O! The Deadwood Stage is commin' on over the hill

---

And you can just picture it! – marvellous.

Lots of the original buildings have been restored or replicated following fires. If you ignore the sounvenir shop fronts and look up at the buildings you can see what it must have been like originally. They even have cut out figures in the top windows of some of the saloon/gambling houses! For those of you who like us watched the tv series Deadwood, The Gem even has the balcony out front overlooking main street where Ian McShane used to sit! Seth Bullock’s Hotel is still there. We went up to Mt. Moriah cemetery and saw the graves of Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and her friend the ‘madam’. Bit disullsiouned to find out that Calamity Jane and Wild Bill didn’t really know each other, I much prefer the version where they are really good friends!

We did the Boot Hill Tour on the little trolley bus which gave us lots of interesting history and pointed out all the significant sites and then we watched a re-enactment of the murder of Wild Bill by the coward Jack Mc Caul in the Saloon no.10 where it actually happened. This is still an actual saloon with bar and complete with sawdust on the floor! But it is also an excellent museum with masses of old photos and items from back in its heyday, they even have the actual chair that Wild Bill sat in on that fateful day! Afterwards I had my picture taken with Wild Bill and his murderer – great stuff!

We spent quite a while just wandering around Deadwood, spotting places we had heard of or recognised and soaking up the atmosphere, it really is a great place.

---