A gorgeous,sunny day in Deadwood. What an adorable town and all about Wild Bild Hickok. We awoke in our lovely, hilly campground and set off for downtown and took an hour long bus tour. The town is basically Main Street full of gift shops, restaurants and small casinos. You can buy tee shirts and play slots in the same space. The last two weeks was the nearby Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and the stores were full of merchandise from hats to souvenir wine. This year attendance was low with only 400,000 bikes instead of up to 700,000. There is a Holiday Inn Express & Casino so you can see that every franchise wants a piece of this action.The main part of the tour was taking us to the Boot Hill Cemetery on Mt. Moriah. There are several Boot Hills in different states, so don't be confused. Wild Bill and Calamity Jane are buried here along with other notables of the old days. Photo #2 is Wild Bill's grave stone. There are also newer graves and the cemetery is totally full. I was amazed to find a Hebrew section and will cover it in another blog. Wild Bill was a gunslinger, lawman and quite a gambler. He was married at the time of his death and barely knew Calamity Jane. She liked to spread rumors that they were a couple and asked to be buried near him, which was done. Most of the original wooden town burned down and most buildings were rebuilt in brick. Many still stand while others have been rebuilt to look the same. There are three sculptures of Hickok around town and we found them.
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