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The Curtain Goes Up

by David A. Soma

Entertainment! Everyone craves it. Everyone seeks out new and diverse experience. Tens of thousands of visitors flock to Deadwood and the Black Hills of Dakota every year. Why are they coming? The promise of adventure…a new life experience…they want to be entertained!

Every one who works in Deadwood is an entertainer.  The housekeeping staff who insure that every guest room is spotless and refreshing, the bartenders who serve the cool and relaxing beverages, our retail associates, front desk clerks, players’ club attendants, restaurant wait staff, trolley drivers, dealers…all of us are performers. We entertain our visitors with a special brand of Dakota hospitality mixed with a heavy dose of Deadwood Gulch history. And our history gives our entertainment an intrinsic value that the guest carries with him forever.

This phenomenon is not a new one for Deadwood.  When we were just a mining camp -a few log buildings and canvas tents - the thousands of miners who descended on the Gulch sought entertainment.  Our early residents were eager for diversion from the back-breaking rigors of taking gold out of the streams and hillsides. As soon as the prospectors began to arrive the entertainers were close on their heels. The saloonkeepers, brothel operators, gamblers, dance hall entrepreneurs, opium den proprietors and theatre impresarios quickly established Deadwood Gulch as a mecca for fun.

Our entertainment establishments were Deadwood’s first real gold mines.  Fortunes were made up and down Main Street.  The notorious Gem Theatre, McDaniels Theatre (the improvised courtroom for the trail of Jack McCall) and  Nuttles and Manns Saloon (the site of Wild Bill’s final poker table) were just a few of the first locations offering entertainment to the thousands of hard working souls who made the arduous cross-country trek to the Black Hills seeking their fortune.  Even the renowned troupe of New York Shakespearian actors led by the Langrishes made Deadwood one of the extended stops on their tour of world capitals. You could come to Deadwood Gulch seeking a fortune and have fun while you were doing it!

Times don’t change all that much. History has a habit of repeating itself.  In the 21st Century, countless pilgrims still seek out Deadwood to make their fortune and have the time of their lives.  Deadwood is known as South Dakota ’s playground, the Las Vegas of the prairie and even Hollywood has romanticized our history with a sassy, pungent television series.  This series is now running throughout Europe and Japan , where enthusiasm for all things “western”-or as they call it “eastern”-is at an all-time high. We trust that the Emmy award winning program will introduce a whole new audience to our colorful history and bring western-hungry fans to our streets and properties.

To make sure that our guests continue to be properly entertained, the month of May ushers in our seven day a week live entertainment season. The gunfighters resume their Main Street performances, the Trail of Jack McCall reconvenes in the Masonic Temple Theatre, Wild Bill plays his last poker hand at the Old Style Saloon, the Bullock Hotel’s Ghost Tours offer a haunted journey through time and place, and the Charlie Utter Theatre and the Lucky Nugget Theatre will again serve as venues for a variety of music and dancing shows. 
The curtain is going up on another season of entertainment --- let the shows begin. 

Ladies and gentlemen, take your places, wherever they may be.  May audience and performers alike have a good show and may a wonderful time be had by all.