Welcome in deadwood Make a Deadwood information location your first stop when you get to town. The Deadwood Welcome Center (501 Main Street) features free parking, an indoor trolley waiting area, creek access and loads of great information to help plan your stay and activities. Additional information locations include the History and Information Center (historic train depot at 3 Siever Street) and the Information Wagon (seasonal, a historic chuckwagon that travels to various locations on Main Street). Once you’ve parked your car and have a plan, hop on a Deadwood Trolley. Rides only cost $1 per person, per ride and the trolleys’ loop routes mean you’ll rarely walk more than a couple blocks before reaching a boarding location. Trolleys run from morning into the night, picking up at each location throughout the day. Trolley operating hours and frequency change with the seasons. Trolleys can be tracked in real-time at TrackMyTrolley.com. © GILBERTSON PHOTOGRAPHY WWW.DEADWOOD.COM s 3 slot machines Slot machines are the most common casino game in Deadwood, but the games are as Get Lucky diverse as they are universal. Penny slots are the crowd favorite, with a multitude of in deadwood betting options that makes the game fun and low-cost. Progressive systems link the same machines throughout town creating an ever-growing jackpot amount. And many machines have the flexibility of being multi- denomination, so your desired bet changes with the click of a button. ask around you’ll find some single-deck games offered in Deadwood, such as Let It tables, which give the house a significantly Ride, Caribbean Stud, Ultimate Texas Hold- smaller advantage. Ask most any gaming em, 3-Card, 4-Card and more. If you’re professional and they’ll tell you blackjack unfamiliar with the game, stop in a casino offers the best odds in the house. that offers poker during a slower time of day; most dealers will be happy to help you poker learn the basics. And remember, all you A good poker game in Deadwood is always need is a chip and a chair. available, but you’ll have to search a little blackjack longer than you do for slots. A handful of roulette Blackjack, also called 21, is a game that’s casinos offer live poker games, and the play Roulette is one of three games new to easy to learn, making it the most popular at them is outstanding. The most popular Deadwood in 2015. Roulette can be found casino game in the world. You’ll find flavors are Texas Hold ‘em and Omaha, at the town’s larger gaming venues. Another blackjack at most of the medium-size and both community card games. Depending on easy game to learn, your roulette strategy can larger gaming venues in Deadwood. While times, games start with blinds as low as $2 be kept simple by betting on red or black, on Though many gold rush towns (after Atlantic City and the state most games use multiple decks, if you and $4. There’s a variety of additional table odds or evens, or up the potential winnings died almost as soon as they started, of Nevada) to allow legal gaming. by selecting particular numbers. Then, just In 1876, Deadwood was different. The nearby The card tables and slot machines sit back and watch the wheel do the work. thousands of mines went through booms and came out from the back rooms, and HISTORY NUGGETS prospectors craps busts, but the gold kept coming. the town boomed. Fueled by the Wild Bill Hickok Like blackjack, craps is one of the most descended upon Generations of miners toiled new tax revenue, the town began Although Wild Bill Hickok is its bars, brothels and gambling popular casino games in the world. You Deadwood underground, and when their shifts an ambitious historic preservation Deadwood’s most famous resident, houses. He was playing poker in can walk through about any casino and if he was in town less than a Nuttal & Mann’s (Saloon No. there’s crowd gathered, you can almost bet Gulch. The were over, they came to Deadwood effort that continues today. Gaming month before he was shot 10) when Jack McCall it’s around a craps table. Craps is played promise of saloons, brothels and gambling expanded again in 2015, when down by Jack McCall on walked in and shot Wild by one player, or a group of players betting August 2, 1876. Bill in the back of the against the house. Though the board and gold and a halls to unwind and relax. It didn’t roulette and craps joined the town’s head. Bill was holding The former gunfighter action can look intimidating, the game is two pair, Aces and better life matter that this was all mostly existing poker tables, blackjack and lawman was easy to learn and fun to play. Eights, which became famous long before inspired a flood illegal; Deadwood had always been games and slot machines. And in known as Dead Man’s Deadwood. He a town on the edge of the law, and 2021, sports wagering will be added Hand. sports wagering of fortune- arrived by wagon seekers into the the people who came for a good time to the lineup. Visit Deadwood.com/ train from Cheyenne Jack was first tried In November 2020, South Dakota voters didn’t mind bending a rule or two. casinos for more information. in the company of by a miner’s court in approved sports wagering in Deadwood. canyons and Charlie Utter and Deadwood and found At the time of publication, operators and peaks of the Calamity Jane. Despite not guilty. He was later officials are in the process of drafting Things changed in 1989. After more Not sure where to start? Here’s talk of prospecting for tried and executed in legislation to govern this new addition Lakota’s sacred than a century of gambling on the a quick primer on the kinds of gold, Wild Bill didn’t stray Yankton, the territorial to Deadwood’s games of chance. Sports Black Hills. down-low, Deadwood became the games you’ll find in Deadwood. from the Badlands, a section capital, and buried with the wagering will likely be available in the of Main Street known for noose still around his neck. Fall of 2021. For more information visit third place in the United States Deadwood.com/casinos or call 800-999-1876. 4 S 2021–2022 DEADWOOD VISITOR GUIDE WWW.DEADWOOD.COM s 5 are $10 for adults and $5 for children. The fully restored home is open April through October. Ask about special events such as Deadwood musical performances and history lectures HISTORY TIMELINE Learn About the during the summer on the lawn. 1874 Col. George Armstrong adams museum Custer’s expedition discovers gold on French Old West The oldest history museum in the Black Creek in the Hills, the Adams Museum at 54 Sherman Southern Hills. in deadwood Street originally had a Victorian cabinet- of-curiosities philosophy: collect anything 1875 A much that looks cool and put it in a glass case. richer gold deposit is discovered deadwood walking tour in Deadwood Pick up a free brochure for this self-guided Gulch. The town of Custer is tour at one of Deadwood’s visitor center, abandoned and miners stream north to stake claims. or at City Hall, 108 Sherman Street. Also, interpretive signs at important locations 1876 Deadwood becomes an will tell short stories from Deadwood’s official town, although rough past. Scan the QR codes with your around the edges. Wild Bill smartphone to see rare photographs Hickok is gunned down, and the and videos. Manuel brothers strike gold near present-day Lead. brothel tours 1877 Mining Deadwood’s last houses of prostitution The museum still has an eclectic collection, mogul George closed following a raid in 1980. But now, Hearst buys including a one-of-a-kind plesiosaur visitors are able to tour one of these former the Manuel bordellos at The Brothel, located at 610 fossil, Potato Creek Johnny’s massive gold brothers’ claim Main Street, and understand how the nugget, the mysterious Thoen Stone and a for $70,000 and world’s oldest profession shaped more than mining locomotive. However, the recently establishes the a century of Deadwood’s history. renovated museum features modern displays Homestake Deadwood was born in 1876, when a rush of gold that use artifacts to tell the important Mining Co. It would operate for miners and fortune seekers descended on the Northern stories of Deadwood’s past. Ask about 126 years and pull untold riches Black Hills in the hopes of making a better life for themselves. special programs and temporary exhibits. from beneath the Black Hills. Admission is a donation of $5 for adults and The town was practically lawless in those early years, and $2 for children. Open year-round. the men and women who first came to Deadwood were people of fortitude and strength - folks who didn’t mind a little struggle on the road to fame and fortune. These folks were responsible for a living history. You don’t have to pore True West Towns, as well as Best Old number of lasting legends. The dime over old records or listen to lectures to West Gunfighter Town, Best Town novel exploits of Wild Bill, Calamity know what Deadwood was like 140 years for Historic Entertainment and Best Jane, Deadwood Dick and other heroes ago — though you can. Just walk the Historic Cemetery of the West. historic adams house captivated turn-of-the-20th-century brick-paved streets, and you’ll immerse Built in 1892, the Queen Anne home at 22 America.