Wax version of the killing of Wild Bill Hickok.

Deadwood - Where Wild Bill Hickok Was Shot

Deadwood, South Dakota

Deadwood is more popular than ever, thanks to a successful HBO series that featured the 19th century Wild West town and its skanky yet colorful characters. Though the series was filmed in California, the outdoor set in Santa Clarita (Gorn Battle country) was inspired by historic photos of the original Deadwood. The real town of Deadwood, SD, even had plans to construct an Old West town facade partly inspired by HBO's Deadwood.

Whatever. We liked ol' Deadwood even before the TV hoopla, with its gritty museums, casinos, low key Chinese Opium Tunnel Tour, monuments and grave sites of Wild West legends. Nestled in the crook of an evergreen-forested gulch, the attractions run along a road or two through town.

The Ghosts of Deadwood Gulch Wax Museum operates in the Old Town Hall, and features a "progressive audio-visual presentation of great moments in Western History." A gray-bearded guy in a black cowboy hat, red vest and holster beseeches us to enter and learn the rich history of the town.

His name is "The Judge" (Judge Kuykendall), and he looks like a guy who might run things.

Some 50 wax figures depict 19 moments from when Dakota was a territory up to more current times. Each scene is dramatically lit, and accompanied by a recorded story with sound effects. Some scenes present the dull, daily activities of a frontier town -- the Saddle Shop, or Home and Family. Others capture more vibrant snapshots of Deadwood -- the discovery of gold, the Rowdy Dance Hall, and Preacher Smith, "Martyr to the Cause." (June 2005: The Wax Museum was reported closed.)

The most important event is the poker game in Saloon #10 on August 2, 1876, where the sniveling coward Jack McCall snuck up and shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back of the head. Hickok had arrived in Deadwood only a few weeks earlier, played a succession of card games, and never in his life sat with his back to the door. Until that day.

Judge Kuykendall is in a show performed every night during the summer (except Sundays) -- the Trial of Jack McCall. The show is free, and starts with a live gunfight on Main Street at 7:30 pm, then moves into the Masonic Temple for the trial.

Today, the bar called Old Style Saloon #10 is neither the original saloon where Hickok was done in, nor the original location. According to the Judge over at the wax museum, they don't even display the real Death Chair -- just one that resembles it. But it is a must-see -- a museum and tourist destination during the day, and a rowdy wet t-shirt party bar at night (though perhaps only during wet t-shirt season and the Sturgis rally).

Lots of real places and things in Deadwood are hard to come by, since most of the town was leveled in the great fire of 1879, or the medium fire of 1894, and 1948, and 1951, and 1954 (and whatever was left may have gone up in the great fire of 1987). The gulch's abundance of dry, fallen timber blessed the town with a name and cursed it with wicked combustibility....

In the absence of anything more authentic, we must visit the Death Chair. It sits in an alcove in a glass frame above Saloon #10's front door. The bar and tables are crowded with tourists. We grab beers and head for the back to watch a re-enactment of the fateful poker game. Tourist children have been enlisted to sit at the card table and play parts. Shots are fired, bad guys run from the table, kids giggle nervously.

Wild Bill slumps dead over and over, four times a day, all summer long.

Saloon #10 displays other items, such the Poker Dead Man's Hand, (8s and Aces), among the blackjack tables and slot machines. Above on one side is a two-headed calf labeled "Double Cheeseburger." Dummy heads of Wild Bill, Poker Alice and others are mounted over the bar.

The ghost of Seth Bullock haunts the Bullock Hotel, which he built in 1895. His apparition has been seen dozens of times by hotel guests and staff.

The Adams Memorial Museum is known locally as "Deadwood's Attic," built in 1930 by W. E. Adams. They exhibit Wild Bill Hickok's Boot Gun, Potato Creek Johnny's gold nugget, and other treasures.

Above the town on a ridge, tourists can visit the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane in Mt. Moriah Cemetery. Also buried here are Preacher Smith, Potato Creek Johnny, and Madame Dora DuFran.