After a wild night of wind which once again necessitated
bringing in the bedroom slide at 1:00 am, we had a wonderful 30 degree drop in
temperature. The highs were in the mid 70’s which was most welcome after
104 degrees two days ago.
We drove to Deadwood in mid-morning with stunning blue skies
and a pleasant breeze. The first stop was the Mount Moriah Cemetery which
is in a beautiful spot overlooking the little town. It is the final
resting place (not the original one) of the remains of Wild Bill Hickok and
Calamity Jane among many others. They were first buried in the original
cemetery which was on flatter land down in the town. As the town grew and
more land was needed for the living, it was decided that the cemetery should be
moved up hill to its present site. It’s a lovely location with a great
view of the town and surrounding area. All identifiable graves were moved up
the hill but not every grave had been marked. As late as 2012 new
construction was still uncovering graves, the occupants of which had to be
moved to Mount Moriah. There’s a section called “Potters Field” where the
unidentified remains have been buried.
The cemetery is built on a steep hillside. Many of the
plots are contained by concrete walls to make them level.
Wild Bill was murdered at age 39 by Jack McCall, being shot
in the back of the head while playing poker. McCall was at first deemed
innocent by a hastily convened court, but was later judged guilty by a regular
court and hanged. Hickok had quite a reputation as a lawman, gunfighter,
gambler and liar. The hand he was holding at the time was black aces and
eights. It has since become known as the “dead man’s hand.”
Bust of Wild Bill dedicated in 2002, commissioned by the
town of Deadwood.
Calamity Jane’s last wish was that she be buried next to
Wild Bill which implies more of a relationship between them than any evidence
proves. It was highly unlikely they were ever romantically involved, but
she did admire him greatly. She led a hard life, finally dying of acute
alcoholism at age 51.
Our next stop was sort of accidental. I had been
aiming for the Adams Museum but ended up at the Adams House Museum which
turned out to be a good thing. We’ve been in countless museums which we
hardly remember afterwards, but the Adams House was so interesting I am much
more likely to remember it. (Don’t know about Jim.)
The Adams House, one of Deadwood’s gems, has a fascinating
history. No photos are allowed inside because they would discourage
people from buying the books of pictures being sold in the gift shop. The
Queen Anne-style home was built in 1892 complete with modern 19th
century plumbing, electricity and telephone service. Its three lovely
fireplace mantels were all mail-ordered from Sears and Roebuck. When W.E.
Adams, the last owner of the house, died in 1934, his wife Mary closed the
house up as if to go on vacation. The beds were made, sheet music was on
the piano, books were in the library, china was in the pantry and prescription
medicines were in the bathroom. There were even cookies in the cookie
jar. (They’re still there…..the jar has never been opened.) Mary Adams
did not return to the house for 50 years. During that time it suffered
considerable water damage in two rooms from a leaking roof.
In 1992 the house was purchased by the Deadwood Historic
Preservation Committee. The house was in dire need of restoration. Much
of the financing needed for this $1.5M two-year project (1998-2000) came from
the Adams-Mastrovich Family Foundation which was set up by Mary Mastrovich Adams prior to
her death. When she inherited $40,000 from her late husband she
invested it in two start-up companies……Disney and IBM. She became a
multi-millionaire so it was fitting that her foundation should contribute to
restoring the beautiful house she had allowed to deteriorate so badly it was
very nearly bulldozed. It is estimated the original cost of building the
house in 1892 was between $8,000 and $10,000. It is worth millions today.
The first owner of the property was Harris Franklin who,
with his wife and son, went to Deadwood in 1877 hoping to become successful in
the gold rush. He did indeed make his fortune but it wasn’t with
gold. He sold liquor and tobacco to the gold miners which was a much more
reliable way of making a living and he became very wealthy. The house was a big
deal in Deadwood society and had many newspaper articles written about it which
were of great value when the restoration was done. The house passed out
of the Franklin family’s hands when Harris’s son sold it to William E. and
Alice Adams in 1920 for $8,500.
The Adams family endured more than its share of
tragedy. W.E. and Alice’s daughter Lucille died of typhoid at age 28 in
1912. Their younger daughter Helen married and moved to California.
When the first grandchild was on its way, Alice insisted she and W.E. go to
California to be with Helen. Alice was diagnosed with cancer before the
trip but insisted on going. Roads were so poor between Deadwood and
Pasadena that it took a month to make the trip. Alice died before the
baby was born. Helen became so distraught she went into premature labor
and died the next day. The baby lived only a few hours. In the
space of 48 hours Mr. Adams had lost his entire family. Two years later
he met and married a young widow from the neighboring mining town of Lead
(pronounced Leed, not Led). He was 73 and she was 29. They had
seven happy years together before he died at age 80. She remarried but it
was a very unhappy relationship. Her second husband left her for 30 years,
only to show up and sue her for back spousal support and divorce. She
counter-sued for desertion and divorce. She won but paid his attorney’s
fees because he was broke……a gold-digger who didn’t get any gold.
Our next, and final, stop was the Broken Boot Gold Mine,
also in Deadwood. It was a small mine which produced only 15,000 ounces
of gold in its 26 years of operation.
The entrance goes into the hill at the back of this
structure. It is not the original entrance which is so small it’s hard to
imagine having to squeeze in and out of it every day.
One of the side tunnels close to the way it would have
looked during mining days.
The miners worked by candlelight so could hardly see what
they were doing. In the earliest days they used a heavy hammer and chisel
to hand-drill holes in the walls in which they would place black powder,
usually being able to make only five holes per day. At the end of the day
they would light the fuses and run like mad to get out of the mine. The
next morning everything would have settled down and they could remove the loose
rock. Hand-drilling the holes took two men, one to hold the chisel and
the other to swing the hammer. The one holding the chisel would put his
thumb over the top so the hammer-swinger could see a glint of light from his
thumbnail. He had to be very careful to get his thumb out of the way in
time and probably didn’t always succeed. This was not a nice way to make
a living.
The plan for returning to the campground was to drive back
to I-90 via the Spearfish Scenic Byway which under normal conditions would have
been a gorgeous drive. However, there are four large wildfires burning
between Sundance, Wyoming, and Deadwood which covered everything with smoke by
about noon.
Just one picture from Spearfish Canyon to show how poor the
visibility was.
We made a loop through Sturgis just to see what it looks
like. A Camaro rally was going on so there were long lines of gorgeous
Camaros going through town. It’s a small town that makes the most of
being the site of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally since 1938. We’ve heard
from a number of locals that people either love it or hate it……there’s no
middle ground. In order to love it you’d really need to love gigantic
crowds and a whole lot of noise. We love motorcycles but bike week
wouldn’t be our thing.
When we got back to the campground (105 miles east of the
Sundance fires, 60 miles east of Spearfish) there were clouds of smoke
stretching even further to the east. The fires currently range from 250
to over 12,000 acres. The biggest is directly south of Devil’s Tower,
fortunately not close enough to reach the monument but the smoke will obscure
the view for anyone driving to it from the east (which is where most of the
visitors come from). We’re lucky we saw it earlier in the week.
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