Day 28: Deadwood to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial

Day 28 began in Deadwood, South Dakota.


Even though he was only there for 3 weeks, Deadwood relies heavily on the history of Wild Bill Hickok and his murder. Without that, I fear that there would be little else to see. Not to mention the success of the HBO series. It is clear that many businesses are capitalizing on the HBO series Deadwood. It IS an amazing series, but it’s creepy to see the souvenir shops selling t-shirts bearing the logo from the show.

Apparently, in 1879, a fire broke out that reached a gunpowder storehouse, blowing up a few buildings and leaving thousands homeless.


As a result, most of the older buildings are post-1879. Here is a picture of the town from up on a nearby hill.


This store, the Utter Place, is named after Wild Bill’s best friend, Charlie Utter.


Beyond the Utter Place, you may be able to make out a sign reading Saloon #10. This is NOT the same Saloon #10 in which Wild Bill was murdered. Apparently, the business moved to the other side of the street in 1938.

Deadwood was lousy with bikers. It’s not far from Sturgis, which hosts an insane bike rally every year, so every t-shirt shop is at least half-filled with biker paraphernalia. This is Deadwood’s entry into the Theater of Weird Signs:


In case you can’t read the print, it states, "No Motorcycle Colors: Wearing apparel which is likely to provoke a disturbance or embroil other groups or the general public in open conflict will not be allowed." This sign was posted on the door of a casino/hotel. Where do I start? Do bikers even know the word "embroil"? What type of clothing were people wearing to necessitate the posting of this sign?

We bought tickets for the 1 pm bus tour of Deadwood. Along with the tickets came coupons for the associated restaurant called Diamond Lil’s. This sports bar and grill is located inside the Midnight Star Casino. Oh, I’m sorry; it’s actually called KEVIN COSTNER’S Midnight Star. Yeah, you heard me. Kevin Costner. Apparently, Costner filmed "Dances with Wolves" nearby and liked the area so much that he bought a large building and is filling it with businesses glorifying himself. The walls of the restaurant were covered with Costner’s movie paraphernalia: costumes, film stills, posters, etc. For example, these costumes are from his role as Crash Davis in "Bull Durham," which was filmed in my beloved Bull City.



This uniform was worn by Costner in his role as Billy Chapel in "For the Love of the Game."



Everywhere I looked, I was overwhelmed with Costner memorabilia. It’s a good thing that the food was really good.

After lunch, we walked around a little bit and saw this sign hanging outside a saloon.


Equally amusing was this quartet


Please explain to me how these guys came to be wearing matching outfits. I hope there was at least money or something waiting for them at the end of the day.

At this point, we got on an Original Deadwood Tour bus driven by a hilarious old codger.


He had been driving this tour bus for 30 years and had perfected his bad jokes and excellent stories. We began by driving by the Fairmont Hotel, formerly known as Mansion House.


Being in the more northerly part of Main Street, it stood in Deadwood’s "Badlands," where most of the illegal activities took place.

This is the Wild West Winners Casino, featuring scantily-clad mannequins in the upper windows to remind us of its history as a whore house.


For the record, brothels still functioned on Main Street until 1980 when the Feds came in and cleaned house.

This statue of Wild Bill Hickok sits at the outskirts of the Deadwood downtown area.


We also found this weird statue of Wild Bill that makes him look something like a Viking.


The bus driver took us to Mount Moriah Cemetery where Wild Bill and Calamity Jane are buried.


This is a pretty fascinating story. Wild Bill died at age 39 and was buried in Ingleside Cemetery in 1876, but when the planners decided to use the cemetery land for town expansion, Hickok was moved to Mount Moriah Cemetery where he is in a fenced-in plot.



Hickok is buried beside Calamity Jane.


Apparently, Jane was a pretty horrible character. She cussed like a sailor and was, in general, an intolerable drunk who just so happened to help people recuperate during a smallpox outbreak in Deadwood. Apparently, her only dying wish was to be buried beside Hickok.


This is the view of the town of Deadwood from the cemetery.


Lovely!

Chinese immigrants played a big role in the life of the town (as you will see shortly). They were critical to some of the food and service industries but were still considered inferior. As a result, they were buried in their own private section of the cemetery.


Later, their bodies were dug up and shipped back to their hometowns in China.

After the tour was over, Dave and I headed to a weird little place called Old Town China Tours.


The door to the business was at the top of a staircase that led down into the dark. We were really intrigued. We headed down the stairs to find a large concrete room sparsely decorated with creepy Old West mannequins and bizarre Chinese tchotchkes.



It was run by a guy who was about our age. He was very weird. It seemed like he had taken too much of his meds that morning, leaving him a little foggy and slow. His son, who was about 6, was running around the place with a rifle and some kind of Civil War cavalry cap.


The kid would lurk around corners looking for bad guys as though he were ready to blow them away when he saw the whites of their eyes.

We quickly discovered what this place was all about. Apparently, in the early days, Deadwood had a series of tunnels running under the city. Some say that Deadwood used to flood and so was raised one story to help avoid the flooding. Others say that the tunnels are actually for the Chinese to move around the city. They were not permitted on the streets after 10 pm, so they used the tunnels o maneuver around the city.

At Old Town China Tours, for $8 each, we could walk through a series of 16 stations with audio tracks explaining what we were looking at. So you begin by entering a dark room and heading to the sign with the number one on it while the owner turns on the CD player. A cheap system of speakers around the dark room blare a bad, cobbled-together, unrehearsed recording of the weird owner reading a poorly written script of what we were seeing . “Go the Station Number One. These figures [mannequins] show Chinese people playing Go.” So what? Why is this significant? This guy clearly did NOT take my English 112 class. This was Station Number Four.


Stunning, isn’t it? I have no idea what it is.

This photo was a station showing how the Chinese would wash laundry in the late 1800s. Or perhaps it’s yoga. I’m not really sure.


This Chinese dragon was made for the museum and sent from China in the mid-1980s. It was probably 20-feet long and very cool to see.


This Buddha sculpture is Station Nine.


His hair is decorated with rose quartz. Notice how the Station Nine placard is placed so carefully IN HIS LAP! Around the room were small signs printing out the animals of the Chinese calendar and their meanings. Apparently, because of their worship of the heavens and stars, folks in Deadwood would refer to them as "celestials."

This is one of the tunnels through which the Chinese would move after curfew.



After this bizarre tour, we fled the underground museum and high-tailed it out of there for Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore is only about an hour or so from Deadwood. As I had been told by a teenaged girl in the bathroom of the Deadwood KOA, Mount Rushmore was one of those artistic structures that you look at for a little while, and then you’re ready to move on. David, on the other hand, was enraptured by the whole thing. I admit it was stunning.






Mount Rushmore was designed and sculpted by Gutson Borglum to show future generations colossal images of the greatest men involved in the founding of this great nation.



Borglum, incidentally, was the original sculptor of Stone Mountain in Atlanta, Georgia. Unfortunately, Borglum had a disagreement with the financiers and was relieved of his duties. Before leaving, Borglum blasted the first completed head off the site of the mountain and destroyed all of his models for the sculpture. Youch! By the time he was fired from the Stone Mountain project, he had already started working on Mount Rushmore.

Borglum made many models of Mount Rushmore before and during its construction. The most famous is in his studio on site.


This model shows that Borglum’s original plan was to show these four great men--Washington, Jackson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln—from the waist up. Unfortunately, he died before construction could be completed, and his son chose not to continue the work. He finished up the faces but did not complete their chests.


Borglum had also intended to have a Hall of Records that would contain a series of plaques explaining the greatest of the men portrayed for future generations. Unfortunately, this was not completed either. The National Park Service has gone ahead and constructed a Hall of Records, which is still under construction and is unavailable to the public.



After our visit to Mount Rushmore, we headed 8 miles west to the Crazy Horse Monument. However, on our way, we had yet another wildlife jam. This time, it was mountain goats: a mommy and a baby.



How cute is that?

Crazy Horse is a privately-owned monument that is still under construction and will be for at least twenty more years, funding permitting.


The designer and sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski was asked by Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear to build a monument for Native Americans. Korczak jumped at the opportunity. He chose to sculpt Crazy Horse because Crazy Horse never signed a treaty with the American government. Incidentally, Crazy Horse was never photographed (proven by the episode of History Detectives on PBS that I saw last night), so Korczak chose an image that appeared strong and determined. Crazy Horse is pictured atop his horse and pointing in answer to the question, “Where are your lands now?” Crazy Horse answered, “My lands are where my dead lay buried.”

Korczak died in 1982, at which time his wife took over the construction of the memorial. Korczak and his wife, Ruth, had ten children, most of whom continue his work today. They are completely dedicated to their father’s dream. Yes, that’s crazy. If I were dedicated to my dad’s dream, I’d spend all of my days trying to grill the perfect hamburger. Wait, that’s not such a bad idea.

Anyhow, the sculpture is only a fraction of the way finished, but is reportedly going to be ten times the size of Mount Rushmore. Wow! Being the dream of the Lakota, the Ziolkowski family continues to refuse government support for the memorial’s construction. The government has offered millions to assist, but the family refuses it every time.

These images show the classic picture of the model on the deck of the visitor center in the foreground and the actual mountain sculpture in the background.



In the Visitor Center, we found several other models that Kolczak made of Crazy Horse.



This sculpture is an image of Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of Mount Rushmore.


Apparently, Ray Kroc, founder of the McDonald’s powerhouse, and his giant hand were contributors to the Crazy Horse Monument, so Korczak made this sculpture.


We also found the Crazy Horse submission for the Theater of Weird Signs.


OK, so it’s not a sign, but it was framed and hung on the wall.

At 9:30, we watched from the parking lot as laser images of the history of Native Americans in the Black Hills were projected on the Crazy Horse monument itself. The show covered Crazy Horse’s life as well as the construction of the monument. It was wacky, for sure. Almost as good as Stone Mountain, but it lacked the incredible numbers of visitors. We were watching from the parking lot with about 20 other cars. There were likely more people watching from the deck of the Visitor Center.

When the show was over, we headed east to the Mount Rushmore KOA for the night. Tomorrow would be Wall Drug in Wall, SD, and the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.