Historic Deadwood and Lead: Discover the most notorious Old West town of Deadwood and the mining town of Lead. Includes City Tour of Deadwood.

Homestake Mine Surface Tour: View the open cut and museum.

Mount Moriah Cemetery Tour : Visit the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane and other Old West characters.

Reenactment of Wild Bill Hickok shooting: at Saloon #10 and High Noon Shootout. (seasonal)

Tatanka Interpretive Centre: Walk the scenic grounds, with museum and hosted interpretative story of the Bison.

DEADWOOD CITY TOUR: You have probably seen the Hollywood version of Deadwood on HBO. As a series, how close does it come to the true life characters that put the rawboned territorial town on the map?

Quite aside from images of the Black Hills gold rush and the Sioux Indian wars, Deadwood is famed in the public's mind as the place where "Wild Bill" Hickok was murdered while playing poker in Saloon No.10, holding the "Deadman's Hand" of aces, eights, and the nine of diamonds. Hickok joined a flood of miners, shopkeepers, prostitutes, card players, bunco artists and outlaws, invading the raw and just-formed town of Deadwood in June of 1876.

By all accounts, his intent in coming to Deadwood was to separate prospectors and miners from their gold — not at the point of a gun, but at the poker tables with a winning hand and two pistols at hand for any sore losers in the bunch. Our City Tour passes many of the buildings that were erected after the fire of 1879, most of which are now thriving casinos. Image Wild Bill in one of these casinos today.

Deadwood in 1876

Reenactment of the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok: One of the first guns of the West, Hickok could shoot with a pistol in both hands. He carried his guns butt forward in his belt — an awkward position for others, but it worked well for him. Historians debate how good he really was as a marksman, but few cared to get shot at by Hickok — calm, deliberate and unflustered when taking aim.

Hickok had a couple of habits that served him well in the rowdy bars of the West. He'd pour his drinks with his left hand, letting his best gun hand at the ready. When gambling, Hickok wanted to sit with his back to a wall, eliminating the possibility that an enemy could simply walk up to his back and blow his head off.

Ironically, that's exactly what happened on August 2, 1876, during a card game in the No. 10 Saloon.

Hickok walked in and noticed a poker game was in progress, but the only empty seat at the table faced away from the saloon's doorway. Hickok failed to persuade others at the table to trade seats with him, and then decided to take the open seat.

It was a fatal mistake.

Wild Bill was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall. The reenactment is very real and exciting for all.

High Noon Shootout: Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Canary near Princeton, Missouri in 1852. She was married a number of times — her last husband was Clinton Burke. Noted for dressing, most of the time, in men's clothing and for wild behavior, Calamity Jane was also known by the early miners and settlers for a kind and generous nature. She died in Terry, an upper Hills mining camp, on August 1, 1903, and is buried, as was her request, "next to Wild Bill." No authentic record exists that she had an intimate relationship with Hickok.

Mt. Moriah Cemetery Tour: As many of the historical legends which creep into Americana, fiction and fact made up the story of Calamity Jane Dalton Canary Burke, known in the West simply as "Calamity Jane".

She was the lady bullwhacker whose language was so strong that brave men feared it more than her gun, which nearly always hit its mark. Today Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane rest in peace near each other in Mt. Moriah Cemetery.

Homestake Mine Surface tour of the Open Cut and Museum: Lead (pronounced leed) was famous for one thing, GOLD. The largest gold strike in the United States was in the Black Hills in 1875, when Gold was discovered on Whitewood Creek in what would become the wild west town of Deadwood. But where did all those shining placer nuggets come from?

Another gold strike that summer was near what is now Central City, but again, where did all that gold come from? Miners followed their lead and the Manuel Brothers discovered a quartz outcropping filled with gold in a mountain side in what is now present day Lead. That little outcropping would eventually become the deepest mine in the western hemisphere, the Homestake Gold Mine, whcih would later be part of the William Randolph Heart fortune that launched his newspaper empire.

Today the spot where the Manuel Brothers discovered their quartz outcropping is the site of the Open Cut, a hugh manmade hole in the ground that produced gold and silver for over 100 years. Today the Homestake Mine is the home of a Sanford Scientific Undergrouind Lab. On our tour we visit the Open Cut and the Museum with a tour of historic Lead itself.

Tatanka, the Story of the Bison: Created by Kevin Costner who owns a casino in Deadwood, and the beloved actor in the movie, Dances With Wolves, Tatanka evokes an era before the whiteman and the Indian Warms. Perched on a hilltop near Deadwood and overlooking moiuntain ridges, peaks and even the Great Plains, you will be awed by the magnificent displays at the museum and thirlled with the story of the Bison. Tatanka is the Sioux Indian word for the mighty beast that was their staple meat source. There is a beautiful walking trail at the site. Bring your camera.

 

LUNCH IS ON US: During our tour of the Northern Hills you will be treated to a wonderful buffet lunch at one of the numerous Deadwood Casinos. Great for the kids too, they are allowed.