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The Dakota Experience Creating Communities: The Frontier (1860-1880)
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The Wildest Larger Than Life Morality and Pleasure Seeking Justice After the Gold Rush
Larger Than Life

Deadwood's legend grew, partly because of its unique visitors and residents. Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Captain Jack Crawford, and later Buffalo Bill all lent Dakota their luster. Reporters covered the wild life in the Black Hills for eastern papers. Dime novels spread both truth and fiction in serial form. Because the American frontier was becoming a thing of the past, readers were eager to read their tales of the West.


Related items from the collections

Captain Jack Crawford's poems "The Burial of Wild Bill" and "An Epitaph on Wild Bill" from The Poet Scout: Captain Jack Crawford, 1886.

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