Apr 5th, 2004 - The second most common question among visitors to Deadwood
(number one being “where are the bathrooms?”) is “where is old Deadwood?” Many
visitors are looking for the Deadwood portrayed in the new HBO series Deadwood,
old movies and illustrated in the history books. Deadwood is pictured as a
rough and tumble mining camp made up of one-and-two story wood and canvas
buildings, boardwalks and mud streets. The visitors are looking for the
buildings and characters that made Deadwood a distinctive early western frontier/mining
town.
The town that the visitor is searching for would have
disappeared through the normal course of development but in Deadwood this
evolution was hastened by the fire of 1879 that destroyed the commercial heart
of Deadwood. Deadwood was rebuilt as we see it today primarily of brick and
stone, with paved streets and other big city amenities. Since the start of
limited gaming, the city has led the way in the restoration of historic
buildings in both the downtown and residential areas. Since the existing
buildings are historic, there has been no need to remove them to return to some
earlier period of Deadwood history. The question by visitors, however, is
quite legitimate. “Where is old Deadwood?” and how can they discover what it
was like?
The Deadwood Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau will be providing a partial answer to the question this summer with a reconstruction of typical building facades from 1876. This is being done to provide visitors with an accurate
representation of what Deadwood would have looked like in 1876 when Seth
Bullock, Sol Star, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane walked the streets.
There are numerous photos that exist of historic Deadwood and many of
these were used to create the set that is used in the
Deadwood series.
The Chamber is proposing to build approximately 200 feet of building facades
that will be typical of historic Deadwood and will combine the most visible
features and details from historic photographs and the set of the television
series. This will provide a photo opportunity for visitors and allow them to
see what historic Deadwood would have looked like. There will be interpretive
information available at the site in the form of printed materials and live
interpretation. It is proposed that Deadwood Alive and its historic re-enactors will perform at the site on
a regular basis.
The Old Deadwood façade will be located on the north end of
the Bullock parking lot across the four-lane U.S. Highway 85 behind the Bullock and Celebrity Hotels. It will be visible from both the four-lane highway and from Main Street and will provide a magnificent photo opportunity for both residents and visitors. The site has not been occupied by historic buildings and involves no demolition of existing structures. It is a new and additional method of interpreting Deadwood’s history and will provide an opportunity to better tell the story of how Deadwood developed from lawless mining town to the economic and retail center of the northern Black Hills.
