{"id":12272,"date":"2013-09-08T03:20:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-08T03:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wild-bill-hickock-a-deadwood-calamity\/"},"modified":"2015-08-10T08:02:22","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T08:02:22","slug":"wild-bill-hickock-a-deadwood-calamity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2013\/09\/wild-bill-hickock-a-deadwood-calamity\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Bill Hickock, a Deadwood Calamity"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 382px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a title=\"Wild Bill Hickcock, Calamity Jane and Deadwood\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rodeime\/9695466871\/in\/photolist-fLKNvV-fM3nx9-fLKNBH-fM3nDE-fLKNpp-fM3nN9-fLKMVa\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3761\/9695466871_7a5c46869c.jpg\" alt=\"Wild Bill Hickcock, Calamity Jane and Deadwood\" width=\"372\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">WILD Bill Hickok \u2013 he had 36 notches on his gun belt, legal and more questionable. (Deadwood Chamber of Commerce)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div><b>DEATH OF WILD BILL, DEADWOOD&#8217;S CALAMITY<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/b><\/div>\n<div>David Ellis<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>ONCE one of the shootin&#8217;est places in America&#8217;s West, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deadwood.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Deadwood<\/a> in the famed Black Hills of South Dakota has a population today of just 1,280, yet over 80 gambling casinos.<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And it&#8217;s got a cemetery whose 3,600 graves draw 100,000-something aficionados of the Wild West every year, many just to see those of one-time lawman James Butler &#8220;Wild Bill&#8221; Hickok, and next to him, at her request, Martha Jane &#8220;Calamity Jane&#8221; Cannary. Neither of whom in real life, however, quite matched Doris Day&#8217;s almost-prim version of Calamity, or the clean-cut Howard Keel&#8217;s law-abiding Wild Bill in 1953 Hollywood&#8217;s\u00a0 <i>Calamity Jane.<\/i><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Wild Bill and Calamity had arrived at Deadwood on the same day in July 1876, Bill with his mate &#8220;Colorado Charlie&#8221; Utter, and Jane with some ladies of doubtful repute. They&#8217;d travelled aboard a 30-piece wagon train of over 200 prospectors, gamblers and prostitutes as 30,000 hopefuls flocked to the Black Hills to stake claims over gold discovered there a year earlier.<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And no longer a lawman after one too many dubious shoot-outs \u2013 he had 36 legal and more-questionable notches on his gun-belt \u2013 Wild Bill was now a professional gambler, with intentions on relieving the miners of some of the gold that was being dug out of the Black Hills at an incredible $10,000 worth a day\u2026 around $1m a week today. <u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And Martha Jane Cannary quickly proved how she was anything but Doris Day&#8217;s pretty &#8220;Indian scout&#8221; Calamity Jane. Rather she was a gun-totin&#8217;, masculine-looking alcoholic who dressed like a man, shot-out the lights of saloons and gambling halls for kicks, cussed better than any trooper, and worked some of Deadwood&#8217;s cheaper brothels when in need of cash and whiskey.<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Calamity was also madly attracted to Wild Bill, and although he did not reciprocate her attentions, and knowing he had left a 50-year old new bride in Wyoming to seek his fortune at Deadwood&#8217;s gaming tables, she bizarrely boasted to friends that she and Bill were secretly married, and shared a daughter. <u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It was pure fiction, as were the many other claims she made of her adventurous life as a frontierswoman, Indian scout, bull wrangler, stage-coach driver and countless similarly more-masculine pursuits. Even Deadwood&#8217;s <i>Black Hills Pioneer<\/i>\u00a0 headlined her arrival there with &#8220;Calamity Jane Has Arrived!&#8221;<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>(Just how she got her nickname is unclear, but the most-accepted explanation is that with her quick temper, foul mouth and itchy trigger-finger, men were said to be &#8220;courting calamity&#8221; if they crossed her.)<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And as she lay dying at 53 years of age from the effects of the booze and venereal disease in Terry, South Dakota in1903, Calamity Jane&#8217;s last wish was that her grave be next to Wild Bill in Deadwood&#8217;s cemetery \u2013 where he&#8217;d been buried 27 years earlier after being shot dead in a card game.<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>His killing had been at the hands of a drunken hoodlum named Jack McCall whom Bill had cleaned-out at a game the day before.<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But when he&#8217;d gone into Deadwood&#8217;s No. 10 Saloon on August 2 1876 and the only available chair had its back to the door, rather than his favoured back to the wall, Bill initially declined a game.<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>When finally convinced to join-in, he&#8217;d played just a few hands when McCall lurched through the batwing doors, screamed &#8220;Damn you!&#8221; and shot Wild Bill point-blank through the head\u2026 his pair of black aces and pair of black eights spilled to the floor, and to this day are known as &#8220;the deadman&#8217;s hand.&#8221;<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>McCall was captured hiding in a butcher&#8217;s shop, and put before a hastily formed jury who acquitted him after he claimed it was retribution for Hickok having earlier killed his brother \u2013 but when he repeatedly boasted his crime, he was re-arrested, re-tried and hanged.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Visitors to Deadwood today find the town much as it was in Wild Bill and Calamity Jane&#8217;s day, thanks largely to legislation in 1989 making Deadwood a gambling mecca, with millions of dollars in funds from its 80+ casinos being used to restore and re-open dilapidated 19<sup>th<\/sup> and 20<sup>th<\/sup> century buildings, and promote a thriving tourism industry.<u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>If you are interested in visiting Deadwood, which is recognised on America&#8217;s National Historical Register &#8220;for the accurate restoration of its past,&#8221; see travel agents or visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deadwood.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.deadwood.com<\/a> <u><\/u><u><\/u><\/div>\n<div><b><br \/>\n<\/b><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DEATH OF WILD BILL, DEADWOOD&#8217;S CALAMITY David Ellis ONCE one of the shootin&#8217;est places in America&#8217;s West, Deadwood in the famed Black Hills of South Dakota has a population today of just 1,280, yet over 80 gambling casinos. And it&#8217;s got a cemetery whose 3,600 graves draw 100,000-something aficionados of the Wild West every year, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,1],"tags":[376],"class_list":["post-12272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-ellis","category-uncategorized","tag-david-ellis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12272"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22983,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12272\/revisions\/22983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}