Legends of the Old West - LEGENDS Ep. 6 | “Deadwood”

Episode Date: June 10, 2018

Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock and many more flocked to the Black Hills in 1876 to strike it rich. It was a lawless, illegal town in its early days — a hell of a place to make your fortune. Join Black Barrel+ for early access and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Lego Fortnite. Lego Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of Lego play and

Fortnite created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play Lego Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. It was unusually cold in early August 1876 in Dakota Territory.

In one prominent gulch in the Black Hills, the wind whipped outside and men crowded into saloons to keep warm and drink and gamble. outside, and men crowded into saloons to keep warm and drink and gamble. In Nuttall and Mann's No. 10 Saloon on the lower end of the main thoroughfare, a young man stood at the bar getting steadily drunk. He was an odd character, even in a mining camp that overflowed with dirty, lawless vagrants. He was described as having a sandy mustache, a double chin, a pointy head, a crossed eye, and a broken nose. He'd used several names over the years as he drifted west from his home state of Kentucky, but he was born Jack McCall. Around here, he was known as Crooked Nose Jack.

Tonight, his gaze was locked on a table near the back of the saloon. A poker game was in full swing, and as Jack watched, a man called it quits and left the game. Jack made his move. He swaggered up to the table and plunged into a chair. He didn't care about the game. He was terrible at poker, and before long, everyone at the table knew it. The draw here was that one of the players was James Butler Hickok,

who'd been known as Wild Bill Hickok for at least 15 years. The men at the table plum-gutted McCall. He was drunk and lost hand after hand, but he wouldn't quit. He kept playing until he lost every cent. When he was finally broke and forced to leave the game, Wild Bill gave him some money and advised him to go eat. McCall accepted the donation and likely a heavy dose of insult as well. Hickok finished the evening by writing a letter to his wife. His final words to her were thick with a sense of foreboding and would turn out to be prophetic. That was August 1st, 1876. A day later, Hickok and McCall

would meet again in the No. 10 Saloon, and the result would enshrine this mining town as a legend of the American West. Welcome to Deadwood, a hell of a place to make your fortune. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch, and organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system,

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shopify.com slash realm, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-m now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in, shopify.com slash realm. Welcome to the Legends of the Old West podcast. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. And in this episode, we're going to tell some stories from the early history of Deadwood that feature some of the most famous people in the West. Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock, Al Swearengen, and many more. A thousand generations ago, eight children were out playing in the woods on the northern plains.

They were seven sisters and a brother. The boy was pretending to be a bear, and he chased the girls as they ran away pretending to be scared. But then a terrible thing happened. The boy turned into a real bear. Growling and snarling, he lumbered after his sisters. As they ran for their lives, they were truly terrified now. As they passed a tree stump, it spoke to them and offered them help. It told them to climb up on it and it would save them. The girls scrambled onto the tree stump as the bear charged at them. Suddenly, the tree stump started to grow. It grew higher and faster. It shot up into the sky, more than a thousand feet into the air. The bear clawed

at the bark of the tree, desperately reaching for the petrified girls. The bear's claws scored the outside of the tree, leaving deep grooves down the stump. But the girls were saved. The tree had kept its promise, and the bear couldn't reach them. Then the girls ascended into the sky and formed the seven stars of the Big Dipper. The tree stump that rose into a monolith of rock is now known by white people today as Devil's Tower. It anchors the western end of the region we call the Black Hills,

an area that is sacred to the Lakota peoples. It's the center of their universe, the beginning of their people, the heart of everything that is. And they don't call the rock formation Devil's Tower. In a classic screw-up by white explorers, the translator for Colonel Richard Irving Dodge's expedition into Wyoming in 1875 messed up the wording. To the Lakota, it's called Bear Lodge.

But the translator called it Bad God's Tower, which was eventually rephrased Devil's Tower. The unfortunate name stuck, and in 1906, it was cemented in history when President Theodore Roosevelt made Devil's Tower the first national monument in America. The legend of its creation has many variations in Native American traditions, but I like the Kiowa version of the eight siblings the best. The name The Black Hills is also a bit of a misnomer, though it's due to a trick of the eye and not a poor translation. The hills in that part of Dakota are covered in pine trees, and the trees cast shadows on rocky hillsides that make them appear black from a distance. But whatever you call them or why, they were the most coveted piece

of territory in the country in the 1870s. Rumors of gold had been drifting through the ether for 50 years, and when a financial crisis hit the nation in 1873, the race for ownership of the Black Hills was on. The problem for the white population was that the hills already belonged to someone, legally and officially and for all time. Ownership of the Black Hills had been granted to the Lakota by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Period. End of story. But as panic gripped the country in 1873, more and more people looked at the Black Hills and thought, why should the Lakota have all that land? There are natural resources that can be exploited, and untold riches buried in the ground. The Lakota didn't actually live in the hills. They rarely even go

there. Why should they keep them? By July of 1874, the question was permanently and fatefully answered. General George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills whose mission, on the surface, was to search for a place to build a fort. But he just so happened to bring along geologists and miners, and lo and behold, wouldn't you know it, they discovered gold. The U.S. government wanted to keep the discovery secret. It had been just six years since the government had signed a treaty saying the land belonged to the Lakota. But trying to keep word of the discovery of gold a secret would be like trying to hold back a flood with a dam made of tissue paper. Gold seekers rushed into the area while President Ulysses S. Grant still tried to honor the Fort Laramie Treaty. He knew the Lakota wouldn't sit still for a torrent of white people streaming into the most sacred part of

their land. In the spring of 1875, Grant tried to buy the Black Hills from the native tribes. It was an idea along the lines of the continent of Europe saying, Hey, United States, we want to buy Washington, D.C. from you. What do you think our response would be? For the Lakota, the idea was even worse than that. This land had deep spiritual meaning. Their very being was tied to it. They weren't going to sell it for anything. Grant sent in troops to kick out the

prospectors, but the signs were clear. There was no treaty, no action the United States could take that could stop people from flocking to the Black Hills. So the Lakota and Cheyenne did exactly what you'd expect them to do. They attacked as many intruders as they could. 1875 and 1876 were especially bloody years in the Black Hills, but there was nothing the tribes could do to stop the flood. It was in that first year of migration, 1875, that John B. Pearson discovered gold in a narrow canyon that was lined with dead trees. A mining town sprang up, and almost overnight, it became headquarters for the gold rush in the Black Hills. It set new speed records for growth, and people in the gulch gave it a literal name based on the surroundings.

They called it Deadwood. A couple hundred miles south of Deadwood, Martha Cannery was drunk. She was so drunk that she missed her turn and went 50 miles out of her way. She was out for a buggy ride, and one little hiccup wasn't going to spoil this adventure. No way. The trip began in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She decided she wanted to drive to Fort Russell and back, just a little day trip. She rented a horse and a buggy and took off. On the journey, she took frequent and healthy pulls off a bottle and completely missed the turn for Fort Russell. She didn't realize it until she'd gone 50 miles out of her way and landed in the town of Chug. But even then, she didn't fully understand her mistake.

As she kept drinking through the night in Chug, she figured they must have moved the fort on her. That was the problem. That's why she hadn't seen it. Someone had moved it. The next morning, she was still set on finding it, so she climbed into her rented buggy and took off again. This time, she drove 90 miles before she hit a town that she knew was not Fort Russell. It was Fort Laramie. By now, she knew she'd screwed up. But what was she going to do? She was in Fort Laramie. There were saloons in Fort Laramie.

There was no reason to rush back to Cheyenne. So she turned the horse out to graze and parked the buggy in a corral and got drunk. More drunk. Well, it turned out that the owner of the horse and buggy did in fact want them back. A few days after her arrival in Laramie, a man showed up to reclaim the property of the stable back in Cheyenne. Martha thought for sure she'd be arrested, and she begged the man not to throw her in chains. He told her all he wanted was the horse and buggy, so he took them back to Cheyenne, and Martha celebrated by getting drunk. Shortly thereafter, a wagon train arrived

in town guided by a man named Charlie Utter. The caravan had more than a hundred people in it, prospectors, gamblers, a whole troop of prostitutes, and the most famous gunfighter in the West, Wild Bill Hickok. They were all bound for an illegal mining camp on Lakota land that was the epicenter of the latest gold rush. Martha added herself to the group, and that was how the woman better known as Calamity Jane ended up in Deadwood. Men outnumbered women 100 to 1 in Deadwood in the early days, and it was said the town averaged a murder a day in its first year. Most of the men were minors, and most of the women were prostitutes.

The prostitutes were used to rough treatment, but even they had their breaking points, and Trixie had just reached hers. She was a dance hall girl at the gym theater, but her title was a gentle euphemism for prostitute. A drunk had been beating on her, so she pulled out a gun and shot him in the head. But an incredible thing happened at that point. He didn't die, at least not right away. He survived for another 30 minutes while waiting for the doctor, all the while cursing his situation. Johnny Burns was likely the first person to rush to the scene of the incident. He ran the girls for the gym.

Right on his heels would have been Dan Doherty, the general manager of the incident. He ran the girls for the Gem. Right on his heels would have been Dan Doherty, the general manager of the theater. After that, the boss, Al Swearingen, owner and proprietor of the Gem Theater, the most famous house of debauchery in Deadwood. Al was a vicious man. For fans of the HBO show Deadwood, the character of Al Swearengen, played perfectly by Ian McShane, was pretty much right on the money. In real life, Al was a lying, violent man. He was married three times and divorced three times. All three wives cited abuse as the reason for the divorce. He was notorious for beating the women who worked in the Gem, women who he had lured there under false pretenses.

He put ads in papers for singers, housekeepers, and dancing girls. When the innocent women arrived in Deadwood, they were quickly forced to become prostitutes and to work in the rooms on the second floor of the building with only curtains for doors. The Gem was technically a theater, but it offered pretty much every form of entertainment available in a mining camp. For all intents and purposes, the other forms of entertainment just existed to support the brothel. The Gem was Swearengen's second venture in Deadwood. He began with a crude canvas and wood structure called the Cricket Saloon that offered liquor, card games, and boxing matches.

It was so successful that he used the profits to open The Gem, a permanent two-story building that anchored the lower end of Main Street. The lower end was a district of vice and violence known as the Badlands. The first incarnation of the gem lasted three years. A massive fire leveled Deadwood in 1879, and the gem was just one of hundreds of buildings that burned to the ground. By that point, Swearengen was rich rich and he quickly rebuilt his holy temple of sin. He sunk $225,000 into version 2 of the gem, which would be $5 million today. The result was a bigger,

badder gem theater. This one had an actual casino inside. The profits poured in, and he was making somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 per night. That's $100,013 a day in today's money. Version 2 lasted five years before another huge fire struck Deadwood in 1894. The gem burned down again and Swearengen rebuilt it again. Version 3 was the final version. It burned down for the final time in 1899. This time someone had removed the fire hydrant near the location so firefighters couldn't put out the blaze. Al got the message. He pulled up stakes and lit out for Denver. The newspapers in Deadwood celebrated. They called

the gem a vicious institution and a defiler of youth and destroyer of home ties. They talked about harrowing tales of iniquity, shame, and wretchedness, of lives wrecked and fortunes sacrificed, of vice unhindered and esteem forfeited. Finally, they called it the everlasting shame of Deadwood. Today, the Mineral Palace Hotel and Casino stands on the site of the old Gem Theater. Al Swearingen met the violent end you'd probably expect from a violent man. In September 1904, he'd been visiting his family in Iowa. He was born in Oskaloosa, which is about an hour from where I grew up. He had a twin brother named Lemuel, and after Al left his family to return home to Denver,

an unknown assassin shot Lem five times outside his meat market in Iowa. Less than two months later, an unknown person caved in Al's skull with a blunt object outside his home in Denver. It's believed that the same person killed both men, and the murderer had intended to kill Al in Iowa, but had mistaken him for his twin brother. So after the killer realized his mistake, he tracked Al to Denver and finally did him in. Legend has it that Wild Bill Hickok and his good friend Colorado Charlie Utter were standing on an overlook admiring the Black Hills when Bill told Charlie that he'd had a premonition. This would be his last camp.

He didn't know how or when it would end, but he was certain Deadwood would be his final stop. He was just 39 years old, though he'd lived the life of 10 men. His eyesight was failing, and he was no longer the dead shot he used to be. He'd married Agnes Lake three months earlier, but she was in Cincinnati while he roamed the West trying to secure their fortunes. The fortune-securing business had not gone well. Bill had been arrested several times for vagrancy.

On the surface, he appeared to be every bit of the larger-than-life figure he was. But if you looked closer, the shine was starting to wear off. As Charlie Utter's wagon train rumbled into Deadwood Gulch, it carried one aging gunfighter, one Calamity, and about a hundred other people of every type and description. Charlie was a master freight operator, and he soon established a mail route between Deadwood and Fort Laramie. For 25 cents, you could get your letter from Deadwood to Fort Laramie in just 48 hours. Like Hickok, he was a fine dresser. But unlike Hickok, he didn't drink or gamble to excess. As they arrived in Deadwood in June of 1876,

he appointed himself guardian of Wild Bill. He was going to make sure his longtime friend didn't get into trouble. As the caravan set up camp along Whitewood Creek outside Deadwood, Al Swearengen's first operation, the Cricket Saloon, was the hub of vice on the lower end of Main Street. William Nuddall and Carl Mann's No. 10 Saloon stood not far away. Jack Langrish and his acting troupe had already performed their first play at the Bella Union, and Langrish had wasted no time buying out the first man to open a theater in Deadwood, James McDaniels. The McDaniels Theater was promptly renamed the Langrish Theater, and the Langrish Company's first show in its new home was on July 29, 1876, four days before all hell broke loose. In those precious days, Wild Bill was at work gambling and drinking.

Charlie Utter, Bill's self-appointed caretaker, tried his best to keep the Western legend out of trouble while also establishing his freight business. Calamity Jane, it was probably safe to assume, went on an Old West bar crawl. She dressed like a man and was reputed to curse and drink as well as any man alive. Like Hickok, she had a nickname that had nothing to do with her given name. The story goes that she was out with a group of soldiers to put down a Native American uprising near present-day Sheridan, Wyoming. Warriors ambushed the soldiers, and the captain of the company was the first man shot. Jane was riding out in front, and when she looked back, she saw the captain falling from his horse.

She turned around, rushed back, pulled him up onto her horse, and then took him safely back to the fort. After the man recovered, he declared, I name you Calamity Jane, Heroine of the Plains. Whether it's true or not, her name was quickly known in Deadwood, and it seems that she fell in love with Bill on that wagon train from Laramie.

Many years later, she claimed they were secretly married on the trip, but we know that was false. By all accounts, he never returned her affections. But that didn't stop the good citizens of Deadwood from having a little fun after Jane passed away in 1903. She had requested that she be laid right next to Wild Bill Hickok in Mount Moriah Cemetery, and the Society of Black Hills Pioneers did exactly that. While it's easy to portray her as merely an outrageous drunk, she was much more than that.

She was an accomplished scout, a great marksman, and a vital nurse for Deadwood when smallpox ravaged the area. But before the plague, before she became a cattle rancher, before she traveled more of the West and did tours with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show, she had to experience the tragedy of early August 1876. Two things happened on August 1st that changed the history of Deadwood forever. Seth Bullock and Saul Starr arrived to open a hardware business, and Jack McCall sat down at a poker table with Wild Bill Hickok.

Starr and Bullock were the perfect examples of the classic American dream. They were both immigrants who went off on their own and made incredible lives for themselves. Bullock was from Ontario, Canada. Starr was from Bavaria, Germany. Bullock's father was a British military officer who ran a strict household, which probably led to his son's disciplined personality. Many people thought Seth Bullock was downright cold. Bullock ran away from home at 16 and went to his sister's house in Montana. She quickly sent him back. At 18, he left for good and settled in Montana. At 24, he was a member of the Territorial Senate and helped create the

first national park, Yellowstone. He was elected sheriff of Lewis and Clark County at 26 and married his childhood sweetheart, Martha, one year later. During that time, he also met an enterprising young man named Saul Starr. Starr was born in Germany, but moved to Ohio when he was 10 years old to live with his uncle. After the Civil War, he drifted west and ultimately landed in Helena, where he partnered with Bullock. They formed a hardware business, and in the summer of 1876, they decided to head to Deadwood to make their fortunes. Bullock sent his wife and their young daughter to live with Martha's family in Michigan. Then he and Starr made the difficult trip to set up their new lives. Michigan. Then he and Starr made the difficult trip to set up their new lives. On August 1st,

1876, they rolled down the main street of Deadwood in a wagon loaded with goods and pulled by a team of oxen. One of the many things the TV show Deadwood got right was the feel of the town. To use the terminology of the show, Main Street was a quagmire of mud and filth of every kind. It was teeming with hundreds of dirty men, horses, cattle, and oxen. Animal carcasses hung in open-air shops. Stumps, boulders, and logs clogged the one artery of the town, and the smell must have been unimaginable. But none of that fazed Bullock and Starr. They set up their shop on the corner of Main Street and Wall Street.

They went to work selling picks, axes, chamber pots, cigars, tea, Dutch ovens, fine china, and dynamite. And while they did, Wild Bill Hickok went to work at a poker game almost directly across the street. He was in the No. 10 Saloon, which was only about 100 feet from Bullock and Starr's tent. Hickok's presence in town over the last six weeks had caused quite a stir. There was no law in Deadwood, and some of the true outlaws in town worried that Hickok might be there to become marshal and to clean the place up. Rumors swirled that gunmen were out to kill Hickok,

but most times, Hickok's reputation backed them down. In the case of six Montana gunmen who ran their mouths a little too much, it took reputation and a little talk from Hickok. He said, I understand that you cheap would-be gunfighters from Montana have been making remarks about me. I want you to understand, unless they are stopped, there will shortly be a number of cheap funerals in Deadwood. I have come to this town not to court notoriety, but to live in peace, and do not propose to stand for insults. Thus far, no one had really challenged the most famous gunfighter in the West, or his twin Colts. As the sun set on their first day of operation, Bullock and Starr didn't know they would go on to be two of the real founding fathers of Deadwood. But the future certainly looked bright. All around them, business owners

lit torches so commerce could continue well into the night. It was unseasonably cool in the Black Hills for the heart of summer, and the wind picked up as the sun went down. In the number 10, and the wind picked up as the sun went down. In the number 10, Hickok's poker game must have been going well. He was still at it, and he and the other men at the table had just forced one of the players to retire from the action. As the busted player wandered away, a loafer nicknamed Crooked Nose Jack slithered into the empty chair. The men at the table likely eyed him with suspicion,

but he had money for the moment, so they started the game back up. It was quickly apparent that Jack McCall was two things, drunk and a terrible poker player. He couldn't win when he had decent cards, and he couldn't bluff when he didn't. He lost one hand, and then another, and then another. He kept playing and kept losing.

It was obvious to everyone at the table that he was out of his depth, but he wouldn't quit until he ran out of money, which he eventually did. After his last hand, he was broke and busted, and the hour was growing late. Hickok took pity on him and tossed him some coins. He advised Jack to go eat supper and maybe rest a while before he tried his luck at the tables again. McCall accepted the money, and he didn't seem to give any outward indication that he was seriously insulted by the gesture. He left the table, and Hickok and the others went back to their game. Before Bill went to bed that night, he composed one final letter to his wife. The

conclusion read, Agnes, darling, if such should be we never meet again. While firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife, Agnes, and with wishes even for my enemies, I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore. J.B. Hickok The next day, August 2nd, 1876, Bullock and Starr opened their hardware business for its first full day of operation. That afternoon, Wild Bill Hickok walked into the No. 10 to start up another round of poker. He paused at the bar to have a quick conversation with the bartender, Harry Young.

Then he moved to a table near the back of the saloon where four men were already playing. One of the owners, Carl Mann, was at the table. Charlie Rich, a gunman, had the seat with his back to the wall, the only chair that provided safety. Con Stapleton was there, and so was Captain Willie Massey, a Missouri steamboat pilot. Hickok took the only chair available, which left him exposed to the open back door. The five men started to play, and before long, Jack McCall walked into the saloon. He came in the front door, giving no hint of what he intended. The game was proceeding nicely. Hickok was joking with Captain Massey about the captain's habit of sneaking looks at the discarded cards.

McCall wandered around behind Hickok, straying toward the back door. No one paid him any attention. Suddenly, a gunshot exploded in the saloon. McCall shouted, Damn you, take that, and smoke drifted out of the barrel of his.45 caliber Colt. The bullet struck Bill in the back of the head and exited out of his right cheek. Then it smashed into Captain Massey's left arm. Bill sat there for a moment, suspended as if nothing had happened. Then he toppled over and dropped his cards onto the floor. Legend has it he had two pair, aces and eights, which would be forever known as the dead man's hand.

It was 4.10pm. For a second, the shock of the incident froze everyone in place. Then McCall started pulling the trigger. He tried to fire at the other card players, but amazingly, all of the other cartridges in his gun were duds. McCall ran out of the saloon while trying to fire at Harry Young behind the bar, but his gun continued to hit on dead rounds. He made it out to Main Street and jumped on someone's horse, but the saddle was loose, so he instantly slipped off. McCall scrambled to his feet in the muck and the mud, and he ran down the street. He dove into a meat market and tried to hide from the chaos that had erupted outside, but he was quickly caught. Later that day, as afternoon faded to evening, the town received another shock. Hickok's body was being prepared

for burial when something raised a commotion. People thought Hickok's friends had formed a lynch mob to give McCall frontier justice, but what they saw was worse. A man known only as the Mexican galloped through the streets, swinging the severed head of a Native American warrior. The previous day, as Bullock and Starr opened their tent, five warriors had attacked some cowboys 20 miles outside of town near Crook City. A cowboy had killed one of the warriors, and when news of the attack reached camp, a man who was identified only as the Mexican in the newspaper rode out to the site of the attack. He wanted to take the scalp of the warrior, but for some reason, he cut off the warrior's whole head. Now, as Deadwood grappled with the murder of Wild Bill Hickok,

the Mexican spurred his horse through the streets and waved the head of the dead warrior. It was a grotesque end to a murderous day. The next day, a miners' court convened to hear the trial of Jack McCall, but the whole thing was a bit of a charade. They went through the motions, but they had no legal authority because the entire settlement was illegal. In general, the proceedings were fairly simple.

The prosecutor, Colonel May, said this, If this is not murder, then there never was a murder committed. The deceased, in his bloody winding sheet from his mountain grave, demands that a proper punishment be meted out to his villainous assassin. McCall's defense was revenge. He said, Wild Bill killed my brother, and I killed him. Wild Bill threatened to kill me if I ever crossed his path. I'm not sorry for what I'd done, and I would do the same thing over again. McCall claimed that Hickok had gunned down his brother while the lawman was the Marshal of Abilene. The jury rendered a swift verdict.

Not guilty, and McCall was free to go. He wasted no time leaving town. Al Swearengen gave him a horse and he hit the road. McCall went to Laramie, where he predictably got drunk and started bragging about his notorious achievements. It was there that he admitted he didn't have a brother, and his entire defense had been a lie. He was arrested in Laramie and taken back to Dakota Territory for a proper trial. This one was held in Yankton in November of 1876,

and it was definitely not a charade. McCall's lawyer tried to claim double jeopardy, that he couldn't be tried twice for the same crime when he'd already been found not guilty. The court in Yankton wasn't buying it. They said the trial in Deadwood had no legal standing, so it basically never happened. McCall was put on the stand again, and this time the prosecutor asked him why he didn't shoot Hickok from the front like a man. McCall responded that he didn't want to commit suicide.

The court erupted in laughter, and then they found him guilty of murder in the first degree. He was hanged in Yankton at 10 a.m. on March 1, 1877. Afterward, he was buried in an unmarked grave, with the noose still around his neck. That was Deadwood in the days of 76. It was one of the towns in the pantheon of the Old West, along with Tombstone and Dodge City and a few others. It was possibly the richest mining camp in American history, and it was a hell of a place to make your fortune. Next time on the Legends of the Old West podcast, we'll go back to Deadwood for a few more stories about some of the meaningful and colorful people in town.

Then you'll hear directly from some folks in Deadwood about their experiences on the set of the HBO show Deadwood. The closing song for Season 1 was composed and performed by The Mighty Ork, a great musician from Houston, Texas. Additional original music by Rob Valliere. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your writer, host, and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, and find us on social media.

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