"Bullock Hotel, Deadwood, South Dakota" (c) 2007

"Bullock Hotel, Deadwood, South Dakota" © 2007 Stu Jenks

            David Milch's HBO Series "Deadwood" is easily my favorite show to ever be on TV. I own all three seasons on DVD and just this last weekend I watched a few hours of Season Two while waiting for the windshield repairman to arrive. I think I drove through the town of Deadwood in 1982 but I can't be sure. I sort of remember Lead, its sister city, that just up the hill but not Deadwood.
            I wasn't completely blindsided to the changes in Deadwood. I'd checked out their town's website and it looked a bit touristy. But as Gregory Bateson once said, 'The map is not the territory,' nor is a website the place either.
            I drove up the road to Deadwood at sunset, Dylan playing in the CD changer, a big smile of my face. Wounded Knee had been very moving, saw some prairie dogs in the Badlands on the way, and finally, the skies had cleared and I was seeing sunshine for the first time all day. I was very excited.
I entered town and quickly saw that Deadwood was just Tombstone on Steroids. (Tombstone is a two-bit tourist trap an hour plus south of Tucson. It's got its cheesy gunfight, got its Chinese souvenirs, got it tourist bars disguised as dives.) Or like a Bisbee that did not die. (Bisbee, Arizona is a cooper mining town, south of Tombstone, that died in the 1920's, was reborn in the 1960's as a hippie artist enclave and is now trying for another Renaissance, another rebirth, that never seem to take.) Someone has sunk a shitload of money into Deadwood you could tell. There's gambling but I quickly found out that it's just chicken shit gambling: Video Poker and Slots. No table games. No craps. No roulette. Nothing real. At least Ely, Nevada had blackjack and craps in its old hotel. A new Holiday Inn had taken up a whole corner of old downtown, and the fake knickknacks were ubiquitous.
            I drove around the block and settled on staying at the Bullock Hotel, a recent reasonably authentic restoration of Seth's old place. Seems that it was a dive hotel until being gutted and overhauled 10 years ago. I got to admit, for $70, the room was quite nice. Thick red pile carpet that you don't see in the vast majority of hotels and motels. A comfy bed and a nice bath too.
            After I'd settled in I decide to go for a walk around town. After a quick recon of the faux Western bars on Main Street, I took a hike up the hill to see Bill Hickok and Jane Cannery's graves. It was a steep climb but it felt good. The sun had just set and it was getting dark fast. Little gingerbread houses lined my way up the hill. Looked that a cemetery visit cost real money during the day but not now. It was too dark to read the stones and I didn't have my flashlight with me and there was no Moon. Would love to have found Seth Bullock's or Sol Star's grave but I settled for Jane's and that was just fine. Whitetail Deer ate dinner among the stones. A family of four, Mom, Dad and two young kids walked by. Very quiet on top of that hill. I found Bill's and Jane's graves quickly, big sign announced where they were. Too much fuss, Bill would say but Jane would liked that Bill got all of that attention. Since I cuss a lot, I left a penny at Jane's grave. I walked down the hill another way, thinking I should turn in soon, for I have an early appointment at Bear Butte. That is the real reason I drove two days north, after all. Deadwood was just a bonus and a place to stay the night.
            I stopped at the bar in Bullock's, before turning in, and filled up on free Buffalo Wings and Diet Coke. A middle aged white couple behind me turned their noses up at the wings. I had about 10 of them. It was just that couple, the bartender and I, on that Sunday night. I tipped the barkeep a few bucks for the freebies. Just seemed like the right thing to do, this being Deadwood and all. I finished my Coke, then when upstairs, watched some TV and went to sleep. And for the first time since I left Tucson, I felt lonely.
            [Postscript: After Bear Butte on Monday, I drove back through Deadwood for two reasons: One, I promised Annie I get her a glass and Two, other than the Interstate, the only way back to Wyoming was pretty much through Deadwood. I did a bit more driving around the neighborhood and rediscovered Lead, South Dakota (pronounced Leed). Lead is just upstream of Deadwood, a couple three miles I suppose. But in between is George Hearst's Homestake Mine, the mining property that was primary to the storyline in Season Three of HBO's Deadwood. George Hearst was a bad man. A very bad man. The mine was the deepest mine in all of the United States, and it was very profitable for a very long time. It just closed for good in 2002. Lead isn't a tourist town, just a western mining community with workingmen's homes, the coffee shops I longed for down the hill, a real grocery and a church or two. Lead is the real thing. Deadwood today is simply an electrified fake, to entertain overweight white folk in Ford Expeditions and biker wannabees partying in Sturgis. Then again, the tradition lives on of, helping fools part with their money in Deadwood. Hookers are replaced with tight slots, and I bet the whiskey is just as watered down in 2007 as it was in 1877. For some reason, that makes me very happy.]

 

 

Comments

[shawn]

Next time you're around you should check out the Adam's Museum, and the Adam's House Museum. The Adam's House is an old mansion that was essentially boarded up for decades with all the antiques inside preserved and now it is like stepping back in time.