If you’re one of those history junkies who’s all about dates, remember these two: November, 1875 and March, 2004. It was in 1875 the first gold flakes were found along Deadwood Creek, in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory.  A few months later, April 4th, 1876, four men found the source of the flakes — a gold outcropping upstream,  near what is now Lead (pronounced leed), South Dakota. This would become the famed Homestake mine — eventually purchased by George Hearst, the father of William Randolph Hearst. He paid $70,000 for the claim.

Over the next 125 years, thousands of gold-crazed individuals poured into the Black Hills — making Deadwood a household name, the place where Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down playing poker. Gamblers, gunslingers, prostitutes and the classic old west characters always made it enjoyable. Miners pulled billions of dollars in gold from the hard rock mines before The Homestake closed in 2001. The tourists still kept coming but a pessimist might have thought without the gold — folks would lose interest in Deadwood.  Then came March 21st, 2004. HBO launched the TV Series Deadwood. The town jumped into overdrive — and has never looked back.

The Fort Laramie Treaty had guaranteed the Black Hills to the Lakota Nation before the gold was discovered. But after the discovery, the US government seized The Black Hills, a mountain range in Western South Dakota and Eastern Wyoming, from the Sioux Nation, which had considered it to be sacred ground. As mining slowed, tourism took its place all over the Black Hills — From Mt. Rushmore, to Devil’s Tower and into Deadwood.

The entire region has become a tourist hotspot. Every summer, the invasion repeats. The first week of August, brings the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Started in 1938 by Pappy Hoel. More than half a million riders pour into the Black Hills, to the town of Sturgis — a short drive from Deadwood. The streets of Deadwood are packed with riders and their bikes. But year-round, there are things to do in Deadwood.

As of the 1980’s,  gambling is legal, and the bars are as colorful as ever.  At The Wild Bill Bar, you can see the spot where Wild Bill was killed. Using old photographs, they reconstructed the room three years after a fire burned down the original bar, Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon No. 10. Almost the entire town attended the funeral and his body was eventually moved to The Mount Moriah Cemetery,  where thousands visit his grave and the grave of Calamity Jane, who claimed she was once married to Hickok.

The old days of Deadwood are re-enacted every day. The group ‘Deadwood Alive’, stages several shootouts on Main Street. Each shootout is based on real events. They keep the legends of Wild Bill and several other historical characters alive.

Says Deadwood Alive Director Andy Mosher, “Deadwood is its own unique animal.” And about Hickok, he says “he may have been more famous than the president at that time, you know, and if he’d walked down Main Street, he’d kinda walk towards the middle of the street so that he could see both sides and nobody could suddenly jump out of a doorway.”

You can also learn a lot about the gold days. The Black Hills Mine Museum, in the town of Lead, tells the story of the early days of gold mining and the Homestake mine. Docent Lloyd Rich says  “one shaft is nearly a mile and a half deep, saying “when the miners went down to the 8,000 foot level, the temperature was 130 degrees.”

At The Broken Boot Gold Mine, you can actually walk through a 19th-century mine. Starting in 1878, they pulled about 15 thousand ounces of gold out of this mine. A quarter mile loop into the mountain shows you just what life was like for the miners, and you notice a lot of dramatic colors in the rock.

One of the more interesting spots to visit is Dahl’s Chainsaw Art, on Main Street. Here all sorts of creatures and people are carved using a chainsaw.

But then, all over the region, there are fascinating places to visit;  dramatic vistas and places to see all over the Black Hills that tell the story of Deadwood, and the Old West.