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Before the tour buses rolled in and before the town was fully awake, we were walking the streets of Deadwood, SD, admiring its restored appearance:
In the late 1800’s this gold rush boomtown was a haven for gunfighters and gamblers. The gunfighters and miners may be gone but the town still thrives on income from gambling --- there seemed to be slot machines in nearly every store we walked by. Parking meters must also contribute mightily to the town’s coffers for there is no Free Parking on the street anywhere. If you wish to visit Boot Hill Cemetery where the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane can be found, you’ll not get in without paying an Admission Fee. It’s difficult to be a tourist in this place without helping the local economy one way or another.
Next door to Deadwood is the town of Lead (they pronounce it “LEED”), where the famous Homestake Gold Mine was located. Before mining ceased in 1998, it was the largest gold mine in the western hemisphere and the oldest in the world. Homestake made use of both open pit mining and below ground mining (vertical shafts with horizontal tunnels). The photo shows as much of the open pit as can be seen from the visitor center:
The pit is 1250 ft deep and one-half mile across. The holes you can make out in the walls of this pit are horizontal tunnels that ran from a central shaft.
The tour we took of some of the buildings which remain was very well done. Below is a photo of the elevator building for two shafts which descend 5000 ft (one for miners, the other for ore). To reach the lowest levels of the mine at 8000 ft below the surface, it was necessary to descend first to 5000 ft below ground, walk to a second elevator and take it down another 3000 ft!
With our history lesson complete, we chose a late afternoon bike ride to wrap up our visit to the Black Hills:
Rapid City’s Greenbelt Bikeway meanders through the city following Rapid Creek. We found it pleasant, well done and enjoyable.