Our final stop in South Dakota was Deadwood for a week – a city about 45 minutes northwest of Rapid City. Deadwood made its name as a Gold Rush town, before becoming somewhat infamous as a city that let prostitution fly under the radar.
Its final brothels were shut down in 1980. Up until that point the brothels had contributed a significant amount of money to the local economy, so this had a big impact on the city’s finances. In 1989 South Dakota legalized gambling in Deadwood which led to a large number of casinos entering the city.
Deadwood now has a thriving tourist industry, largely due to those casinos, but also by embracing its Gold Rush / Wild West history. There are several museums, shootout reenactments, ghost tours, etc. that can make it an interesting place to visit. The Deadwood TV series that ran for three seasons on HBO from 2004-2006 also increased its popularity with visitors.
We spent a week there in May 2023 – here’s what we did.
Where We Stayed In Deadwood
Four Points by Sheraton Deadwood
Shae and I hadn’t originally planned to visit Deadwood. We’d not even heard of it (other than a vague recollection of there being TV series called Deadwood almost 20 years ago), but when searching for accommodation in Rapid City some hotels in Deadwood came up in the search results.
One of those – the Four Points by Sheraton – was very cheap at only $65 per night including taxes and fees. That low rate got me intrigued and, after seeing its location on Main St and many of the activities within walking distance, we decided to book a week-long stay there.
For $65 it was a great place to stay. It’s a fairly new hotel, it was clean, quiet and comfortable and was indeed as close to many of Deadwood’s attractions as Google Maps had made it look.
It does have a couple of downsides. There’s no cold water in the hotel whatsoever (this was confirmed by a front desk agent) other than a water dispenser in the fitness room, so it was a little weird not being able to (well, not wanting to) drink water from the tap and having to brush our teeth with warm water. Parking is expensive as well at $20 per night.
Guests do get a number of perks when staying though which includes free game play at the attached Tin Lizzie casino, buy one get one free drinks and sushi rolls and more. You can read our full review of the Four Points by Sheraton Deadwood here.
Things To Do In Deadwood
Main Street
Main St is a cute area with lots of casinos, saloon bars, souvenir stores, etc. I say casinos, but they’re not enormous ones that you’ll find in Las Vegas. Instead, they’re much smaller and many of them only had slot machines, although a few did seem to have things like poker tables and roulette.
Deadwood was a surprisingly dog-friendly place. They’re allowed in several casinos, saloons, stores, distilleries, etc., so Truffles had a great time while we stayed there.
Deadwood HistoryLink Information Boards
While walking around Deadwood we spotted a lot of HistoryLink information boards which shared more about the history of the city.
Mr Wu’s
Opposite our hotel was Mr Wu’s – one of the aforementioned small casinos. This is one that had maybe 50 slot machines max and is presumably named after the character Mr Wu from the Deadwood TV series.
We found ourselves visiting Mr Wu’s a few times because of a great feature they have. Provided you’re playing the slot machines, you can get free drinks and free food. The free drinks included a number of draft beers, as well as wine and possibly spirits too.
The free food consisted of self-serve hot dogs, popcorn and potato chips. It’s therefore not the healthiest place to go for dinner every night, although we did do that for dinner a couple of nights that we were there!
Another nice thing is that they’re pet-friendly. Something to be aware of is that Mr Wu’s is a fairly small space and so if you have a big dog you might not want to bring them. We brought Truffles along one night, but because she’s so small there’d be the risk that she’d get stepped on and so we put her in her backpack.
Tin Lizzie Casino
One of the perks we received from staying at the Four Points Deadwood was $15 of free play in the Tin Lizzie casino. We just had to register at their Clubhouse desk and we got a card with $15 loaded to it to spend there.
Tin Lizzie is another casino that’s pet-friendly and so Truffles joined us while we tried to win (albeit unsuccessfully).
Shooting Reenactment – Saloon No. 10
Wild Bill Hickok was a notorious former resident of Deadwood. He’s buried up in Mount Moriah Cemetery and lost his life after being shot by Jack McCall during a card game.
Saloon No. 10 does a reenactment of that shooting several times per day. It’s a fun experience which is free to attend (the actors accept tips) and they get a few members of the audience to participate as other card players.
Saloon No. 10 is pet-friendly, so you can even bring your pup along to the shooting reenactment. The gunfire isn’t very loud and so Truffles was OK, but the noise could be scary for other more skittish dogs. The actors pose for photos afterwards, so all three of us got to have our photo taken with Jack McCall and Wild Bill Hickok.
Shooting Reenactment – Main St
On Saturdays during tourist season (which seems to start mid-May) there are a number of activities up and down Main St. Some are free, while others are paid activities. One of the free activities is a shooting reenactment that takes place in the middle of Main St, so they close off that block to cars for the 5-10 minutes while it’s going on.
There were actually a couple of reenactments – one of Wild Bill Hickok’s shooting and another which was more of a gunslinger’s shootout. There were a few more gunshots with these and they were louder, so be aware of that if you bring dogs along as this one startled Truffles a little towards the end.
Wild Bill Hickok Statue
The Four Points hotel we stayed at is connected to the Hampton Inn hotel. That’s owned by the same company and the Tin Lizzie casino is between the two. At the other end of the Hampton Inn – the other side of the road to the Deadwood Welcome Center – is a statue of Wild Bill Hickok.
Spearfish Canyon Hiking
We went hiking about 30 minutes west of Deadwood to Roughlock Falls and Spearfish Falls which are in Spearfish Canyon. It’s a really pretty area with both sets of falls being easy to get to. You can find out more about both of them and the trails to get there in this post.
The Brothel Deadwood
When I first came across Deadwood as being an option for us to stay at, I noticed that they had a brothel museum there which seemed like it could be interesting. It turns out that it was indeed interesting; you get a guided tour around a former brothel where you learn more about the city’s history with not-legal-but-not-very-frowned-upon prostitution, the lives and experiences of some of the sex workers, its madams and more.
Other Museums & Mount Moriah Cemetery
While I was working one day, Shae went out to check out a few of the other museums in Deadwood. She visited the Days of ’76 Museum, Adams Museum and Historic Adams House, plus she walked up to Mount Moriah Cemetery where many famous names from Deadwood’s history are buried including Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok. Check out this post that she wrote which shares more about all of those.
Whitewood Creek
Down by the Deadwood Welcome Center is Whitewood Creek. This has a walking trail down beside it, so Truffles and I often went for a walk down there at night as it was pretty well lit. It was also made for a nice walk during the day; there’s not much grass on Main St, so it’s a great place to walk your pup if they’re with you when visiting Deadwood.
Other Things To Do Near Deadwood
Seeing as Deadwood is on the western side of South Dakota, it’s in a good location for exploring lots of other great attractions in the area. We’d done many of those while we were in Rapid City for 10 days before our week in Deadwood, but you could just as easily visit them while staying in Deadwood. Here are links to the posts we wrote about them:
Where We Ate & Drank In Deadwood
Deadwood Distilling Company
After watching the shootout on Main St, Shae and I went to check out Deadwood Distilling Company. They’re pet-friendly, so Truffles got to come in too rather than having to drop her off back at the hotel.
Deadwood Distilling Company sells whiskey, moonshine and cream liqueurs and you can taste all of them if you want. We started off trying out their moonshines; I was a little confused about their pricing because you could in theory taste a couple for free, others were $1 per taste or the board said you could taste all four for $5 (i.e. $1.25 per taste). Having said that, they had five flavors listed, so maybe the part which says ‘All Four’ was a typo write-o.
This section had both moonshines and cream liqueurs and you get to choose which ones you want to try. Between the two of us I think we tried most of them; I forget which was my favorite, but they were all very good. I think I tried the apple pie moonshine, whiskey and cream liqueur, orange creamsicle cream liqueur and one or two others.
After trying out the moonshines and cream liqueurs, we headed to the other side of the store where they offer whiskey tastings.
Shae and I both decided to try all five and these were all good too.
West River Whiskey
On the other side of the road to Deadwood Distilling Company is West River Whiskey.
They have a quite a few different whiskeys you can taste. From what I can remember this was another place where you paid per whiskey you try and I wanted to try all of them and so it came to $21.30 including tip. The whiskeys were all very good; there were one or two I was interested in buying a bottle of, but those ones were pretty expensive.
Belle Joli Winery Tasting Room
One of the nice things about staying on Main St was that everything was within walking distance, so we didn’t have to worry about taking an Uber or taxi if we wanted to have a drink. Almost right opposite our hotel was the Belle Joli Winery tasting room, so after finishing work one day we went there to do a tasting.
In addition to offering wine by the glass, you can do a flight tasting which costs $10. There are three flights you can choose from which have four pre-selected wines:
We both tried a different flight and enjoyed their wines.
However, at $42+ for nearly every bottle there, they’re waaaaay overpriced if you want to buy a bottle as their wine wasn’t $42+ per bottle-worthy.
Mr Wu’s
I mentioned earlier that one of the reasons we liked Mr Wu’s is because you can get free drinks and free food while playing their slot machines. You don’t have to physically be sitting at a slot machine in order to eat or drink there though – there are tables you can sit at in between games.
Ichiban Express Sushi Bar
As part of our stay at the Four Points, we got a slip of paper which listed perks we got from staying there. That includes Buy One, Get One Free inchiban rolls from Ichiban Express Sushi Bar in the Tin Lizzie casino.
As I mentioned in our review of the Four Points, we were both dubious about getting sushi from a restaurant attached to a casino in a Wild West town in South Dakota, but the sushi was made to order and so it was fresher than we’d expected. The ichiban roll had avocado, cream cheese and crab meat inside, with tempura batter on the outside and drizzled with some kind of sauce. It wasn’t the best sushi we’ve ever had, but it was better than we were expecting.
Paddy O’Neill’s Irish Pub & Grill
Also attached to the Tin Lizzie casino was Paddy O’Neill’s Irish Pub & Grill. Another of the perks we got from our stay at the Four Points was Buy One Get One Free drinks at Paddy O’Neills, so we took advantage of that a couple of times.
Ketchup on a Hot dog? Ugh. And maybe another 7 posts about your silly dog? I don’t think you mentioned him enough.
I guess we didn’t mention Truffles enough as Truffles is a her rather than a him
Don’t care LOL! Mutts are annoying anyway. DW is a great place to visit though!