move, travel became faster. The sense of isolation

Railroad Arrival Ends The Frontier

SPEAKER_03 58:56

in Deadwood was finally starting to disappear. The wild boom town was becoming a permanent American city.

SPEAKER_04 59:06

Yeah, it wasn't so much a I guess keep going back to the Wild West. It was more, it was becoming more structured.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:14

Yes. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

As Deadwood moved into the late 19th and earliest, early 20th centuries, the town transformed from a rough frontier mining camp into more polished and ambitious. The same settlement that once established, nope, once consisted of uh muddy streets, gambling halls, um, you know, now developed paved roads and libraries and operas and electric lighting. Um, one of the clearest symbols of that transformation came from the same man who had originally arrived in Deadwood selling hardware on a wagon. Hell yeah. Seth Bullock. Yep. Another destructive fire swept through part of the business district, burning um the another destructive fire swept through part of the business district during the 1890s. Yes, and Bullock decided not to simply rebuild his hardware store. Instead, him and Soul Star built the Bullock Hotel.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:30

Oh okay. I I guess I don't know if I knew that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

And that is still standing. Nice, maybe not in its entirety, yeah, but something of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:38

Yeah, yeah. I I I don't recall everything I saw when I was there. It was also almost nine years ago. I've had a few beers since then. So I really enjoyed going there though, and that was like uh so the whole trip. This is when Sarah and I got married. We got married out in Nassau's Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, um in Colorado, stayed there for a week, and then she and I obviously this is pre-kids. We we went to um we went to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. We went to uh Deadwood, we stayed there, we went to um the Black Hills, stayed in this cool cabin there. Um we stayed at Custer State National Park, which was fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

We're gonna go there.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:33

Are you? Lots of buffalo ice and whatever. Um and that's what I have to tell you about. This is very close to Deadwood. So I want you to go. I think you should check this out. I think you would like this. And it's from we'll get into it. Um but it was it was really cool just to kind of like be there. I don't know. I've watched his show and I I love that show, and I really want to watch that show now. I just want to it's so good. I've rewatched it multiple multiple times, but I don't know. Anyways.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:09

So the Bullock Hotel was designed to impress people. Fuck yeah. Built from sandstone hauled out by nearby cannons. Nope, canyons.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

The what the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

We're gonna give him a second.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:39

Nearby canons?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:41

Canyons.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:42

That's a very specific why you need that.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:46

So the hotel featured red velvet carpet, yeah, it did, brass chandeliers, oak woodwork, steam heat, elegant dining rooms, and private guest rooms furnished with furnished with brass beds and dressers. And for people who still remembered Deadwood with tents and mud and creek water, this was probably really surreal for them.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

Super luxurious, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

So within roughly 20 years, Deadwood had gone from open gunfights and collapsing cabins to luxury accommodations. Sure. And the count the town kept modernizing. Yeah. The Franklin Hotel opened in the early 1900s with electric lights, elevators, telephones, barbershops, and formal dining areas. Brick buildings lined Main Street with electric lamps that lit the road at night. Theaters hosted traveling performers, libraries opened, the government buildings rose above old boom town architecture. And by the early 20th century, Deadwood no longer looked like a temporary mining camp. It was a town, it was a full-on town. Yes. But beneath the growth, Deadwood still depended heavily on gold. Oh, and over time that dependence became a problem.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:10

Well, yeah, and that's why, like you said, what'd you say, 20, 25? It wasn't thousand, it was 2,500 people. What was the number of people at one point?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:21

Um reported. Up to 25,000.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:24

25,000. And you said, what's the town population now? 1,300?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:28

Yeah. That's how most mining towns, boom town, whatever the hell you want to call it, mining town, they pop up. There's, I mean, there's so many in Colorado. Georgetown, super small fucking place. The only reason why you know of Georgetown, Colorado, is because once they had gold.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:49

Now there's some shit left over, more or less. They got a cool fucking railroad, right? It's awesome. Anyways, but like Deadwood, Georgetown, Breckenridge, even whatever, they're all created because they were mining towns, yeah, more or less. And they're once the shit goes, ain't gonna sustain what it was. Yeah, so people move on.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:17

Or or it starts dwindling because less people are coming, whatever it might be. Yeah, yeah. Anyways.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:24

So the home stake mine remained incredibly successful for decades, employing thousands of workers and producing enormous amounts of gold. But Deadwood itself increasingly became more of a supply, entertainment, and commercial center rather than the true source of mining wealth. So that economic power sat mostly in the neighboring town of Leeds, where home stake industrial mining operations dominated the region. Deadwood benefited from the mine's success, but it never Controlled it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:00

No, because it wasn't part of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:03

At the same time, the world around Deadwood kept changing. Railroads connected the Black Hills to the rest of the country, industries modernized, and the roughest aspects of frontier life slowly faded away. Prohibition arrived in the early 20th century. Worst thing ever. Deadwood often treated prohibition laws as more of a polite recommendation.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

Not a gotta do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:29

Yep. Gambling and prostitution continued operating quietly through rat backrooms and unofficial arrangements. Even so the town's population declined.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:40

Mining became industrialized and required fewer workers. Younger generations moved elsewhere searching for different opportunities, while tourism slowly began replacing mining as one of the town's

Gambling Returns And Tourism Takes Over

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

major economic drivers.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:57

Especially after nearby attractions like Mount Rushmore, which was carved between 1927 and 1941, brought travelers into the Black Hills during the 20th century. Right. And slowly Deadwood realized its greatest resource was no longer gold, it was history. Correct. Yep. The town itself has be has become valuable because people remained fascinated by the mythology.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:24

That's why I went there.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:25

Same. That's why I want to go there.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:26

I knew about Deadwood and its history and so on. Obviously, I didn't go there thinking I'm gonna destroy your wish. Obviously not. I was there nine fucking years ago. I wanted to go there because it's fucking Deadwood. Look at the history, Hickok getting killed and all this lawlessness and smergeon and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. I think, and that's also one of the things why I love doing this with you is the history of it. You wanna you want you gotta keep the history of it? It was there for a reason. It's still there because of that reason. It might not be once what it once was, but it's what is nothing, yeah. Really everything evolves, correct, or goes away. Yeah, and if something like that that was born out of this holy shit, again, there's gold in them their hills, and it's still around, that's fucking amazing. Yeah, you think about it. Look how many cities over the course of civilization, whether you know, especially like in Greece and so on, that are just fucking decimated loss to time. But you know, we our country is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, it hasn't been around that long, so take that with a grain of salt in terms of timing, but it's like that's part of our upbringing, right? It's part of our growth as a country, and I don't know, it's fucking cool. It is cool. I like old shit like that. I would love to be able to get into a fucking time machine and go strolling down the fucking muddy streets of Deadwood, but preferably come back and take a shower. But either way, whatever. You know what I mean? It's it's the history. This is why we do what we do, because you and I enjoy history. It's just fun to learn about this shit because it's like it's fucking wild.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:28

So, anyways.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:30

So by the middle of the 20th century, many historic buildings had fallen into decline.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:35

Disarray.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:37

In eight 1987, another major fire destroyed several historic structures downtown.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:45

But strangely, that disaster helped save Deadwood. How local leaders pushed aggressively to legalize gambling again.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:55

Arguing that like I said, when I was there gambling, arguing that casino revenue could help fund historic preservation and revive the local economy. Sure. In 1989, South Dakota voters approved legalized gaming in Deadwood, making it one of the few legal gambling destinations in the country at the time. Right, yeah. Suddenly, the very thing that helped build Deadwood in the first place returned again.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:24

We're back, baby.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

Historic buildings were restored and hotels reopened and tourism exploded. Casinos moved into renovated Victorian uh structures lining Main Street. Yeah. And millions of visitors begin arriving every year, drawn by the mix of authentic frontier history and modern entertainment.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:46

You don't want to go there with this shiny new fucking building. You want to go see something old.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

Old, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:54

But you want some modern amenities.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:56

Yeah, yes. 100%.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:58

Right?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:00

I'll stay in this tent, but is there electricity?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:03

I'll stay in this tent. Is there a roof over my head? Yeah, uh kitchen and a kitchenette and a fucking bathroom.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:09

Bathroom.

Tatanka Museum Tip And Farewell

SPEAKER_04 1:11:10

Cool. Why is there a tent in my room?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:12

So Deadwood's population today sits around 1,300 people, tiny fractions of the numbers that it once was. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:21

But it's not a boom town no more. It's a nostalgic town.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:24

It is a nostalgic town. So I like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:29

There's obviously a lot of history to it, as we just covered. And it's it's not so much, it's there's the nostalgia of it. It's like this is this is what America was at this time, and this has persevered to our time. And yes, does it look different? Obviously, of course it does. It's that's fucking 140 years ago. Yeah, we're talking about. So things are gonna change, and like you said, fires burnt down these buildings like three times, three, three or four times, whatever the fuck it was, and now they're rebuilding with brick and so on. So it's not gonna look like it was, yeah. And you don't have fucking muddy fucking roads through the gulch or the ravine or whatever. You have roads that are paved and so on. They probably got potholes because you know America, but it's like it's the nostalgia of what was, and it was the history again, which is what we do here. So hopefully somebody enjoyed this more than me and you because I really enjoyed this one. Because I uh I know of Deadwood, I've been there. That was a destination intentional on our honeymoon, yeah, for Sarah and I, and it was fucking great. So, are you done with your story? I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:49

I have just a little bit left. Um, nearly two million visitors pass through the town annually, sure, walking streets that look similar to the rebuilt Deadwoods of the 1880s. Yeah, Deadwood began as an illegal settlement built on disputed land during a gold rush that should have collapsed under the weight of violence, fire, disease, greed, mud, and logistical insanity, but it persevered. Yep. It survived gunfights, floods, economic collapse, mining decline, prohibition, fires and changing centuries. It reinvented itself repeatedly while somehow holding on to the mythology that made it famous in the first place. The creek still runs beneath the streets, brick buildings still rise above the gulch. Yep. And the town that was once grown out of dead, sorry, once grew out of dead trees, gold fever, and somehow became a long-term poor planing opportunity into something permanent.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:01

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:03

That is the history of Deadwood, and I can't wait to see it in person in a few days.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:08

I am so excited you get to go see it. Because I, like I said, obviously, I've been there. Knowing you like I do, I know you're gonna enjoy it. However, there is just outside of Deadwood, maybe it's even included included in the township, whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:29

There's a there's a little museum called Tatanka, Story of the Bison.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

Oh no, it is now I'm looking at it. It's open daily for this 2026 season. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Last admission at 4 30. Don't go there at 4 30.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:47

Got it.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:48

Or after. Do you know whose museum this is?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:53

I don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:53

Kevin Costner's.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:55

No shit. Because of fucking I just rewatched Bodyguard like two nights ago.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

That's weird. Dances with Wolves? You've seen it?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:06

Yes, I've seen. No, I've not seen it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:09

You have never seen I don't think so. What?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:12

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:14

We gotta end this podcast. We're gonna watch a movie. You've you've never yeah, I don't think so. You've never seen dances with wolves? I don't think so. What the fuck is wrong with you? Oh, you uncultured swine. You said it. I agree with it, but you said it. Um, so there it's I I wanna say it's just outside like we went to this and then went into Deadwood. Okay kind of thing. Okay. Um I I'll tell you more about it later. I don't know how much tickets are, but um yeah, it's it's on 100 Tatanka Drive, Deadwood, South Dakota. So it's in Deadwood. Um, you're only 12 bucks.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:58

12 bucks.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:00

24. Nathan will pay. Um, I I think it it's it's cool. They got some cool old shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:08

I mean, he's he did a very good job, but it's it's funded and started by Kevin Costner. Very cool. So it's very cool. They obviously have some um I think it was some like a video playing some footage of his movie, whatever, blah blah blah. But it it's it's really neat, and it was something that we didn't expect to do, but it was very cool that we did it kind of thing. So thank you. But yeah, so it's called Tatanka Story of the Bison, Kevin Costner, also a national treasure. He is a national treasure, not sure about Waterworld, but whatever. I mean, tweet your own. Um, he is a great actor and director, but yeah, I think you guys should go check that out. If you if you're going to Deadwood, it's not that far. You if you have time, I think you should check that out too. But go see Deadwood first because that's what I would do. Yeah, we had enough time. We checked out both, but it was it was really neat, and that whole area is so underrated. People give the Dakotas, we'll lump them together right now, so much shit. Like, I've never been to North Dakota, I've not either cannot speak on that. South Dakota has some awesome fucking areas, and it's mainly around the Black Hills. Yes, there's a long stretch of South Dakota that sucks fucking balls. And for the love of God, please, will you promise me don't go to Waldrug.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:37

You're going, aren't you? Well, I want to now.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:42

Well, I suppose. Alright, buffoons, that's it for today's episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:48

Buckle up because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you next time. Feeling hungry for more buffoonery? Or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:00

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SPEAKER_03 1:18:14

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SPEAKER_04 1:18:19

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SPEAKER_03 1:18:22

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