Wednesday August 2, 1876 began like most any other day. “Wild” Bill Hickok was gambling in one of Deadwood’s many saloons.
A drunken Jack McCall followed Hickok inside, walking to Hickok’s table. McCall pulled a pistol, shouting “Take that!”
Shootings were not infrequent. Deadwood was a place of wild outrageousness. McCall shot his victim in the back of the head.
Wild Bill had been holding a pair of eights and a pair of Aces, which has ever since been known as the “dead man’s hand.”
Before Deadwood, Wild Bill Hickok was considered the best gunman of his time. He served in the Union Army and appeared in his friend Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
For a brief period, Hickok was a lawman – until slaying his deputy. Getting along with people was a problem. Gun fights had a way of trailing him.
Wild Bill’s reputation as a gunfighter preceded him to Deadwood. Obsessed with gambling, but seldom sober, Hickok’s gambling skill was a site to behold. He was also repeatedly arrested in Deadwood for vagrancy.
Deadwood was known for permitting people to reinvent themselves. Black Hills gold brought prospectors along with an unruly crowd of lawlessness. Deadwood was prosperous and grungy; occupied with all types of unsavory types.
Another familiar name in Deadwood at the same time was gun slinger Calamity Jane whose real name was Martha Jane. Calamity Jane held romantic designs on Will Bill. Her dying request: “Bury me next to Wild Bill” and she was.
As a gentle breeze combed the pine boughs towering above the town of Deadwood, we visited the cemetery where Will Bill is buried. The cemetery is a popular tourist stop.
In town, visitors roam the streets browsing shops housed in historic Deadwood buildings. It’s a quirky town with a series of both abandoned and occupied buildings of old brick and weathered gray boards.
The American West overflows with legends like Wild Bill as well as mining towns like Deadwood – once bustling boom towns that today survive solely on folklore.
