clawingmywayin

Aces and eights.  A dead man’s hand.  So called because that is what James Butler Hickok held when he was shot from behind in a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota in August 1876.  One of the greatest gunslingers of the Old West lay dead from a gunshot in the back of the head, aged only 39.  Just another legend added to the history of Deadwood, a gold rush town in the Dakota Territory that began in the late 19th century when the discovery of Black Hills Gold created a frenzy.

During its heyday, Deadwood was a lawless town, full of prospectors, gunslingers, and anyone else looking to make their way on the frontier.  Sunk deep in the sacred Black Hills of western South Dakota, the town’s mere existence was born in illegal activity.  A place sacred to the Lakota Sioux, the Black Hills were officially ceded to the tribe with…