The Ghosts of Deadwood Gulch Wax Museum – Deadwood, South Dakota
Do you enjoy Wax Museums? If so, you will want to visit this one that is all about the wild west!
The Ghosts of Deadwood Gulch Wax Museum operates in the Old Town Hall, and features a “progressive audio-visual presentation of great moments in Western History.” A gray-bearded guy in a black cowboy hat, red vest and holster beseeches us to enter and learn the rich history of the town.
His name is “The Judge” (Judge Kuykendall), and he looks like a guy who might run things.
Some 50 wax figures depict 19 moments from when Dakota was a territory up to more current times. Each scene is dramatically lit, and accompanied by a recorded story with sound effects. Some scenes present the dull, daily activities of a frontier town — the Saddle Shop, or Home and Family. Others capture more vibrant snapshots of Deadwood — the discovery of gold, the Rowdy Dance Hall, and Preacher Smith, “Martyr to the Cause.” (June 2005: The Wax Museum was reported closed.)
The most important event is the poker game in Saloon #10 on August 2, 1876, where the sniveling coward Jack McCall snuck up and shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back of the head. Hickok had arrived in Deadwood only a few weeks earlier, played a succession of card games, and never in his life sat with his back to the door. Until that day.
Judge Kuykendall is in a show performed every night during the summer (except Sundays) — the Trial of Jack McCall. The show is free, and starts with a live gunfight on Main Street at 7:30 pm, then moves into the Masonic Temple for the trial.
Today, the bar called Old Style Saloon #10 is neither the original saloon where Hickok was done in, nor the original location. According to the Judge over at the wax museum, they don’t even display the real Death Chair — just one that resembles it.
Lots of real places and things in Deadwood are hard to come by, since most of the town was leveled in the great fire of 1879, or the medium fire of 1894, and 1948, and 1951, and 1954 (and whatever was left may have gone up in the great fire of 1987). The gulch’s abundance of dry, fallen timber blessed the town with a name and cursed it with wicked combustibility….
Saloon #10 displays other items, such the Poker Dead Man’s Hand, (8s and Aces), among the blackjack tables and slot machines. Above on one side is a two-headed calf labeled “Double Cheeseburger.” Dummy heads of Wild Bill, Poker Alice and others are mounted over the bar.
The ghost of Seth Bullock haunts the Bullock Hotel, which he built in 1895. His apparition has been seen dozens of times by hotel guests and staff.
The Adams Memorial Museum is known locally as “Deadwood’s Attic,” built in 1930 by W. E. Adams. They exhibit Wild Bill Hickok’s Boot Gun, Potato Creek Johnny’s gold nugget, and other treasures.
Above the town on a ridge, tourists can visit the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane in Mt. Moriah Cemetery. Also buried here are Preacher Smith, Potato Creek Johnny, and Madame Dora DuFran. For every “cowboy or cowgirl” this is a must visit, after all, it is the history of the era!
Address: 657 Main St., Deadwood, SD
Directions: On Main Street, one block west of Hwy 85/14A. Between Lee and Gold Sts.
Phone: 605-578-3346
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i was in deadwood this year for the 2009 mustang rally i loved this town except the show of wildbill and mccall was not all the way free when you got to the trial it was 5dollars a person i didnt mind since i love history when i come back next year i will see the gravesites of bill and jane i was actually in the reinactment of wild bills last day i got to b the bartender i was honored to do it the folks where kind hearted and very helpfull with directions no matter where i asked please keep up the great job it was nice to go to a town where u was treated the way you wanted to be with kindness