Deadwood Draw | |
Location | Northwest of Sidney, Nebraska |
---|---|
Coordinates | 41°09′35″N103°00′28.0″W / 41.15972°N 103.007778°W Coordinates: 41°09′35″N103°00′28.0″W / 41.15972°N 103.007778°W |
Built | 1874 to 1881 |
NRHP reference No. | 92001574 [1] |
Added to NRHP | October 8, 1992 [2] |
Deadwood Draw is part of the Sidney-Black Hills Trail near Sidney, Nebraska, which provided supplies for gold mining operations in the Black Hills from 1874 to 1881. The draw served as a staging area for freight wagons carrying supplies to the Black Hills and contains ruts caused by the wheels of the freight wagons and the animals that pulled them. The draw is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [2] [1]
In 1868, the U.S. government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty, which promised the Lakota people that the Black Hills would be exempt from white settlement. However, in 1874, an expedition into the Black Hills led by George Armstrong Custer, found deposits of gold. [3] [4] [5] [6] In 1876, Custer's discovery of gold led to the Black Hills Gold Rush. Initially, the U. S. government attempted to purchase or lease the Black Hills from the Lakota, but the government was unwilling to pay the price asked by the Lakota. When the talks broke down, the U. S. government ignored the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and allowed the gold seekers to rush into the Black Hills. The Black Hills gold rush subsequently created a high demand for supplies by the gold seekers. [3] [4] [5] [6]
In 1876, Sidney, Nebraska was a small town on the Union Pacific railroad. [5] [6] Sidney had two main advantages over other railroad towns in Nebraska as a staging point for supplying the gold rush in the Black Hills. First, there already was a trail from Sidney north to the Red Cloud Agency, which was protected by the military between Fort Sidney and Fort Robinson. Second, the route was shorter than other possible supply points along the railroad and with the building of the Clarke Bridge toll bridge over the North Platte River by Henry T. Clarke, Sr., travel on Sidney-Black Hills Trail became easier for freight wagons. [7] [8] [9]
With the opening of the Clarke bridge, the Sidney-Black Hills trail began carrying larger quantities of freight to and from the Black Hills mining operations. During the summer of 1876, the Pony Express began operating along the trail, as did several stagecoach lines. In 1876, there were an estimated 10,000 gold seekers in the Black Hills and their demand for supplies was so high that approximately 50 to 75 freight wagons left daily from Sidney, each wagon carrying 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg) of supplies. [5] [6] [7] [8]
In 1879, the Black Hills gold rush ended and so did the need for high passenger service along the trail. Company gold mining, however, continued and so the need for freight transportation along the trail increased. From 1878 to 1879, an estimated 20,000,000 pounds (8,900 long tons; 10,000 short tons) of supplies were transported to and from Sidney. By 1880, with the completion of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad to Pierre, the transportation of freight along the trail dramatically dropped. It was quicker and cheaper to transport supplies along the new railroad than to use freight wagons along the Sidney-Black Hills trail. By the end of 1882, the trail was completely closed. [5] [6] [7] [8]
Deadwood Draw is located about 3 miles (4.8 km) northwest of Sidney, Nebraska, and close to the Union Pacific railroad from which supplies could be loaded onto freight wagons headed for the Black Hills via the Sidney-Black Hills trail. The draw is a wide, flat area that gently slopes up and out of Lodgepole Creek Valley and away from Union Pacific railroad and on to the Sidney-Black Hills trail. A gully channel meanders along the draw and ranges in depth from 3 feet (0.91 m) to 10 feet (3.0 m). As of 1992, there were three sets of wagon-wheel ruts and ruts cause by the oxen and horses that pulled the wagons. The rut pairs range in width from 4.1 metres (13 ft) to 5 metres (16 ft). [1]
Deadwood Draw was a staging area for freight wagons using the Sidney-Black Hills trail. [1] As of 1992, when it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, it had well-preserved ruts caused by freight wagons, stage coaches, and the animals that pulled them from 1874 to 1881. On the south end of the draw there is a depression in the ground that is thought to be the remnants of a 19th-century dugout that may have been occupied during the period of historical significance. Close to the middle of the draw is a small limestone quarry that supplied much of the limestone used to construct early buildings in Sidney. [1] [4] [9]
The Cheyenne are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese. The tribes merged in the early 19th century.
Deadwood is a city that serves as county seat of Lawrence County, South Dakota, United States. It was named by early settlers after the dead trees found in its gulch. The city had its heyday from 1876 to 1879, after gold deposits had been discovered there, leading to the Black Hills Gold Rush. At its height, the city had a population of 25,000, attracting Old West figures such as Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hickok.
Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against United States government policies. He was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him, at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement.
Red Cloud's War was an armed conflict between an alliance of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho peoples against the United States that took place in the Wyoming and Montana territories from 1866 to 1868. The war was fought over control of the western Powder River Country in present north-central Wyoming.
Fort Laramie was a significant 19th-century trading-post, diplomatic site, and military installation located at the confluence of the Laramie and the North Platte rivers. They joined in the upper Platte River Valley in the eastern part of the present-day U.S. state of Wyoming. The fort was founded as a private trading-post in the 1830s to service the overland fur-trade; in 1849, it was purchased by the United States Army. The site was located east of the long climb leading to the best and lowest crossing-point over the Rocky Mountains at South Pass and became a popular stopping-point for migrants on the Oregon Trail. Along with Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River, the trading post and its supporting industries and businesses were the most significant economic hub of commerce in the region.
Fort Kearny was a historic outpost of the United States Army founded in 1848 in the western U.S. during the middle and late 19th century. The fort was named after Col. and later General Stephen Watts Kearny. The outpost was located along the Oregon Trail near Kearney, Nebraska. The town of Kearney took its name from the fort. The "e" was added to Kearny by postmen who consistently misspelled the town name. A portion of the original site is preserved as Fort Kearny State Historical Park by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
The Sioux Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and various subgroups of the Sioux people which occurred in the later half of the 19th century. The earliest conflict came in 1854 when a fight broke out at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, when Sioux warriors killed 31 American soldiers in the Grattan Massacre, and the final came in 1890 during the Ghost Dance War.
The Powder River Expedition of 1865 also known as the Powder River War or Powder River Invasion, was a large and far-flung military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians in Montana Territory and Dakota Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Arapaho village and established Fort Connor to protect gold miners on the Bozeman Trail, the expedition is considered a failure because it failed to defeat or intimidate the Indians.
The Bozeman Trail was an overland route in the western United States, connecting the gold rush territory of southern Montana to the Oregon Trail in eastern Wyoming. Its most important period was from 1863–68. Despite the fact that "the major part of the route in Wyoming used by all Bozeman Trail travelers in 1864 was pioneered by Allen Hurlbut", it was named after John Bozeman. Many miles of the Bozeman Trail in present Montana followed the tracks of Bridger Trail, opened by Jim Bridger in 1864.
Richard Clarke, born in Yorkshire, England, was a United States frontiersman, Pony Express rider, actor, and armed forces member who was widely considered by the American public to be the original inspiration for Deadwood Dick.
A private in the Fourth Infantry, Charles Howard served as photographer for the Stanton Expedition in 1877, traveling throughout eastern Wyoming, western Nebraska and into the Black Hills of Dakota Territory.
The Great Platte River Road was a major overland travel corridor approximately following the course of the Platte River in present-day Nebraska and Wyoming that was shared by several popular emigrant trails during the 19th century, including the Trapper's Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail, the Pony Express route, and the military road connecting Fort Leavenworth and Fort Laramie. The road, which extended nearly 800 miles (1,300 km) from the Second Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie, was utilized primarily from 1841 to 1866. In modern times it is often regarded as a sort of superhighway of its era, and has been referred to as "the grand corridor of America's westward expansion".
The Black Hills are a small and isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black Elk Peak, which rises to 7,244 feet (2,208 m), is the range's highest summit. The Black Hills encompass the Black Hills National Forest. The name of the hills in Lakota is Pahá Sápa, meaning “the heart of everything that is." The Black Hills are considered a holy site. The hills are so called because of their dark appearance from a distance, as they are covered in evergreen trees.
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, and the Sioux and the Cheyenne refused to cede ownership. Traditionally, American military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially because of their numbers, but some Native Americans believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the American campaign.
Fort Sidney is a historic fort located in Sidney, Nebraska, United States. The 37th Infantry Regiment established "Sidney Station" at a point midway between the Platte Rivers, where the modern community of Sidney, Nebraska, now stands. Initially the installation was a block house on a bluff with soldiers residing in tents nearby. That Spring, Fort Sedgewick, Colorado, was abandoned and the wooden buildings moved by mule train to a location beneath the bluffs and on the Lodgepole creek. This new garrison was named Sidney Barracks and would remain so until 1879, when it was designated Fort Sidney.
The Rawhide Buttes Stage Station, the Running Water Stage Station and the Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage Route comprise a historic district that commemorates the stage coach route between Cheyenne, Wyoming and Deadwood, South Dakota. The route operated beginning in 1876, during the height of the Black Hills Gold Rush, and was replaced in 1887 by a railroad.
The Sidney Black Hills Stage Road or Route was a trail connecting Sidney, Nebraska, Sidney Barracks, and the Union Pacific Railroad with Fort Robinson, Red Cloud Agency, Spotted Tail Agency, Custer City, Dakota Territory, and Deadwood, Dakota Territory between 1876 and 1887, when it was replaced.
South Platte Trail was a historic trail that followed the southern side of South Platte River from Fort Kearny in Nebraska to Denver, Colorado. Plains Indians, such as the Cheyenne and the Arapaho, hunted in the lands around the South Platte River. They also traded at trading posts along the route, as did white travelers. Travelers included trappers, traders, explorers, the military, and those following the gold rush. The trail was also used by the Pony Express.
The Camp Clarke Bridge Site in Morrill County, Nebraska near Bridgeport dates from 1875. Also known as 25 MO 68, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
U.S. Route 385 (US 385) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that travels from Big Bend National Park in Texas to US 85 in Deadwood, South Dakota. Within the state of Nebraska, the highway is known as the Gold Rush Byway, one of nine scenic byways across the state. The highway follows along the old Sidney-Black Hills trail which played a crucial role during the Black Hills Gold Rush in the late 1870s. It served as the primary route to transport gold and mining gear between Sidney, Nebraska and the Black Hills to the north. Today, the highway enters Nebraska in the southeastern portion of the Nebraska Panhandle on the state line with Colorado northeast of Julesburg and continues in a northerly direction to the South Dakota state line north of Chadron.
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