As we drove from Belle Fourche to Devil’s Tower it occurred to us that we were thirsty. The next town on the map was Aladdin, but it didn’t look like there was much to it.
There wasn’t. The town was pretty much just this store which has been around since 1893 or so.
We wandered around inside for a few minutes, bought drinks and junk food and headed west. It wasn’t long before we got our first glimpse of Devil’s Tower.
The little bit of Wyoming I saw out the car window was stunningly beautiful.
The first stop on our Flagrant Spontaneity Tour was Belle Fourche, South Dakota. The name means “beautiful fork,” but we didn’t go into any restaurants to see if this was appropriate. Somewhere I had read that there was a monument in town that marked the geographic center of the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii).
It’s not a large town and it didn’t take us long to find the spot.
As I fully anticipated, however, there’s some false advertising going on. The real center of the United States is 20 miles north of town.
Spearfish Canyon was one of the “must see” places on all the lists of Black Hills attractions, and it was our main objective for the day. The long construction zone — and the wait we had to endure to get through it — at the beginning of the canyon didn’t impress us much. Things got better after that. Spearfish Creek and the canyon walls and the fall colors made for an enjoyable drive.
We pulled over and got out at a few spots. We walked out on a dam and spotted several trout.
The most famous feature of the canyon is Bridal Veil Falls, but due to the summer-long drought, it wasn’t much to look at on this visit.
We took the short trail across the creek to the base of the falls and looked for good pictures, but there weren’t many to be found.
The whole trip through the canyon probably took us 45 minutes. It was early afternoon. Deadwood had been a bust. Spearfish Canyon was just a road. The day needed something …
We decided to engage in some flagrant spontaneity. Instead of driving back to our lodge, we headed west.
Deadwood is known for being a bawdy, decadent town during the 1800s. Not much has changed. It celebrates sin, but in a tired, listless, pathetic way rather than in the glamorous, exciting, flashy way that Vegas does.
We went mostly to see the location of Wild Bill Hickok’s murder — Nuttal and Mann’s Saloon, later renamed Number 10 Saloon — by Jack McCall. We parked in a large, cement parking garage and wandered about for perhaps half an hour.
Most of the storefronts on Main Street are bars, gambling houses or cheap gift stores, but you can get some sense of history from the architecture.
We found the location of the building where Jack McCall was apprehended, apparently while shopping for a pink T-shirt.
Several of the casinos had slot machines in the front windows, so we could watch idiots throwing away their money — if we wanted to. We went into one casino to find an ATM. There wasn’t a soul in the place and it looked like there hadn’t been in years.
I found an odd monument to Wild Bill tucked next to a parking lot.
The one place we didn’t see was Number 10 Saloon until we spotted it on our way back to the parking garage.
The building was locked, empty and up for sale. By this time, we had read somewhere that the current street is actually a story above the original street, so this isn’t the actual building anyway. We found a stairwell down to the lower level a few buildings away and explored. Here’s what we discovered.
There was nothing down there but a cigar store. We gave up on Deadwood and drove up the hill to Mount Moriah Cemetery to see Hickok’s grave. We had to pay $1.00 to get in.
Note the symbols on the gate — there’s a Jewish star, a Mason’s crest and … Mickey Mouse? Read the second point on the sign and try to make sense of it, just for fun.
Hickok is buried next to Calamity Jane, or rather, she is buried next to him. I’d heard of Calamity Jane, but knew nothing about her. Apparently she was a likable, brave woman who knocked about the west working as a scout, cook, and prostitute. She made several statements about her exploits for which there is no verification, including her claim that she was married to Hickok and had his child. Most people think it was nothing more than an infatuation on her part, but her request to be buried next to him was granted. The ground around Hickock’s grave was littered with tiny whiskey bottles and playing cards.
The cemetery sits on a hill above the town.
Our timing was good. As we walked away from the grave site, a tour bus pulled up and dumped it’s passengers. As I walked by, I took a photo of this sign in the bus. I’m guessing they meant to write “Wild Bill.”
A tourist town that can’t be bothered to proof the signs posted for tourists is a pathetic tourist town indeed.
