Deadwood

Deadwood began illegally, on land the U.S. government had promised to the Lakota only eight years earlier under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, when prospectors found gold in a gulch littered with dead trees in the spring of 1876 and named the camp for what they saw. The town incorporated on February 22, 1881, and grew so fast that its population is estimated to have hit roughly 25,000 within its first year before settling into the boom-and-bust rhythm of every mining town. Fewer than 1,400 people live here year-round now, and in 1961 the National Park Service designated the entire town a National Historic Landmark for its intact collection of late-19th-century frontier architecture, formally added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966 — one reason Main Street still looks like 1880 instead of a recreation of it.

Deadwood’s most famous single day came fast: on August 2, 1876, only months after the camp was founded, gambler and lawman Wild Bill Hickok was shot from behind while playing poker at Nuttal & Mann’s saloon on Main Street and died instantly. He was moved to Mount Moriah Cemetery in 1879, and the story of the hand he was holding — two pairs, black aces and eights, known ever since as the “dead man’s hand” — is one Deadwood still tells often, though which fifth card completed it is disputed among the people telling it. Calamity Jane, who had arrived in Deadwood that same year, is buried beside him; the plot was chosen by the men who organized her funeral in 1903, not by any documented wish of Hickok’s.

By the 1980s, Deadwood’s landmark Main Street was fading, and the fix voters landed on was unusual: legalize gambling again, but require it to pay for the history around it. South Dakota voters approved the constitutional amendment in 1988, and at high noon on November 1, 1989, limited-stakes blackjack, poker and slots reopened downtown — the third legal gaming market in the country after Nevada and Atlantic City, and, by the town’s own account, the first small community in the U.S. to seek gambling revenue specifically to maintain its historic buildings. The arrangement still runs on the same terms today: the city’s share of gaming tax revenue is earmarked by law for restoring the 1880s buildings the casinos sit inside, and in a recent fiscal year that came to just under $16 million.

Mount Moriah Cemetery sits on a hillside terrace above downtown, and it is the one stop that explains the whole town in a single walk. Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried a few feet apart partway up, Seth Bullock lies at the very summit facing the valley he once policed as sheriff, and the path between them passes headstones for miners, madams and entire families who never made the history books. It costs $2^*, cash only, and the top looks out over Deadwood Gulch.

*Fees subject to change, please check cityofdeadwood.com for updated information.

Deadwood Social Club sits atop Saloon No. 10, an Italian steakhouse built into the same building the Keehn family has run since buying the saloon in December 1963; the restaurant itself opened December 1, 1995 and leans farm-to-table.

Bully’s, the restaurant inside the 1894–95 Bullock Hotel, is named for Theodore Roosevelt as a nod to hotel builder Seth Bullock’s friendship with him.

2 breweries within 10 miles of Deadwood, one of them a brewpub with a kitchen.

Brewpub locations from Open Brewery DB (MIT)

No professional, minor-league or college team is based in Deadwood — the town’s year-round population is under 1,400, and the nearest pro sports are roughly an hour away in Rapid City. Come for the history and the tables, not a scoreboard.

5 more Highway Heads places lie within about 180 miles of Deadwood in a straight line — far enough that most are a night away rather than an afternoon.

• Rapid CitySouth Dakotaabout 30 mi
• WallSouth Dakotaabout 80 mi
• CasperWyomingabout 170 mi
• PierreSouth Dakotaabout 170 mi
• MedoraNorth Dakotaabout 180 mi

Budget a half day for Main Street and its museums, or a full day if you’re adding Mount Moriah Cemetery and a trip to Lead. Deadwood is not on I-90: the interstate passes several miles north and east of town, and US 85 leaves it at exit 17 toward Deadwood and Lead.

Best season is late May through September. Several of the marquee attractions, including Broken Boot Gold Mine and the Days of ’76 Museum’s extended hours, run on a seasonal schedule, and Deadwood sits at 4,715 feet with real winters.

Street parking downtown is metered — $2/hour^* on Lower Main and $1/hour^* on Upper Main — but the Sherman Street lot and the Welcome Center lot are both free, with hundreds of spaces between them.

Mount Moriah Cemetery is cash-only and closes to regular visitors outside its mid-May-to-mid-October season, so plan that stop for the warmer months.

One public campground within 25 miles of Deadwood, first-come rather than bookable. Public campgrounds run by federal agencies. State-park and private campgrounds are not included.

*Fees subject to change, please check cityofdeadwood.com for updated information.

Mount Moriah Cemetery

Address

1 Mount Moriah Drive, Deadwood, SD 57732

Hours

Mid-May–mid-October, 8 a.m.–8 p.m.; limited access in winter

Price

$2 per person, cash only^*

Link

cityofdeadwood.com/parksrec

*Fees subject to change, please check cityofdeadwood.com for updated information.

We checked fees and opening hours on 2026-09-22. These change without notice — confirm with cityofdeadwood.com, deadwoodhistory.com, storyofthebison.com, nps.gov and sanfordlab.org the week you travel.

Straight-line distance from Deadwood, not drive time.

• Rapid City Regional (RAP) — 40 miles
• Northeast Wyoming Regional (GCC) — 89 miles
• Chadron Municipal (CDR) — 111 miles