Legends of the Old West - WILD BILL HICKOK Ep. 6 | “Deadwood”

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Wild Bill returns to Cheyenne and joins the wagon train organized by his good friend Charlie Utter. The caravan begins the trip to Deadwood and Buffalo Bill Cody on the trail. He delivers shocking news of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Calamity Jane joins the group and adds to a memorable entrance into the mining camp. Shortly after their arrival, Hickok’s mood turns dark. He begins to feel that his days are numbered. And then he sits down at a poker table with Jack McCall… Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes 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. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. By the spring of 1876, the U.S. Army had given up on expelling miners from the Black Hills region of Dakota Territory. The previous year, while President Ulysses S. Grant tried to buy the Black Hills from the Lakota, various Army patrols diligently escorted prospectors out of the hills. After Grant's attempts failed, he authorized General Phil Sheridan to move forward with a plan to push all Native American tribes onto reservations or kill them in the process. When the action was complete, the U.S. would simply take the Black Hills and add them to existing territories. There was gold in the hills, and by 1876, there was no way to stop the rush.

there was no way to stop the rush. That spring, men of every trade hurried to the region. Most were miners who planned to sift the gold out of Whitewood Creek, the waterway that carved Deadwood Gulch over millennia. But others chose to make money by mining the miners. After all, the miners had to spend their gold on something. They needed supplies, tools, meals, and entertainment. So there were blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, cooks, shopkeepers of every kind, and, of course, saloon operators. There was the No. 10 Saloon, owned by Carl Mann and Billy Nuttall. There was the Cricket Saloon, owned by Al Swearengen, the soon-to-be notorious owner

of the most notorious joint in town, The Gem. But The Gem Theater didn't open until 1877, so for now, Swearengen made do with his rough-and-tumble saloon that began as a simple canvas tent. Everyone agreed that the best place to eat in town was the Grand Central Hotel, not because it was grand, but because the chef was Lucretia Marchbanks, better known as Aunt Lou. She was such a good cook that the men who ran the bigger mines eventually hired her away from the hotel. She was almost certainly the first Black woman in the Black Hills, and she was respected by everyone for her work ethic, loyalty, personality, and of course her culinary ability. By the time Wild Bill Hickok arrived halfway through the summer, most of the major players

were in place. Nuttall and Mann were running the number 10. Swearingen was running the cricket. Nuttall and Mann were running the No. 10. Swearingen was running the Cricket. Aunt Lou was cooking up a storm at the Grand Central. E.B. Farnham was the mayor. And A.W. Merrick was publishing the first newspaper in Deadwood, The Black Hills Pioneer. Miners pulled ungodly amounts of gold from the creeks.

Gamblers and saloon operators gave them every chance to lose it. Businesses ran day and night. Thousands of people were crushed together in a narrow gulch that was named for the dead trees that littered the hillsides. And at that point, they were all there illegally, though that was quickly becoming a technicality. Right before Wild Bill began his journey to Deadwood, a battle happened in southern Montana that changed everything for the West. Bill learned about it when he saw an old friend for the last time, and right before he met a calamity on the road to the hills. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you.

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shopify.com slash realm. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling the story of legendary lawman and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok. This is Episode 6, Deadwood. On June 27, 1876, Wild Bill Hickok and his good friend Colorado Charlie Utter rolled out of Cheyenne at the head of a wagon train bound for Deadwood. Charlie planned to start a transportation business. He was going to move people and cargo back and forth between Deadwood and Cheyenne. Bill planned a prospect for gold. He'd been married to Agnes Lake for less than three months, and he needed to put together a stake to help support his new wife.

She didn't really need to be supported because she owned and operated a successful circus, but she was nearly 50 years old and it was time to stop traveling the country in such stressful conditions. Bill had turned 39 years old one month before he left Cheyenne for Deadwood. He wasn't an old man, but he sure felt like it. His eyesight was declining. His joints hurt. He wasn't as fast with a gun as he used to be, and he walked with the help of a cane made from a billiard cue. But even with all his ailments, the trip started out well. Of the many things the wagon train carried, the five-gallon keg of whiskey was one of the most important. Every morning, the crew gathered around Bill's wagon to start the day with a drink.

For many, the drinks kept flowing throughout the day. For the rest, they came back for an evening pull. The caravan headed north from Cheyenne toward Laramie. When it reached Laramie, it added 30 more wagons to the group and a lot more people, the most colorful of whom was Martha Jane Cannery, better known as Calamity Jane. The story she told about how she earned her famous nickname was that she saved the life of an army captain during a fight with Native American warriors. The captain declared her Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains. The nickname didn't really make sense because a calamity is a bad thing, and according to Jane, she had just saved the captain's life, which was

a good thing. But obviously it didn't matter. The name stuck, and it's still one of the most well-known of the Old West. And the story of how she ended up in Laramie is also a good one, no matter how much of it is true. The story goes that she rented a buggy in Cheyenne and wanted to take a day trip to Fort Russell. She brought a bottle of whiskey with her and took healthy swigs along the way. She'd probably taken several healthy swigs before she got started, and by the time she reached the cutoff for Fort Russell, she was so drunk she missed the turn. She eventually found herself in Fort Laramie,

90 miles north of her intended destination. Fort Laramie had saloons and whiskey, so she just stayed in town. The man who owned the horse and buggy tracked her down and collected his property. And lucky for her, he didn't press charges for theft. And then along came a caravan of prospectors, gamblers, bartenders, prostitutes, and the most famous lawmen in the West. Calamity Jane joined Charlie and Bill's wagon train for the remaining two weeks of the journey to Deadwood. One of the most common myths of the Old West is that Jane and Bill began

a romance on the trip. That story came from Jane herself, and there's a 99.9% chance that it's not true. The rest of the accounts say that Bill rarely interacted with her. He was recently married to a woman he'd probably been in love with for years, and he wasn't drawn to Jane. But lots of other details about her seem to be true. She was great at driving a mule team. She was a great bullwhacker, and she was a good shot. She was also loud and brash and drank more than most men. When the travelers sat around the campfire at night, everyone loved to listen to her stories, though they rarely believed a word. After the Laramie stop, the caravan ran into another famous person. At Sage Creek in eastern Wyoming, the caravan happened upon Buffalo Bill Cody. He had once again been

recruited by the Army as a scout of the plains. This time, it was in the wake of a historic battle in southern Montana. The caravan had been traveling since June 27th, and news of the battle had not reached it out there in the Badlands. So Cody informed the nearly 100 people in the group that two days before they left, George Armstrong Custer and a contingent of the 7th Cavalry had been wiped out by thousands of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. The news of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was shocking, just like it would be for the rest of the country as it spread from coast to coast in the newspapers. And the meeting of the two old friends was brief.

There wasn't time to sit around the campfire and swap stories about recent adventures. Both men had to get back on the trail. Buffalo Bill had to guide the army in its pursuit of retaliation, and Wild Bill had to get back to his pursuit of gold. The old friends bid each other goodbye. They'd known each other for nearly 20 years, and in that time, they'd experienced thrills and terrors on the plains, good times in saloons, tough times in war, and funny and frustrating times on stage.

They remained friends through it all, and whether they knew it or not, this was their final farewell. They never saw each other again. When Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill parted ways, Wild Bill's caravan kept a steady pace toward Deadwood. Wild Bill's caravan kept a steady pace toward Deadwood. Near the middle of July 1876, it reached the small community of Custer City, south of town. It stopped for a couple days to let the animals rest, but a handful of the notable travelers were anxious to see the mining camp. Bill, Charlie, Jane, and a few others rode into Deadwood and arrived sometime around July 15th.

That date sticks out because the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper announced that Calamity Jane was in town, but it made no mention of Wild Bill Hickok. That's also not to say that Wild Bill didn't make an entrance, because he absolutely did. Bill rode into the hectic camp, sitting tall and proud on his horse, with his long hair flowing behind him. Charlie Utter looked like a clone, though he was several inches shorter than Bill. He had hair down past his shoulders and rode erect in the saddle. And with Calamity Jane in the party, who was just as impressive to see because she didn't dress like any other woman in the area, the contingent caused people to stop and stare. A journalist put it like this.

They rode the entire length of Main Street, mounted on good horses, and clad in complete suits of buckskin, every suit of which carried sufficient fringe to make a considerable buckskin rope. The first place they stopped was Nuttall and Mann's No. 10 Saloon. Carl Mann ran out to greet the famous newcomers, and he quickly convinced Wild Bill to make the No. 10 his headquarters while he was in town. Bill was a living, breathing tourist attraction, and his presence would bring loads of new customers to the No. 10. Bill agreed to the deal, and it was probably at that point that he was able to say hi to another acquaintance.

Harry Young was now a bartender at the No. 10. Five years ago, in 1871, Harry had breezed into Hayes City while Hickok was the marshal. Harry had $40 in his pockets from construction work, but he quickly lost it at the poker tables. Hickok helped him get a job that got him back on his feet, and Harry never forgot Hickok's kindness. And now, of all the gin joints in all the world, Harry was working at the number 10, where Bill was about to spend most of his remaining days. Bill's procession carried on down Main Street, and they set up camp along Whitewood Creek on the outskirts of town.

A young man who was with the group, nicknamed White Eye Anderson, detailed Bill's routine as he settled into his new home. Bill did target practice every morning. He fired both pistols at a cottonwood tree until they were empty. Then he took a shot of whiskey and went to town for breakfast. Since this was July of 1876, breakfast was probably at the Grand Central Hotel and cooked by Aunt Lou Marchbanks.

And then, most times, Bill found his way to the number 10 to play poker and drink whiskey. But if that first week or so was a time of fun exploration of a new town, even one as dirty and lawless as Deadwood, and if Bill was still a man on a mission, the mission started to fade and crack. He showed no interest in prospecting for gold. His only desire seemed to be sitting at a poker table at the number 10 with cards in one hand and a whiskey in the other. It couldn't have been longer than Bill's second week in town before his mood turned dark and sullen. He was already starting to get a bad feeling about this camp, and his activities didn't help.

He drank more than ever, and he started losing at the poker table. He borrowed money from Charlie Utter, but since Bill never even tried to pan for gold, his only way to pay Charlie back was through winning at poker. It was a self-defeating cycle. And even though Bill had shown virtually no interest in anything that couldn't be found at the No. 10 saloon, rumors began to circulate that he was in town to bring law and order. An unofficial government had been established in April, in order. An unofficial government had been established in April, but it mainly consisted of local merchant E.B. Farnham as mayor and justice of the peace. There was no marshal,

but some people thought Hickok was there to create the job and clean up the town like he'd done with Hayes City and Abilene. Two such people were Tim Brady and Johnny Varnes. They tried to hire assassins to kill Hickok. Both the potential assassins said no. They were too afraid to tangle with Wild Bill. One day in the street, six men stepped in front of Hickok. They intended to kill him or run him out of town or at the very least make sure he

would never become a lawman in Deadwood. Bill pulled his pistols and stated plainly that he would not be intimidated. His exact words have probably been polished over time, but his quote is still great no matter how he phrased it. He said, I understand 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. Bill finished his warning by saying, I have come to this town not to court notoriety, but to live in peace and do not propose to stand for insults. The six men wisely went about their business and left Hickok alone. But confrontations like that and the persistent rumors and Bill's general mood continued to cause strain. At one point,

Charlie Utter suggested a scheme to get Bill out of town for a while. Charlie proposed a plan to go steal some Indian ponies and take them to a fort and sell them for cash. Bill seemed intrigued by the idea, but then he shook his head and said no. He made it clear that he understood the situation in Deadwood. He knew people in town were trying to kill him. He said they either would or they wouldn't, but he wasn't going to run and he wasn't going to leave town unless he was carried out. Hickok became increasingly certain that that would be his fate. He would be carried out of town as a dead man, or he would never leave town alive. Shortly after their arrival, Bill told Charlie that he thought his days were

numbered. He said he was sure that someone in town would kill him. He didn't know who or why, but he had a strong sense it would happen. And then a couple weeks later, at the end of July, he repeated the omen. Hickok said, Charlie, I feel this is going to be my last camp, and I won't leave it alive. On Tuesday, August 1st, 1876, the end began. Hickok played poker in the No. 10 saloon for most of the night. One of his opponents was a 24-year-old drifter named Jack McCall. McCall was from Kentucky, but he'd been roaming the West for several years. He used a variety of names during those years,

and he may have been calling himself Bill Sutherland when he came to Deadwood. On that night, Hickok had some luck at the table. He won all of McCall's money. And then he took pity on the younger man and gave him some money to buy breakfast. At the end of the night, which probably meant it was close to dawn, Bill headed back to camp and went to sleep. The next day, he took a bath, as always, then dressed in some of his finest clothes and met Charlie Utter. They went to town and had breakfast at around noon when most people were having lunch. At around three o'clock in the afternoon, on Wednesday, August 2nd, Hickok headed for the No. 10 Saloon.

Hickok walked in and chatted with his friend Harry Young at the bar. Harry poured him a shot of whiskey, and then Bill headed for the poker table. Three men were already in a game. The owner of the saloon, Carl Mann, sat in one chair. An old riverboat captain, William Massey, sat in another. And a 17-year-old kid named Charles Rich sat in the chair that has always been proclaimed to be Bill's coveted position, the chair that had its back to the wall. The lone empty chair left Hickok exposed to the rest of the saloon. Hickok asked Charles

Rich to change places with him, but Rich refused. Hickok didn't push it. He sat down and started to play. The first hour of the game went about as badly as it could. Bill lost hand after hand and was forced to ask Harry Young for a loan of $50. Harry gave him the loan, and the game started back up again. Hickok's final words were about Captain Massey. Bill said, the old duffer broke me on that last hand. Jack McCall entered the saloon at around 4 p.m. He didn't sneak in through the back door and creep

up behind Wild Bill. He walked in through the front door, and Bill would have been able to see him the whole way. McCall idled at the bar for a few minutes as Charles Rich dealt the next hand to the players. As the men at the table examined their cards, legend has it that Hickok held a pair of aces and a pair of eights, a hand that would soon become known as the Dead Man's Hand. While the players made their moves, Jack McCall slinked around behind Hickok. At about 4.10 p.m., McCall pulled out a.45 caliber revolver and put it to the back of Hickok's head.

He pulled the trigger and shouted, damn you, take that. The bullet slammed into Hickok's head at point-blank range. It exited below his right cheekbone and burrowed into Captain Massey's left wrist across the table. Hickok toppled sideways out of his chair and slumped to the floor. McCall waved the gun at the other men in the saloon and continued to pull the trigger, but every other attempt ended in a misfire. The only round McCall successfully fired was the one that killed Wild Bill Hickok. McCall raced out the back door and hurried around to Main Street. He leapt on a horse, but the saddle was loose and he slipped off.

He scrambled to his feet and ran until he ducked into a butcher shop. He hid in the store as chaos erupted in Deadwood. Word of the murder spread quickly, and a mob of citizens tracked McCall to the butcher shop. They captured him and placed him under guard until they could decide what to do with him. placed him under guard until they could decide what to do with him. The decision was to hold a hasty trial the next day. The trial had no legal standing, since the entire camp was still illegal. McCall declared that Hickok had killed his brother in Abilene, which was a lie, but the jury had no way of knowing. Not only had Hickok not killed anyone related to McCall, but McCall didn't have a brother. The jury believed McCall's defense. McCall had killed Hickok in revenge, and that

was acceptable. The jury found McCall not guilty, and he was free to go. And go he did. He jumped on a horse that was probably provided by Al Swearengen and rode out of Deadwood as fast as he could. That same day, Bill Hickok's good friend Charlie Utter held a funeral service for the legendary lawman and gunfighter. For hours, the people of Deadwood filed past Hickok's casket to pay their respects. The next day, Charlie arranged for Hickok's burial in the original Deadwood Cemetery. Charlie commissioned a headstone that read, Wild Bill J.B. Hickok, killed by the assassin Jack McCall in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876. Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting ground to part no more.

Goodbye, Colorado Charlie C.H. Utter. Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting ground to part no more. Goodbye. Colorado Charlie C.H. Utter Jack McCall spent 23 days on the run. He was arrested August 29th in Wyoming and then put on trial in Yankton. That time the trial was real and Bill Hickok's older brother Lorenzo was in attendance. The jury found McCall guilty and sentenced him to hang. His sentence was carried out March 1st, 1877, and he will forever hold the distinction of being the first man

legally executed in Dakota Territory. Wild Bill Hickok's grave became a site of pilgrimage, and it still is. People from all over made the difficult journey to Deadwood Gulch to see the final resting place of a true American legend, And they still do. For many years, unscrupulous visitors chipped away pieces of Bill's headstone and took other souvenirs. In 1879, Charlie Utter returned to Deadwood to supervise the transfer of Bill's body from the old cemetery to the new Mount Moriah Cemetery. Buffalo Bill Cody paid to have a fence put around his friend's grave to stop people from defacing it, but it didn't work very well. Over the years, there have been numerous upgrades to the monument and the security

around it. And in 1903, there was an addition to it. A life of hard drinking took its toll on Calamity Jane, and she passed away on August 1st, one day short of the 27th anniversary of Wild Bill Hickok's murder. She was buried right next to Hickok in Mount Moriah Cemetery. No one knows her whereabouts on the day of Bill's death, but she spent the rest of her life promoting a romantic connection between the two of them that almost assuredly didn't exist. But it made for a hell of a good story, and that's why it's still alive today.

Charlie Utter led a strange life after Hickok's death. Charlie eventually left his wife in Durango, Colorado, and moved to Panama in Central America. He became a doctor and a pharmacist, and he lived to at least the age of 72. At that point, in 1910, he disappeared from history. That same year, Captain William Massey, one of the three men who had been at the table when Hickok died, passed away in St. Louis.

The bullet that killed Wild Bill was still in his wrist. Bill Hickok's wife, Agnes Lake, never married again. She and Bill were only married for five months, and in that time, they were only together in the same place for two weeks. Due to family obligations, she wasn't able to travel to Deadwood to visit her husband's grave until September 1877, more than a year after Bill died. Like Wild Bill and Calamity Jane, Agnes Lake passed away in August. Bill and Calamity Jane, Agnes Lake passed away in August. She outlived her famous husband by 31 years, even though she was more than 10 years older. She succumbed to health problems in 1907. And the final part of the legend of Wild Bill Hickok is the letter he wrote to his wife shortly before he was killed. It's believed to be his last communication with her,

and it's both romantic and foreboding at the same time. The lines that are repeated most often are these, 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. Thanks for listening to the story of Wild Bill Hickok here on Legends of the Old West. We'll be back in the new year with two stories of outlaws, one of whom you briefly heard about in this series, John Wesley Hardin.

Before we go, here are some book recommendations for further reading. Wild Bill, The True Story of the American Frontier's First Gunfighter by Tom Clavin. Wild Bill Hickok, His Myth and Legend by Joseph Rosa. And Deadwood, The Golden Years by Watson Parker. Until next time. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes.

They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. Original music by Rob Valliere. 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 for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check

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