Travels with Twinkles: Deadwood and Spearfish, South Dakota

August18, 2019:

Before leaving Sheridan Wyoming, I start the day off right with a good breakfast at the Cowboy Cafe in Sheridan.

Where the locals eat

I make a stop at the town of Big Horn, Wyoming hoping that the Bozeman Trail museum would be open, but no such luck. It was still worthwhile as leaving town I took a back road to route I-90 which went through beautiful countryside.

The art of the hayfield is beautiful

I exit interstate 90 and explore the town of Buffalo, Wyoming. It turns out to be a very pretty town with the huge historic Occidental Hotel, saloon and restaurant. The clean fast flowing Clear Creek runs through town and as I am walking over the bridge a man shows me a line on an adjacent building that indicates the level the river reached during a flood in 1912. He explained how the river flowed right through the Hotel doing much damage. There were two great murals and several attractive buildings of interest. I went into an outdoors store that had an amazing inventory of hunting, fishing, hiking, rafting, biking and clothing. I bought a book there about Crazy Woman who is sort of a local legend, much is named for her.

https://www.buffalowyoming.org

This historic Occidental Hotel is a destination, the entire town is a gem

Street level view

The Sports & Lure shop had an amazing inventory and was almost a museum inside

Great mural with a beautiful river running through town

My next stop was Gillette, Wyoming which didn’t turn out so good. Much of the historic downtown area has been replaced with new brick buildings that I can’t get too excited about but it's progress, they are trying to revitalize this depressed area. They have installed several sculptures along the sidewalks similar to Sheridan, this must be a Wyoming thing.

There is a huge railroad yard here with miles of gondola cars that are used to haul coal from the nearby Eagle Butte Coal Mine. Like most towns, there is a miracle mile section of town a couple of miles away with wall to wall food and lodging chains, Walmart, Home Depot and about every other service business imaginable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillette,_Wyoming

Boxing and Bingo together ?

The Crazy Woman Mercantile, probably true ?

Many of the sculptures are corny, but I thought this one was great

Every town now has several Tattoo shops, but I'm starting to notice that
Cover-Ups are also being advertised

This town loves coal

It was about 2 PM when I decided that I didn't care much for Gillette, wasn't going to overnight there and and instead decided to get back on the road heading for Deadwood, South Dakota.
I pull into Deadwood about 4 PM and to great surprise right into a nice open parking spot. It was the usual crowd of tourists milling about the casinos and the souvenir shops. I walked around taking photos for a while, it was a hot day and I needed to cool off so I went into the "Wild Bill Bar" for a beer. I seem to always gravitate to this very place every time I come to Deadwood. Could it be some kind of a past life here ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood,_South_Dakota

The very place where Wild Bill Hitchcock was fatally shot during a card game
holding the iconic "Dead mans Hand"

This town is full of authentic old buildings

The Fair Hotel

Street view

Many old advertising signs are still readable, I'm wondering if anything is being done
to preserve these signs from further decay ?

Deadwood is another favorite biker town and the businesses play up to it.
I like the logo though.

Like Wild Bill, Butch Cassidy & Sundance were everywhere

Nice cigar advertisement picture in the Wild Bill Bar

Interior of the Will Bill Bar

The street parking in Deadwood is minimal and I decided it best to go to the nearby town of Spearfish for the night. The old downtown Spearfish business area is only about three blocks and it was way better than I expected. There was a very artistic City Hall building, the very cool Back Porch Bar, the beautiful B & B Lounge sign and several buildings on the national historic register. The coolest thing of all is this world globe on top of a post that can be rotated by a crank via several gears and chains to view the various scenes on the globe. The history of each historic buildings is told on plaques on the sidewalk. I walked around checking these buildings in the early morning before leaving town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearfish,_South_Dakota