We did an overnight trip to Deadwood this weekend. I’m finally getting over my cold, with only a mild cough. But Danita is a full week behind me, so we’re still taking it easy.
Mt Roosevelt Friendship Tower (built by Teddy Roosevelt’s good friend Seth Bullock)
Deadwood and Lead were where most of the gold was found in the Black Hills. Deadwood is well known for being a rip-roaring mining town with characters including Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Preacher Smith, and Potato Creek Johnny. The town is filled with tourist traps, kitch, and such. The town has had many ups and downs over the years. They solved their most recent “down” by being the first town in SD to allow gambling. Today, most hotels and restaurants have casinos. (Or maybe the casinos have most of the hotels and restaurants?) Today, gambling exists throughout western SD, with small casinos everywhere — even gas station / convenience stores. Either way, it’s nice to see the town doing well. It’s also depressing to see a casino when entering almost any establishment, complete with a completely empty series of machines with flashing lights. Or even worse, one half-drunk working a slot. I suppose most gambling occurs at night. We wouldn’t know for sure.
Wild Bill Hickock’s Grave Marker
We spent some time looking for a restaurant in Deadwood. In desperation, we finally went to the visitor information center and asked if there were any restaurants that weren’t a casino, a hotel, or having live music. It turns out there is one — Harry’s Wild West Spaghetti. “Harry” is the person who started the local radio station and ran it for 35 years. He was Italian, and loved having friends over for spaghetti. His daughter and her husband used his recipe to start their restaurant. One gets a choice of 3 pastas, 3 sauces, and hamburger, sausage, or chicken. It was good spaghetti. We hadn’t found it for themselves because they didn’t have a web site. We had a delicious dinner. With their name, it was natural that they had “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” on a continuous loop, with the movie soundtrack as their background music. That inspired us to watch the movie on Amazon when we got back to the hotel. It turns out to be very long (almost 3 hours) and somewhat boring. Our hotel had a beautiful “infinity pool”. Danita enjoyed the pool, but she couldn’t swim because it was very popular with the kids.
Homestake Mine Locomotive – from the Baldwin Works in Philadelphia
Danita visited her second gold mine. This one was large enough that I was able to do most of the tour. (I left a few minutes early, when the passageway got a little too small and some of the kids a little to antsy.) Our last stop was in the town of Lead, where we saw the visitor center for the Sanford Research lab where Dr. Ray Davis found proof of Neutrinos, winning the Nobel Prize. The lab is still active today.
Cool Clock Works with Controls for a 16-bell tower