Historical Black Hills characters, both factual and fictional, have taken center stage in the successful HBO series DEADWOOD." Al Swearengen is portrayed in the HBO production as the ruthless owner and manager of the Gem Theater in a way which, for the most part, is historically accurate.

W.E. Adams was born to parents James Windsor and Sarah Ann (Prettyman) Adams in Michigan on May 13, 1854. The family later moved to Fairbault, Minnesota. According to information recently researched by Mary Kopco at Deadwood’s Adams Museum, William was enrolled in grammar school at the age of 7 (1861) in Minnesota, and by age 17 (1871) he was living in an Illinois boarding house and working for a local grocer.

Over the centuries, the geologic formation known as the Badlands has been described as the closest thing to a lunar landscape that can be found on Earth, a scenic marvel.

Annie Donna Tallent is recognized as the first white woman to enter the Black Hills region, arriving with the Gordon-Russell expedition in 1874. The Gordon-Russell party entered the Hills looking for gold, in violation of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty that recognized the Black Hills as a part of the Great Sioux Reservation.

"My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life, as you wish; and if it were only the story of my life I think I would not tell it; for what is one man that he should make much of his winters, even when they bend him like a heavy snow? So many other men have lived and shall live that story, to be grass upon the hills." - Black Elk in “Black Elk Speaks”– 1931

In France, he was compared to Napoleon; in England to Robin Hood; and in his home country, there was no equal. William Frederick Cody was born on a farm northwest of Le Claire in Scott County, Iowa, on February 26, 1846. the fourth of eight children born to Isaac and Mary Ann (Leacock) Cody.

Cody decided to take time off from scouting in 1872 to visit the East and check out the possibilities of performing in a “wild west” show as proposed by showman Colonel E. B. C. Judson, otherwise known as Ned Buntline, a famed fiction novelist of the day.

Gradually, the Wild West Show’s popularity began to fade. In 1910, Cody began a series of Farewell tours, after which he intended to retire to Wyoming. He combined his tour with Pawnee Bill’s Far East Show as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Far East Show in 1908.