United States
Deadwood
Poker chips clink in the gulch where Wild Bill died holding aces and eights.
Deadwood sits narrow between pine-forested Black Hills, its brick Main Street glowing warm under gas-style lamps once the tour buses leave. Step into any bar and the floor creaks with a history soaked in whiskey and gunpowder, and somewhere a dealer is still turning cards.
Deadwood was born in 1876 when prospectors found a gulch full of dead trees and a creek full of gold, and within months it held the most notorious main street on the frontier. Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead at a card table here that August, holding the pair of aces and pair of eights every poker player now calls the dead man's hand; Calamity Jane lies buried beside him in Mount Moriah Cemetery above the town. The whole town holds National Historic Landmark status, and the legalised gaming that returned in 1989 funds the preservation, so real poker is still dealt inside restored gold-rush buildings. Summer brings re-enactments to Main Street and the Days of '76 rodeo, and Spearfish Canyon's limestone walls rise a short drive away.
Friends
Play a hand where the dead man's hand was coined, crawl the restored saloons and finish with a whiskey while the shootout re-enactors take their bows outside.
Couple
Frontier grit comes with real comfort here: dinner in a restored gold-rush building, a walk up to Mount Moriah at dusk and a drive through Spearfish Canyon in the morning.
- Wild Bill Hickok was shot at a Deadwood card table in 1876 holding aces and eights, the hand poker has called the dead man's hand ever since.
- Calamity Jane is buried beside Hickok in Mount Moriah Cemetery on the hill above the gulch.
- The whole town carries National Historic Landmark status, and gaming revenue has funded its preservation since 1989.
- Real poker and blackjack are dealt inside restored gold-rush-era buildings on Main Street.
Chislic, South Dakota's official nosh: cubes of lamb or beef, grilled or flash-fried and eaten off a cocktail stick.
Kuchen, the German settlers' custard-and-fruit pastry that became the official state dessert, from Black Hills bakeries.
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