James Butler Hickok arrived in Deadwood in July 1876, already famous for his career as a Union scout, lawman in Kansas cattle towns, and Wild West Show performer. He came seeking gold. Three weeks later, he was dead - shot from behind by Jack McCall while playing cards at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 10. McCall claimed Hickok had killed his brother (probably untrue); a miners' court acquitted him, but McCall was later retried in federal court, convicted, and hanged. Hickok was buried in Deadwood's Mount Moriah Cemetery. The cards he reportedly held - pairs of aces and eights - became the 'dead man's hand,' though the fifth card is disputed. The hand is bad luck; no poker player wants it.

Martha Jane Cannary, known as Calamity Jane, claimed to have been Hickok's lover, a Pony Express rider, an Army scout, and a participant in every significant event in the frontier West. Most of these claims were false or exaggerated. What's verifiable: she was in Deadwood in 1876, she was rough and hard-drinking, and she became famous for being famous. Her autobiography (1896) invented much of her legend. She returned to Deadwood in her final years, performing in traveling shows that traded on Western nostalgia. She died in 1903 and was buried next to Wild Bill at her own request - despite uncertain evidence they were ever close in life. Deadwood keeps them together in death.

The Black Hills gold rush brought 25,000 people to the region by 1877, though the Lakota treaty technically prohibited white settlement. The U.S. Army eventually gave up trying to enforce the treaty; a new agreement (coerced, the Lakota have never accepted it) opened the hills. Deadwood's gold was largely placer deposits - found in streams and gulches, easy to extract. When the placer gold ran out, larger operations took over. The Homestake Mine in nearby Lead (pronounced 'leed') became one of the largest gold mines in North America, operating until 2002. Deadwood itself declined as mining moved elsewhere, its Victorian buildings preserved by poverty and eventually protected by historic designation.

By the 1980s, Deadwood was dying - population under 2,000, buildings crumbling, the gold rush long past. South Dakota voters approved limited-stakes gambling in 1989, allowing casinos in Deadwood to fund historic preservation. The gamble worked. Gaming revenues poured into restoration; Victorian buildings were renovated; tourism returned. The casinos are everywhere now - nearly 80 gaming establishments in a town of 1,300 - and the historic preservation has been genuine. The trade-off is obvious: Deadwood survived by becoming a gambling town that happens to have history, not a historic town that happens to have gambling. The slot machines and blackjack tables saved the Victorian buildings.

Rapid City Regional Airport (RAP) is 45 miles east, serving the Black Hills region. Deadwood lies at the northern end of the Black Hills, with Spearfish Canyon to the north and Mount Rushmore 30 miles south. The town is walkable; Main Street runs along the gulch. The Adams Museum provides local history; Mount Moriah Cemetery offers self-guided tours to Wild Bill and Calamity Jane's graves. The Days of '76 rodeo celebrates frontier heritage each July. From altitude, Deadwood appears as a narrow town squeezed into a Black Hills gulch - Victorian buildings lining Main Street, casinos lit at night, the pine-covered hills rising on all sides - Wild Bill's final town, saved by gambling.