☕️ Say thanks with a cup of coffee 😁
How could you not get excited to visit Deadwood and walk in the footsteps of one of the most well-known lawmen of the Wild West? Wild Bill Hickok was almost as famous for how he handled law-breakers as he was for the way he died.
If you like Western history, you will love this episode of Talk with History.
🚕 Google Map to Deadwood, South Dakota
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Because it had the coffee infused in it.
Scott:So it said it was like sweeter.
Scott:So it already had kind of some, it's already.
Scott:Mixed a little bit.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:And it wasn't bad.
Scott:I could definitely notice like kind of the, the coffee hint to it.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:And that little bit of sweetness.
Scott:If I was gonna try to, any, any of those other whiskeys a little
Scott:bit straight, I'd have to be like in the, in the drinking mood.
Scott:I guess this is appropriate if we're doing a podcast about cowboys and
Jenn:stuff.
Jenn:Welcome
Scott:to Talk With History.
Scott:I'm your host Scott, here with my wife and historian Jen.
Scott:Hello.
Scott:On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels
Scott:YouTube channel journey and examine history through deeper conversations
Scott:with the curious, the explorers and the history lovers out there.
Scott:Now, before we get into our main topic, as always, we've been getting
Scott:our some more reviews recently.
Scott:So I really do appreciate that if you have 20 seconds to drop us a
Scott:review on Apple podcasts or even drop us a five stars on Spotify.
Scott:We greatly appreciate it because the show We actually had the
Scott:highest month of downloads this last July ever for the podcast.
Scott:So pat on the back for us.
Scott:We almost, we got close to a thousand downloads for the whole month.
Scott:So I'm pretty happy about that.
Scott:So thank you for those who are listening and who are sharing the podcast.
Scott:And Wild Bill Hickok was a legendary figure of the American Wild West,
Scott:renowned for his exceptional shooting skills and reputation as a gunslinger.
Scott:He served as a lawman, marshal, and scout during the Civil War and
Scott:afterward in various frontier towns.
Scott:Despite his law enforcement roles, he did have some bad habits and made some enemies
Scott:that brought him to his now famous demise.
Scott:So Jen, let's talk about this famous figure of the Wild West
Scott:and where we were this summer.
Scott:Yeah.
Jenn:So we went to Deadwood,
Scott:South Dakota.
Scott:We did.
Scott:It was honestly, it was kind of one of the few places I got.
Scott:A little more excited to, to go see just because of the reputation of Deadwood, the
Scott:show and just the whole Wild West thing.
Scott:Sure.
Scott:And like
Jenn:the recreation of the picture of the main street, Deadwood is
Jenn:the exact historic main street you walk down in Deadwood today.
Jenn:So if you watch the show or anything like that, like you're, you're
Jenn:walking through history of what.
Jenn:It made this town so quickly and even what it's known for
Scott:today.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:And even I've noticed in the video, right, it's been out for
Scott:a few days now, I've noticed the watch time is a little bit longer.
Scott:And so YouTube kind of gives us these good kind of feedback metrics
Scott:because, you know, I found some cool music that was actually very.
Scott:Fits very well with the story.
Scott:Yeah, this is kind of dead man walking song But there's lots of pictures of
Scott:Deadwood and you describe it very well Even in the video when we're walking
Scott:down this paved modern day street, you know with some throwback kind of
Scott:touristy stuff But then showing the old pictures of these muddy muddy.
Scott:It's just dirt
Jenn:dirty road, and it's not even a road I would just say a
Jenn:clearing where they have built up these makeshift wooden Buildings?
Jenn:I wouldn't even use buildings.
Jenn:It's like these lean tos that they have made and called them
Jenn:saloons and called them brothels.
Scott:Well, and you can picture it, right?
Scott:Because you talk about in the video why they named it
Jenn:Deadwood.
Jenn:Yeah, a gulch of dead trees were found there.
Jenn:And it is a little valley because it is pretty hilly around there.
Jenn:And you're in the Black Hills.
Jenn:So, uh, here's a valley area and they found these gulch of dead trees.
Jenn:So they called it Deadwood.
Scott:Yeah, and so remind me the era that everything kind of
Scott:started coming together out there.
Jenn:So you have to remember, this does not, this is American Indian territory.
Jenn:Yeah, that's right.
Jenn:It's not a state.
Jenn:It is not a state.
Jenn:And this is going to become a problem for Hickok's murder.
Jenn:But this land belongs to the Lakota.
Jenn:and it's belonged to them since the treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868.
Jenn:So you can think almost, um, 10 years it's been their land.
Jenn:Oh, wow.
Jenn:And what happens is George Armstrong Custer comes through there in 1874.
Jenn:So about six years, he's out there enforcing these treaties, and this
Jenn:is what we get into Bighorn, which we'll talk about on another episode.
Jenn:He's enforcing these, uh, treaties where the American Indians have
Jenn:adhered to staying on certain areas, hence reservations,
Jenn:and he's riding through here.
Jenn:When gold is discovered, 1874, 1875, and so it becomes this big boom where
Jenn:people want to go make their fortunes.
Jenn:Yeah, the word gets out.
Jenn:The word gets out.
Jenn:And so they can't stop this influx of people, even though they should be.
Jenn:George Armstrong Custer should be stopping these people because it's not.
Jenn:Uh, their land.
Jenn:And they shouldn't be settling it.
Jenn:It belongs to the Lakota.
Jenn:But he doesn't because he's part of it.
Jenn:He also wants the gold and of course, uh, and so he allows these people to
Jenn:come in and he, the military kind of like turns a blind eye to it and they start
Jenn:to have these little makeshift buildings that pop up to service all the Fortune
Jenn:hunters, miners, they come into the area.
Jenn:So this is about 1876, 5, 000 people, 1877, 12, 000
Jenn:people, 1878, 25, 000 people.
Jenn:That
Scott:kind of surprised me, even when I went back and I was making the video, like
Scott:that is, especially back then, that is a
Jenn:drastic, drastic.
Jenn:Right.
Jenn:And so it's incomprehensible how they could even govern it to begin with.
Jenn:So it becomes a very lawless area, as you can imagine, because you get all these
Jenn:men coming in to make their fortune.
Jenn:And so you get a lot of gambling, you get a lot of alcoholism.
Jenn:You get Hickok who's called here you get the brothels I know of course you
Jenn:get the brothels pop up and we'll talk a little bit about one of the most famous
Jenn:madams Who's very close to Hickok?
Jenn:from the most Profitable brothel there in Deadwood.
Jenn:But yeah, so these are things that gonna pop up for all these men you're gonna get
Jenn:You know, restaurants, saloons, pop up liveries, so liveries where you put your
Jenn:horse, butcher shops, uh, and makeshift tents and things like that, and brothels.
Jenn:So what happens is you get wagon trains who, it's their business
Jenn:to, you know, bring people, lead people from one area to another.
Jenn:They navigate you through, right?
Jenn:And if you watched 1883, this is a business of the time.
Jenn:Usually you're paid.
Jenn:before to take people through and you, you will help with supplies, you know
Jenn:the area, you, you're, you do the safety, and then you're paid once you get there.
Jenn:And that's basically your pay.
Jenn:So Hickok takes a wagon train from Fort Laramie, which is so interesting.
Jenn:That's the treaty of Fort Laramie that is adhering to these Indian lands.
Jenn:So, this is the big fort of Wyoming, and this is still Wyoming territory,
Jenn:and this is Dakota territory.
Jenn:So, they're not even states, which again, they're not governed in that way.
Jenn:So, he, uh, Hickok takes a wagon train from Fort Laramie to, uh, Wyoming.
Jenn:Dead word.
Scott:Now at this point in his life and career, he'd already
Scott:been, he already has a reputation.
Scott:If I remember correctly, he's been a marshal for a little while.
Scott:So he already kind of has all this kind of notoriety.
Jenn:So yes, James Butler Hickok, he's born May 27th, 1837.
Jenn:Um, he's a folk hero of the old west, but mostly because he comes
Jenn:up beside Buffalo Bill Cody.
Jenn:So he comes up beside him.
Jenn:So his stories are told with him.
Jenn:Now, Cody can capitalize on those a little better than Hickok, but it doesn't
Jenn:mean Hickok stories don't get told.
Jenn:So yes.
Jenn:uh, Hickok is, uh, he leaves his home at 18 years old, Illinois.
Jenn:He, uh, becomes a lawman in Kansas, Abilene, Kansas.
Jenn:That'll be important later.
Jenn:In Nebraska, he becomes a scout for the Union Army, just like Buffalo Cody.
Jenn:And he, um, and he meets like these kind of people who do
Jenn:shows and stuff like that.
Jenn:So he has met a woman who's part of the circus and he marries her in
Jenn:Cheyenne and they're married in March.
Jenn:Her name is Agnes Thatcher Lake and you show a picture of her in the video and
Jenn:she's a 50 year old widow of the circus.
Jenn:So they're running in the same kind of circle.
Scott:And she was actually like a very famous, very well traveled,
Scott:very In that in the circus kind of, you know, world, she was like, I
Scott:was reading about her a little bit.
Scott:She's actually very well known.
Jenn:She's very well known.
Jenn:And so she stays in Cheyenne.
Jenn:So you can imagine they're getting married March of 1876.
Jenn:He's going to Fort Laramie.
Jenn:So Fort Laramie is right outside of Cheyenne.
Jenn:And he's getting there by June.
Jenn:And then by he takes the wagon train from Uh, June to July to Deadwood.
Jenn:And so she, she stays behind and he wants to make his fortune because
Jenn:he's heard about all this gold.
Jenn:Of course.
Jenn:And so he's like, I'm going to make it rich quickly.
Jenn:And he's a gambler.
Jenn:And he's a gambler.
Jenn:So he joins Charlie Utter's wagon train.
Jenn:And Charlie Utter, if you.
Jenn:Know anything about Wild Boat Hickok?
Jenn:It's the name on the tombstone.
Jenn:And we'll talk more about that because Charlie, Charlie Utter is a fan of Hickok.
Jenn:It's his wagon train and they all meet up in Fort Laramie and another person joins
Jenn:the wagon train then to Calamity Jane.
Jenn:So they take the train, the wagon train together.
Jenn:So Calamity Jane didn't know Hickok.
Jenn:Well, they met this one time.
Jenn:They, they
Scott:must have, I, I, the more I thought about it, like, and, and we talk about it
Scott:later in the video, like her dying wish.
Scott:Mm-hmm.
Scott:was to be buried next by, next to Wild Bill.
Scott:Mm-hmm.
Scott:. And they, it must have been one of those things, and maybe this is just
Scott:kind of the romantic side of, you know, Outlook that I have on, on stories
Scott:like this sometimes, but they must have just kind of like connected, right?
Scott:Just like birds of a feather, same, same spirit.
Scott:They hit it off, you know, because for some reason throughout history, those
Scott:two names have always gone together.
Scott:And, and to your point, historically, they didn't spend a ton of time together.
Scott:They didn't,
Jenn:but You can imagine there probably are not a lot of women acting
Jenn:like Calamity Jane at this time.
Jenn:She's very much adhering to men gender norms.
Jenn:She's wearing men clothing and she's succumbed to alcoholism.
Jenn:So she's drinking every day, which Hickok is also an alcoholic.
Jenn:So he's drinking every day.
Jenn:So there's some shared hardship.
Jenn:Sure.
Jenn:That they have together on this wagon train.
Jenn:Drinking buddy.
Jenn:drinking buddy.
Jenn:She's a good shot.
Jenn:He's a good shot.
Jenn:They can tell stories together.
Jenn:They can laugh together.
Jenn:So they probably connected.
Scott:Well, and even like the more that I learned about them and you
Scott:again, you mentioned it in the video, uh, and, and I'll link the video
Scott:in the show notes for this podcast.
Scott:But you talk about her, she's got kind of a big heart, right?
Scott:When she, when she isn't drinking and when she is sober enough to,
Scott:to do things, she is out there.
Scott:They're helping.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:And he kind of does the same thing, right?
Scott:He's a lawman.
Scott:He's a marshal.
Scott:He's out there trying to enforce the law.
Scott:So they both have that spirit about them.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:Charity heart.
Scott:They have that charity heart.
Scott:Now I did read for him, his kind of habit, especially as
Scott:a lawman was incredibly rough.
Scott:He kind of sought out.
Scott:The trouble, you know, and would go, you know, from zero
Scott:to fighting very, very quickly.
Scott:And that's just kind of how he did his business.
Scott:And even when I was looking up, there's been various movies made about Wild
Scott:Bill Hickok and Deadwood and different versions that there's a TV show.
Scott:Sure.
Scott:The, the couple versions that I saw, I think it was, is a relatively
Scott:well known actor that did one of the movies or something like that.
Scott:But he just, he, like somebody, somebody says something to him like off one time
Scott:or he's in Deadwood or he's in some town and someone's not supposed to have
Scott:guns and he finds out he has a gun.
Scott:He doesn't even like talk to the guy.
Scott:He just goes up and punches him in the face and drags him away.
Scott:Right.
Scott:So that was kind of his
Jenn:reputation.
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:It's very lawless.
Jenn:Yes.
Jenn:And so it is very much this, uh, violent, physical.
Jenn:Time and you get all these men in Deadwood and it becomes like
Jenn:you're governed by yourself, right?
Jenn:Right,
Scott:and and that's kind of why I think that's kind of why he had this mystique
Scott:about him because he was a lawman He had that reputation and actually again when
Scott:I was making the video I read that he had earned this reputation early as a marshal
Scott:because he was I guess supposedly One of the first ones to kind of have this
Scott:quick, quick draw shootout, you know, like standing in the middle of the street,
Scott:just like get it done, like a quick draw.
Scott:Like he was one of the first supposedly, um, to, to do
Scott:that and to kind of have that.
Scott:You know, established a, you know, sure.
Scott:Around, around him and his, his reputation.
Jenn:One more.
Jenn:I gotta look pretty when I'm down.
Jenn:I'm a dead, I'm a dead, I'm a dead man.
Jenn:So he's in Deadwood.
Jenn:We've established, he gets married in March of 1876, and Cheyenne
Jenn:makes it to Laramie about June.
Jenn:It takes the wagon train up to Deadward from Laramie, Wyoming
Jenn:to Deadward, South Dakota.
Jenn:And he gets there about July.
Jenn:So again, not very long time because August 1st is when all these things
Jenn:will start to happen for Hickok.
Jenn:So it's August 1st, 1876, where he's at saloon 10.
Jenn:Now In the video.
Jenn:And if you visit Deadwood, this, there's a little discrepancy.
Jenn:So the location of saloon 10.
Jenn:is still there, but it's not saloon 10 anymore, but the actual location where
Jenn:Hickok was playing cards is there.
Jenn:Now, saloon 10 had burned at one point and the owners had moved the location across
Jenn:the street and further down, but still kept a lot of the furniture and the chair.
Jenn:And the the decorum from the decorations and stuff from
Jenn:what the saloon looked like.
Jenn:So you can go to the saloon 10, which is not the location and see the chair
Jenn:where Hickok was murdered and you can see what the what What would it look like?
Jenn:What the saloon would it look like?
Jenn:And then you can go further down the street to the actual location.
Scott:And I think the name of that place was like Wild Bill
Scott:Bar or something like that.
Jenn:Yes.
Jenn:So that's the difference between the two.
Jenn:But so what's happening is August 1st, he's playing poker in saloon 10.
Jenn:Poker was his game.
Jenn:And he's the seat opens up and a Jack McCall sits to play poker with him.
Jenn:And during the session, McCall loses.
Jenn:A lot, and Hickok encourages him to quit, quit now, try to go make some
Jenn:money to pay us what you owe us.
Jenn:And he gives him money for breakfast the next morning because he's
Jenn:basically used all his money.
Jenn:And people claim, or historians claim, that insulted McCall.
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:So he was insulted by him giving him basically, you know, um, Charity money.
Jenn:Charity money.
Jenn:And so the next day.
Jenn:Same location.
Jenn:So August 2nd, Hickok walks into the same saloon to play poker and the only
Jenn:seat open has its back to the door.
Jenn:And Hickok being, being a lawman doesn't want to sit with his back to
Jenn:the door, but he wants to play poker.
Jenn:It's his game.
Jenn:So he sits there.
Jenn:He actually asks a couple of guys he's playing poker with if
Jenn:they would change seats with him.
Jenn:But if you know anything about poker, it's bad luck to change your seat.
Jenn:So they refuse.
Jenn:So he's playing and, um, That's when McCall will walk into the bar and shout
Jenn:something at him and just shoot him point blank range right against the head.
Jenn:And he kills him instantly.
Jenn:And the bullet actually goes through Hickok's head into the
Jenn:gentleman he's playing poker with.
Jenn:Yeah, that's right.
Jenn:Into his arm.
Jenn:And that gentleman will keep the bullet in his arm for the rest of his life.
Jenn:Holy cow.
Jenn:And he's a, um, he's like a captain of a steamboat, of the paddle boats.
Jenn:And he would walk into bars saying.
Jenn:Uh, here comes the bullet that killed, uh, Bill Hickok.
Jenn:Of
Scott:course, yeah, if you're a ship captain of like a
Scott:riverboat or something like that.
Scott:You're like, here's my
Jenn:story.
Jenn:Yeah, here comes the bullet.
Jenn:So, McCall knows, knows he's done something bad, right?
Jenn:And, uh, and of course, the dead man's hand.
Jenn:So, Hickok in his hand is holding aces and eights.
Jenn:Black aces and eights.
Jenn:And they don't know what the whole card is.
Jenn:That's what the fifth card is.
Jenn:And there's speculation.
Jenn:You'll see some places have the nine of diamonds.
Jenn:But that's no one really sure what the fifth card is, but that's the hand he has
Jenn:when he's killed So it's called the dead man's hand and we show it in the video and
Jenn:sometimes when you go to his grave people have left So McCall runs out of the saloon
Jenn:and tries to jump on a horse and we talked about this that most horses if you're
Jenn:Tying up your horse to go in somewhere.
Jenn:You're gonna loosen the saddle Because you're not going to cinch a saddle
Jenn:on a horse and for it to rest so when he jumps on the horse saddle It just
Jenn:falls right off and then he runs down the street to the butcher shop and we
Jenn:we show that there's a and he Hides in the cooler basically there and they
Jenn:find him They pull him out of there and they actually do the trial in the
Jenn:same place where Hickok is Yeah, I
Scott:was kind of surprised with such a lawless place, you know, I assume there
Scott:must have been other lawmen, you know, in the, in the city or something like that.
Scott:He probably wasn't, he probably wasn't the only one.
Scott:You don't really
Jenn:know.
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:Well, they don't really, I mean, it's an informal minors jury.
Jenn:They get the minors, the guys who are there.
Jenn:to stand a jury.
Jenn:So, and it can't really be a trial because it's not really a territory.
Jenn:Yes, it's lawless.
Jenn:It's lawless.
Jenn:It's, it's, um, it's Indian land.
Jenn:It's a reservation.
Jenn:It's not, it belongs to the American Indian.
Jenn:So it's not, it can't be governed basically.
Jenn:So you can't really hold a trial, but they do.
Jenn:And McCall claims that When Hickok was a Marshall in Abilene, Kansas Again, I
Jenn:told you that name would come up that Hickok killed his brother Now there is
Jenn:a record of a McCall being killed in Abilene, Kansas by a lawman Oh, really?
Jenn:They don't claim that it's Hickok.
Jenn:It just says a lawman that the records aren't that clear But there is a McCall
Jenn:that is killed earlier by a lawman.
Jenn:And there's not even clear if that's his brother, but the name matches up.
Jenn:Now, now they, they didn't know this.
Jenn:The minors hear this story and the minors are very much, again, this
Jenn:lawlessness of the West where you govern yourself and you're very much
Jenn:eye for an eye type of mentality.
Jenn:So they let him off, right?
Jenn:You think about someone who killed your brother, they deserve to
Jenn:to whatever they get from you.
Jenn:And so the miners are like, Oh yeah, you're totally validated and what you did.
Jenn:You're free to go.
Jenn:But McCall gets out of town relatively quickly because people
Jenn:are upset because people like Hickok, including Charlie, Charlie utter.
Jenn:And Charlie utter is the gentleman who they'll bury Hickok the very next day.
Jenn:He's not buried at Fort at Mount Moriah cemetery where we visited his grave today.
Jenn:He's He's buried at a closer cemetery to the location of Main Street, but
Jenn:as the city grows, they move them.
Jenn:They move the cemetery about three years later in 1879 and on the day of his death.
Jenn:But Charlie utter will cut that original tombstone and it'll say,
Jenn:it says almost looks like clutter.
Jenn:CH.
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:Shutter.
Jenn:Um, but.
Jenn:Um, he also invites everyone back to his camp for the funeral.
Jenn:And it's almost like everybody from the town shows up.
Jenn:Because again, Wagon Train, he has a camp that he's established.
Jenn:And so everyone comes there and he considered him a friend.
Jenn:And so he's the one who will pay for the funeral and then pay for the tombstone.
Jenn:And McCall gets out of the area where he ends up back around Fort Laramie.
Jenn:And he's running his mouth that he killed a U.
Jenn:S.
Jenn:Marshal.
Jenn:He killed Bill Hickok and An actual U.
Jenn:S.
Jenn:Marshal is listening to him.
Jenn:And again, you have this loyalty of even with the lawlessness, you have this
Jenn:loyalty between marshals that we know how difficult this job is for us to do.
Jenn:And here you are running around that you killed one of the most famous U.
Jenn:S.
Jenn:Marshals.
Jenn:So he takes them to Dakota territory, a place that's actually
Jenn:run by the federal government.
Jenn:It's Yankton, Dakota territory, and he puts them on trial.
Jenn:So it doesn't really.
Jenn:Hit that double jeopardy since the first trial wasn't an actual trial and
Jenn:a Hickok's brother comes to town to hear the testimony and he's found guilty
Jenn:and he's hanged the very next day after he's found guilty on March 1st, 1877.
Scott:It's so funny to me that, you know, if you.
Scott:You almost couldn't script a story like this, right?
Scott:And for us, you know, in the American culture, you know, this, this story is
Scott:part of kind of that wild west Story that we learned growing up and everything like
Scott:that and you you almost again You couldn't script a more predictable bad guy, right?
Scott:someone who just kind of gets away with murder literally and then is
Scott:off running his mouth like they write that into movies all the time Right.
Scott:And they do that because people actually do that.
Scott:And then, you know, this guy wasn't the
Jenn:most intelligent person.
Jenn:Obviously, if he would have just kept his mouth shut, he probably could have lived
Jenn:a very long life and gotten away with it.
Jenn:But he obviously was not the smart guy, especially to be
Jenn:losing at poker so, um, so badly.
Jenn:We visit Hickock's grave.
Jenn:Right beside him is Calamity Jane.
Jenn:She'll die in 1903.
Jenn:Her dying wish is to be buried next to Wild Bill, because I think they had this
Jenn:close friendship and kinship, and, um, she really thinks fondly of Deadwood.
Jenn:And then right about two graves over from her is a very famous,
Jenn:uh, madam named Dora Dufresne.
Jenn:And Dora Dufresne runs the most profitable brothel in Deadwood.
Scott:It is, I think I saw, this was one thing that...
Scott:I didn't notice the first couple times when I was editing the video
Scott:and then finally I was looking at some of the signs right then and
Scott:they have in Deadwood on that Main Street where you're kind of walking
Scott:up and down doing most of the filming.
Scott:They have signs and basically they're not quite historical markers, but
Scott:they're like the classic kind of wooden hanging sign hanging from outside.
Scott:historic locations.
Scott:So one, one wooden sign says this is the actual location where Wild Bill Hickok
Scott:was was killed on August 2nd, 1876.
Scott:You know, here's the spot where Jack McCall was captured.
Scott:And then they actually have another sign talking about one of the brothels.
Scott:Yes.
Scott:And but it said on there that it wasn't closed by.
Scott:It wasn't closed until 1980 by the FBI.
Scott:1980.
Scott:That just I was so Caught off guard by that, that that
Scott:was around doing their thing.
Jenn:Well, I feel like, so again, we talk about all these men coming into town
Jenn:and these women come to service the men.
Jenn:And if the men are the ones who are.
Jenn:the law, but they're also partaking of a brothel, then they're going to turn
Jenn:a blind eye to it for a very long time.
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:I,
Scott:I just, there was just a funny aside that just really surprised me.
Scott:And I don't think most people would notice it if they're watching the video.
Scott:But if you look in the video, you can see that it was, it
Scott:just says, closed 80, right?
Scott:By the FBI.
Scott:Um, which was, Just, I
Jenn:thought it was hilarious.
Jenn:Well, Dufresne is also credited with the term cat house.
Jenn:Oh really?
Jenn:So she had a bunch of cats brought in on a wagon train because the women who
Jenn:worked in her brothel were getting scared of the rats and they were getting very
Jenn:upset and so they wouldn't do their job.
Jenn:And so she brought in cats to get the rats.
Jenn:And so the men knew the cat house.
Jenn:They wanted to go visit the cat house that had like 12, 15 cats there who
Jenn:were taking care of all the rats.
Jenn:And that's where you get the term cat house.
Jenn:Yeah,
Scott:I do.
Scott:I don't think I knew that.
Scott:I don't think I had that in the video either.
Scott:So it's a little podcast special for our listeners.
Scott:And it makes sense.
Scott:Yeah.
Jenn:So
Jenn:if you're wondering more about Deadwood, in 1877, you know, the U.
Jenn:S.
Jenn:government tries to like, uh, what can we do to kind of capitalize on
Jenn:this gold that's being found here?
Jenn:And they kind of modify the treaty of Fort Laramie.
Jenn:And that the Lakotas never adhere to it.
Jenn:And even today, they brought a trial against the US government in 18, in 1980.
Jenn:And they cited the original treaty saying that this is our land, and you took it.
Jenn:And so the US government tried to pay them a billion dollars for it.
Jenn:And the Lakotas won't take it because they want the land.
Jenn:That money sits in a savings account today for the Lakota people, which they
Jenn:refuse to touch it because that land belongs to them and they want the land.
Jenn:Wow.
Jenn:And now so many people live there, like we even visited there.
Jenn:And it is part of, you know, it's adhered to by a
Scott:state.
Scott:Well, and if, and if you're listening, right, so the Black Hills area.
Scott:Right.
Scott:If you're, if you're not familiar with the South Dakota area, and I wasn't
Scott:really until we spent some time, we spent a few days there with, you know, for a
Scott:little, we had a little family reunion, but that's right near Mount Rushmore.
Scott:That's crazy horse, which we'll talk about in future, in upcoming episodes.
Scott:So there's a whole lot in that area and it's gorgeous.
Scott:It's a beautiful area.
Scott:It's,
Jenn:it's absolutely beautiful.
Jenn:And you can see why they want the land.
Jenn:And I.
Jenn:I.
Jenn:Think there could be some compromise being that the land belongs
Jenn:because you can still visit.
Jenn:Bighorn is on a Indian reservation, Badlands is on an Indian reservation
Jenn:and they still use it, you know, for people to visit and they can still
Jenn:make a profit off of still keeping this, you know, this land, um,
Jenn:protected for their use of their tribe.
Jenn:So I think there could be something you could adhere to, but, um, what happens
Jenn:in 1879, and this is the big fire in.
Jenn:Deadwood.
Jenn:And most people have not made huge fortunes.
Jenn:They've been there for like four years by then.
Jenn:And so most people leave.
Jenn:And the people who stay are people who are established in the town.
Jenn:And it has, even today, there's a couple thousand people who live there.
Jenn:And, um, and it's still, I think it's the tourism is really what
Jenn:drives the town, but it never is going to hit that big heyday.
Jenn:that it had there in the 1870s.
Jenn:But it was a very cool place to visit.
Jenn:And, uh, Hickok is the story there, if you go there.
Jenn:So you definitely want to go down Main Street.
Jenn:It's the historic Main Street.
Jenn:And you definitely want to go to Mount Moriah Cemetery.
Scott:Yeah, and they have, they have tour buses that'll take you up to the cemetery
Scott:because it's up a very steep hill.
Scott:That is not one you're going to walk from Main Street up to the cemetery.
Jenn:They'll try to tell you you can walk.
Jenn:Don't
Scott:do it.
Scott:Don't do it.
Scott:I mean, it's steep even sitting in a car.
Scott:Um, so, but yeah, it was an absolute blast.
Scott:It's a gorgeous area.
Scott:It really did get, for me, kind of to that inner child, you know, just kind
Scott:of little bit of excitement there.
Scott:And we had our whole family with us.
Scott:We had our family, they were kind of watching us film because, you
Scott:know, that was kind of just a topic.
Scott:So they were enjoying that.
Scott:And as we look back at, you know, while Bill Hickok's life has been romanticized
Scott:and immortalized in various books, Movies, legends, and even this podcast,
Scott:he remains an enduring symbol of the American Wild West and is remembered
Scott:for his remarkable marksmanship, daring adventures, and a tragic end
Scott:that befell many legendary figures.
Scott:of the era.
Scott:So thank you so much for listening to the Talk With History podcast.
Scott:Please reach out to us over at talkwithhistory.
Scott:com.
Scott:More importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy
Scott:this, share this with them.
Scott:If they're a Wild West fan, if they're, they're a cowboy fan,
Scott:they're going to love this podcast.
Scott:We have another podcast similar to this, where we talk about Buffalo Bill Cody.
Scott:We have more like this coming up.
Scott:We're going to be talking about Little Bighorn.
Scott:So if you're listening to this in the future.
Scott:We'll look those episodes up, because I'm sure you'll enjoy them.
Scott:We rely on you, our community, to grow, and we appreciate, we
Scott:appreciate you all every day.
Scott:We'll talk to you next time.