Wednesday, June 3, 2020
On Wednesday morning I drove first up to Spearfish Canyon. One of my favorite natural features to discover, experience, and photograph is waterfalls. Spearfish Canyon is (of course) located in Spearfish, South Dakota; about 10 miles from Deadwood. It is graced by several exceptionally beautiful waterfalls, many of which can be observed from the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. Three of the most extraordinary are Bridal Veil Falls, Spearfish Falls, and Roughlock Falls.
Most everything I saw was accessible to hikers. I have been known to climb around a bit to get the base of waterfalls, which requires a little bit of physical agility and risk tolerance. But most of these falls are very accessible from paved or graveled walkways. The sound of a waterfall is as soothing as the falls are beautiful; they remind me of the crashing of ocean waves in that way. These falls will not disappoint you. And in several cases there are opportunities to get out of your vehicle and stroll along well maintained pathways to enjoy them up close, with safety rails and benches along the way. If you don’t stop (which would be almost criminal,) you can do the Spearfish Canyon scenic drive in around 90 minutes. Seriously, plan at least 3 – probably 4 – hours so that you’ll have time to get out of your vehicle and truly enjoy some of the most beautiful and relaxing country you’ll ever see.
One other recommendation here: If you’re hungry, stop in at the Cheyenne Crossing Store in Lead (just outside Spearfish Canyon, where US 85 intersects with Alt US 14, across the road from Icebox Gulch. Best breakfasts and lunches you’ll find in South Dakota. The place looks like a log cabin painted red with a couple of porches built into the sides, but – Wow! – the food is outstanding!
After Spearfish Canyon, I began at last to attack the objective of my excursion: the stagecoach trail between Deadwood, South Dakota and Cheyenne, Wyoming as described in American Road. Between me and Deadwood stood Lead, South Dakota and so this is where I began my exploration. First of all, Lead is pronounced “Leed.” If you want to keep locals from correcting you, just get used to that before you hit town. Lead was founded in 1876 after gold was discovered in the area. It is the site of the Homestake Mine, reputed to be the biggest, deepest, and most productive gold mine in the West. As a result, there are a number of local attractions ranging from mine tours to gift shops all based around the mining theme in Lead.
It is a small place, though. The city’s footprint is about 2 square miles. Lead was added to the National Register of Historic places in 1974. It makes sense that Lead would be on the stagecoach line between Deadwood and Cheyenne, but when the gold played out it seems to me that Lead’s prospects played out as well. Lead had around 3,000 in its 2000 census report. There’s just not much left there these days. I did come across a few interesting features, including static displays of mining equipment, a mining mural painted by a local artist, the Homestake Opera House, and my favorite thing about the town; The Stampmill Restaurant & Saloon.
I had a nice chat with the proprietor of that business after stopping in for lunch. The place was established in 1897, and still retains a lot of its historic romance. The interior is strictly old western bar; it has that look and feel with the dark, shiny, heavy wooden surfaces that seem to echo the sound of tinny pianos and raucous laughter, punctuated by the occasional sound of gunfire somewhere outside on Main Street. It has actual character, not the manufactured and superficial stuff of theme parks, but the blood-and-sweat soaked history of real men and women who fought and dug and scraped for every dollar and, in many cases, every last breath. I loved it. These days, the owner is also the chef at the Stampmill, and he makes some of the best soup I have ever eaten. All his own recipes, his wife assured me, and I believe her. It was delicious! She served my lunch, and sometime later found me again as I was wandering Main Street taking pictures. She was kind enough to point out the Coca-Cola advertisement painted on the exterior brick of one wall of the Stampmill. It is the second oldest such sign in the country. Because the building is overshadowed by the Opera House, the painted bricks have been sheltered from the sun all these years, and the advertisement – though badly faded – is still legible there. And the Stampmill still rents rooms above the bar. I can only imagine the stories those walls could tell! When I visited Lead – as well as the other cities and towns along this route – the COVID-19 craziness had closed many of the places I had initially planned to visit. Lead was no exception; most of the museums, shops, and the mine tour itself were not operating, so I cannot report on them here. But when it all opens back up, Lead would be a solid all-day kind of attraction. As it was, I only needed about 3 hours including lunch to see the highlights.
I rolled into Deadwood about 4pm that day, and checked into a hotel at the edge of town whose primary claim to fame is that it adjoins a substantial casino. In fact, based on my experience, gambling remains the primary attraction of downtown Deadwood these days, with slot machines in about half of the establishments along Main Street. The night I stayed with them there wasn’t much business – either in the hotel or in the adjacent Casino called The Tin Lizzy – but as I mentioned, it was in the middle of the COVID-19 craziness. I spent some time wandering the streets and snapping photos that evening, primarily fixed on historic buildings like the Wild Bill Bar, Oyster Bay, the Celebrity Hotel. And Mineral Palace.
Honestly, I found Deadwood to be sort of a sad place. I think some of that was the gambling; Las Vegas strikes me the same way. It’s as though this is a place where a lot of people are down on their luck, and living out a disappointing existence. In the daytime there are stagecoach-based tours, fake gunfights in the street, and – for a fee, of course -you can always get a tour of the spot where Wild Bill Hickock was murdered in the basement of the saloon. But the most authentic gestalt seems to me to be the biker culture underpinning the night-time activity, perhaps most aptly reflected in the window of a shop called Sick Boy. Check it out among my photos, (It’s the shop with the front end of an old automobile in their display window,) and I think you will see what I mean. I felt like some of the outlaw personality of so many of Deadwood’s original population has remained, and morphed into this part of the current culture there.
One thing that didn’t help was the middle-of-the-night fire alarm, which caused the entire hotel (including yours truly) to empty onto the streets for about an hour until the local first responders could determine the problem had been someone smoking in one of the casino bathrooms. If you want to ride the stagecoach, see all the “gunfights”, tour the Hickock murder scene, and so on, then set aside an entire day.