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The Old West, where civilization was born from chaos.
Thanks to HBO, no Western town is as well-known today as Deadwood in the Black Hills
of South Dakota. The series has brought a flood of history-lovers to the real town
of Deadwood, an outpost that still has a wild edge since every saloon and bar has
been turned into a lively casino. In the summer, motorbike enthusiasts cruise the
streets like modern-day cowboys. But was the original Deadwood quite as raunchy
and violent at the show depicts? As with so many dramatic recreations of the Old
West, the answer is yes—and no.
The basis of the series is absolutely true. In 1874, gold was discovered on the
Lakota Indian Reserve, supposedly off limits by a treaty with the U.S. Congress,
and white miners immediately made their way illegally into the area to found the
rough-hewn town of Deadwood in its heart. The first sheriff of Deadwood was, indeed,
named Seth Bullock, as in the series, and there was a Gem Saloon run by Al Swearingen,
of whom little is known. But perhaps the most famous real-life character was gunslinger
Wild Bill Hickok, who arrived in 1876 to try his luck in Deadwood with the notorious
Calamity Jane. Not long afterward, a cowardly poker player named Jack McCall walked
up behind him in the so-called Number Ten Saloon and shot him in the head. Hickok
usually sat with his back to the wall, but for reasons unknown changed his practice
that day. His poker hand of aces and eights is still known as “the dead man’s hand.”
(Today, the event is recreated in Deadwood throughout the summer for enthusiastic
tourists inside a saloon that has been rebuilt on the site; the original burned
down).
While most other plot lines of the HBO series are fictional, the writer, David Milch,
was trying to depict a broader historical truth about the Old West, where civilization
was born from chaos.
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