Many of us have heard of “Deadwood”, in part due to the successful

Image of street scene from the show “Deadwood”

  Soooo… What is the REAL story?! Obviously the history is rich and fascinating, as the TV show implies, but which parts are real? What made Milch pick Deadwood as his subject matter? Well, lets find out!

Deadwood, South Dakota, 1876

The TRUE Deadwood:

The illegal settlement of Deadwood began in the 1870s on the territory granted to American Indians in the 1868 Treaty of Laramie. The treaty gave permanent ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux, in return for the Lakota’s promise of peace with pioneers and railroad workers. The great Oglala Chief Red Cloud (Mahpiya Luta) was a signer of this important agreement.  By 1870, stories abounded about gold and other wealth to be had in the Black Hills. Settlers continued to break the treaty by entering the Lakota reservation, which caused renewed Indian raids on nearby settlements. An expedition to investigate the possibility of establishing a fort in the Black Hills in 1874 resulted in the confirmation of gold being found in the Black Hills being announced by Colonel George Armstrong Custer the military leader of the expedition (it is interesting to note that though the expedition was said to be for the above stated purpose, for unexplained reasons a geologist and miners were included on the trip). As a result of this confirmation, one of the last great gold rushes in the country started shortly thereafter, though the government tried initially to discourage it. 

Gold Mining, Deadwood, South Dakota

In 1876, miners moved into the northern Black Hills, where a miner named John B. Pearson found gold in a narrow canyon. The gulch was full of dead trees and became known as “Deadwood Gulch” and thus, Deadwood was born.

The mining camp soon swarmed with thousands of prospectors looking to get rich. Quickly the tents and shanties that originally popped upall around, began to be replaced by more permanent structures.

Though the majority of the original settlers of Deadwood were gold miners, the lack of law in the area attracted a rather rough crowd – an estimated one murder per day occurred during the first year of Deadwood’s existence! The Utter brothers (Charlie and Steve), led a wagon train to Deadwood to bring things said to be needed to increase the prosperity and business of the area. This wagon train included both prostitutes and gamblers, which were both thought to be important additions to this wild town whose population was mostly made up of men. Saloons, dance Halls, Brothels and Gambling establishments flourished, with prostitution becoming especially profitable, with an astonishing 90% of the women in Deadwood being prostitutes. Businessman Tom Miller opened the Bella Union Saloon in September of that year (why David Milch changed Miller’s name to Cy Tolliver is anyone’s guess).

1878 Stereoview Photograph of the Sign in front of Deadwoods “Bella Union Saloon”

The Bella Union was a saloon and theater in Deadwood, South Dakota, which opened on September 10, 1876. The proprietor was Tom Miller, an aggressive businessman who would buy several neighboring properties as well. The Bella Union Saloon was a relatively upscale establishment, where town meetings came to be held. In November 1878, Tom Miller went bankrupt, and the Bella Union became a grocery store downstairs, and a meeting hall named Mechanics’ Hall upstairs. A fictionalized version of the saloon appeared in the HBO television series “Deadwood”, where the owner was the character Cy Tolliver. In the 1953 musical, Calamity Jane, the character Henry Miller (not Tom), is the proprietor of the town’s saloon and theater.

Bella Union Saloon Advertising Sign with an obviously “dead drunk” patron in front!

There was no lack of characters living in and / or passing through the Town. Some of the early town residents and visitors included Lewis and Clark, Wyatt Earp, Poker Alice, the Sundance Kid, E. B. Farnum, Charlie Utter, Sol Star, Martha Bullock, A. W. Merrick, Samuel Fields, Calamity Jane, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, the Reverend Henry Weston Smith, Aaron Dunn and Wild Bill Hickok.

Both Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane call Mount Moriah Cemetary their final resting place. Deadwood was actually the site of Hickock’s murder, and then the ultimate hanging of his murderer Jack McCall, who was prosecuted twice despite the U.S. laws against it.

Eventually Deadwood became more prosperous, and began to lose some of its rough and rowdy character. In March of 1877 Seth Bullock was appointed sheriff to keep law and order. 

On September 26, 1879, a fire started in a bakery and devastated Deadwood, spreading through the business district of Deadwood and destroying more than three hundred buildings. Many of the unlucky left town to start again elsewhere without having fulfilled the early dreams of Deadwood.

ca1880, Bird’s-Eye-View Photograph of the Mining Town of Deadwood

  There is so much more information out there on this fascinating town and the people that traveled through it! I honestly did not even begin to scratch the surface of it!! Suffice it to say, now that my interest has been piqued, I will be looking into more on Deadwood, and its residents and patrons! Be sure to check back soon to see what else I have unearthed!!

For more information, please see our eBay listings.

An early Billings, Montana photographer, Alfred Baumgartner had a studio on Minnesota Avenue which opened in 1906 and closed just a few years later. Little is known of his work except that he was certainly a true Western Photographer – had a “cowgirl” in his employ at the studio and most of his surviving works are in studio portraits of local Billings, Montana residents. We recently purchased a small collection of simply fantastic and stunningly beautiful, Art Photo style portraits of Native American Crow who lived on the expansive Crow Indian Reservation south of Billings, that were taken and copyrighted in 1906 by Alfred Baumgartner.

As far as we can tell Baumgartner, never published this or any of the Crow Images in this wonderful collection as we can find only a single example of a Native American Photograph by Baumgartner in any museum or library collection (that photograph is of Crow Chief Plenty Coups and is held in the collection of the Yellowstone Western Heritage Center- image can be found here). We believe this beautiful Photograph may be the only known example or at the very least exceptionally rare.

Each Photograph in this collection is very much in the style of Carl Moon with a soft, warm “feel” to the Image and a respectful treatment of the subject, and most features a wonderfully appropriate and beautiful painted backdrop and the high quality and stunning beautiful, embossed card mount that complete the artistic presentation. There is text in a number of the negatives, or stamped on the recto, that reads “Baumgartner Studio, Billings, Mont.”.

Studio full length Photographic seated portrait of an unidentified Crow Woman    dressed in a beautiful, elk tooth tunic and wearing a multi-strand necklace and agency blanket.

 Photographic portrait of an unidentified Crow Warrior dressed in traditional garb with an elaborate, multi-strand necklace and with typical Crow hair style along with his wife. Also in the Photo is a second Crow brave dressed in much more western style clothing with his wife and young child . (We feel that we have seen this Crow Brave at the left before but we have been unable to identify him. Any information regarding his identity would be greatly appreciated.)

Studio full length portrait Photograph of an unidentified Crow Warrior dressed in traditional garb with an elaborate, multi-strand necklace and with typical Crow hair style. (We feel that we have seen this Crow Brave before but we have been unable to identify him. Any information regarding his identity would be greatly appreciated.)

This Photograph is a half figure, studio portrait of Strikes the Iron dressed in a wonderful, elk tooth tunic.  (The subject is not identified but the wife of Chief Plenty Coups was photographed numerous times in her life and she is easily recognizable.)

This Photograph is a full figure, studio portrait of the Plenty Coups and his wife Strikes the Iron dressed in a combination of traditional and western garb with Plenty Coups wearing his full eagle feather war bonnet and a pipe bone breastplate.

More information on Chief Plenty Coups:

The last traditional Chief of the Crow Nation, Plenty Coups was a visionary that led his people from the ‘Buffalo Days’ into the 20th century. He was an accomplished statesman and ambassador well known by several US Presidents and foreign leaders. Chief Plenty Coups best illustrated the close bond between the US and Crow Nation when, in 1921, he offered his war bonnet and coups sticks at the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In his speech, he promised the allegiance of Crow warriors to fight any enemy of the United States. His promise has been upheld countless times in wars or armed conflicts since that gathering. The Chief was a leader by example – he was a productive farmer and stockman, expert steward of his 1885 allotment, and a supporter of education. In 1928 Plenty Coups and his wife, Strikes the Iron, willed their home and land as a place for all cultures to come together in a cooperative nature. Their homestead is now Montana’s Chief Plenty Coups State Park. The Chief did not dedicate this location to glorify himself or his deeds, but to honor the culture of the Crow Nation and to bring people together.

For more information, please see our eBay listing.

This Photograph has absolutely no identification, nor a photographer’s mark but our extensive online research turned up the fascinating story of this wonderful image. As far as the photographer is concerned, we know that Warren King Morehead (pictured at the left) was the only news reporter on site in the days following Wounded Knee that had “his own photographer”. There is some confusion in many of the pictures associated with Morehead, because on top of having “his own photographer”, he also in many instances took photos himself. In this particular case it appears most likely that Morehead engaged one of the few photographers who were present at Pine Ridge in the days following the “Battle”, all of whom were employed by George Trager.

The Photo is a truly amazing tableaux with Warren King Moorehead seated wearing a revolver in a holster attached to a belt loaded with cartridges. A large caliber, double barreled shotgun leans against a clock behind Mooreheads chair. Pine Ridge and Deadwood, South Dakota Deputy U. S. Marshall George Bartlett sits at a table writing furiously. Bartlett also has a substantial six gun in a holster at his belt and a beautiful, Winchester Repeating rifle on the table in front of him. The Indian Police Sentry also wears a revolver in a holster on rig studded with cartridges and holds his Springfield rifle in front of him. This room is cluttered but certainly chock full of weapons with a large caliber rifle leaning against the wall behind the unidentified gentleman and another rifle on the desk to the right of Moorehead.

We were able to identify the folks in this Photograph from the caption printed under the Newspaper illustration taken directly from the Image. The caption reads: “Where the graphic dispatches which have appeared in the daily press during the past fortnight where written. The figure on the left is the writer of the accompanying article. The Indian police sentry on the right was guarding the ravine back of the house and was called in to be photographed”. The accompanying article was written by Moorehead (thus identifying him in the photo) and we could easily identify Bartlett (from other portraits) who was Moorehead’s friend and Indian language translator. The location was somewhat of a mystery until we discovered a photograph published on page 124 of the volume titled “Eyewitness at Wounded Knee” (Jensen, Paul and Carter; Nebraska State Historical Society, 1991). That image shows Marshall George Bartlett standing in front of the combination Post Office and Store owned by Louis Mousseau with its small attached log cabin residence. The caption led us to believe that the Image offered here was taken in the residence of Mousseau. That caption reads “The first news stories of the killings at Wounded Knee were written in the small log cabin shown here, just behind the Wounded Knee Post Office… The small cabin was the home of Louis Mousseau, a French-mixed blood, who operated the combination Post Office and store. This was the nucleus of a small community. There was a day school, a little used Presbyterian church and a nearby dance lodge. George Bartlett (standing) had a financial interest in the store.”. The caption to this photograph seems to identify the location of the Photo offered here (by its reference to the earliest reports of Wounded Knee and the connection with George Bartlett) but also likely identifies the unknown white man in the image as the owner of the home – Louis Mousseau.

George E. Bartlett was a quite fascinating character – a U.S. Marshal for Pine Ridge Agency as well as for a city west of there already infamous as Deadwood, South Dakota. Bartlett had worked as a sales representative for the gunpowder company and also ran a small trading post of his own on a creek through part of the Pine Ridge Reservation. From his wild days as a Pony Express rider and then Marshal in Deadwood, Bartlett had picked up the Indian name “Huste,” which was explained to be a dialect word for “Wounded Knee”. Bartlett had been sent to Pine Ridge in hopes that he could negotiate an end to the “Ghost Dance Troubles”.

In early 1890 Bartlett had invited a young writer / archeologist / anthropologist by the name of Warren King Moorhead out to visit him and had taken him around to the camps and settlements of the Lakota Sioux across the Nebraska/South Dakota border. After the relative success of the author’s novel “Wanneta” (which included much material gathered in this earlier visit) Bartlett had continued to suggest Moorehead come out again to write about this Ghost Dance phenomenon. With the support of an editor at “The Illustrated American”, Moorehead traveled to Chadron, Nebraska where Bartlett owned a ranch, and quickly found himself welcomed in the camp of Red Cloud, a greatly respected Lakota leader.

Moorehead never claimed to speak any of the Lakota dialects he encountered, but the articles he later wrote included a variety of Indian words, and of course his friend and guide George Bartlett spoke a number of Sioux tongues quite well. During this time Moorhead took some of the only photographs of the Ghost Dance ceremony seen before the Wounded Knee Massacre. After almost eight weeks of travel and camping among the various settlements across the Pine Ridge area, he was called into the headquarters of Gen. John R. Brooke, commanding officer of the Department of the Platte. According to Moorehead’s journal, Brooke informed him that as he was the only correspondent who spoke the “hostiles” language, and was accepted enough to overnight in their camps, he was considered a liability to the Army as they tried to bring order to the Pine Ridge situation: so two soldiers would escort him directly to his quarters, watch him pack, and take him to the next train east. Bartlett, however, remained behind and is seen in various photographs taken by Trager and W. R. Cross in the days following the Wounded Knee Massacre. Moorhead returned to Pine Ridge just after New Years Day 1891 and began reporting on the aftermath of the massacre. George Trager and his Northwestern Photographic Company photographers are best known for the Photographs taken in the days leading up to the Battle of Wounded Knee and for those taken of the aftermath of that bloody massacre.

For more information, please see our eBay listing.