| Charlie Utter, Early Deadwood |
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Historical Black Hills characters, both factual and fictional, have taken center stage in the successful HBO series Deadwood.
C. H. (Charlie) Utter was born near Niagara Falls, New York, in 1838. He spent his youth in Illinois, then moved to western Colorado Territory in the 1850s where he earned his reputation as a trapper, prospector, and popular and well known packer and guide in the silver and gold regions of the Rocky Mountains west of Denver. Coming in at only five feet six inches tall, Charlie apparently made up for his size by his “dandified” appearance. He wore his blond hair long, complemented by a moustache. He was described by Leander P. Richardson in a Colorado newspaper as a "courageous little man" who wore beaded moccasins, fringed leggings and coat, revolvers mounted in gold, silver and pearl, and a belt with a big silver buckle.
In 1874, Utter predicted the Black Hills gold rush would be a "lallapaloozer," so in the spring of l876, he organized a wagon train in Georgetown, Colorado, and headed for the new gold fields. When the wagon train passed through Cheyenne, Wyoming, it picked up more than 100 people awaiting safe passage into the Indian Territory of the Black Hills, arriving in Deadwood in July 1876 on what turned out to be one of the most famous trains to ever enter the camp. Other travelers included prospectors, gamblers, musicians, and several well-known characters: Wild Bill Hickok; Madam Mustache and Dirty Emma and their "working girls"; and Calamity Jane – the latter picked up at Fort Laramie where she had been thrown in the guardhouse for being drunk and unruly.
No reference has been found in Colorado to Utter being called "Colorado Charlie, which suggests that the name may have been first given to him on the trip to Deadwood. Neither is it certain where or when he and Wild Bill first met. But by 1876, in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, they were considered partners.
Utter and Hickok apparently shared a mutual respect, and based their partnership on that. Utter’s biggest contribution to Hickok seemed to be to protect him from his worst enemy — himself. Hickok’s excessive drinking and gambling habits were often monitored by Utter, not that Utter could do much about them.
Several sources recorded that Hickok had a premonition of his own fate when Utter and the others in the party set up camp on the south side of Whitewood Creek. "I have a hunch that I am in my last camp and will never leave this gulch alive," Hickok supposedly said.
Utter soon ran a mail express service between Deadwood and Cheyenne. He and his other riders carried letters for a fee of 25 cents each. Unfortunately for Wild Bill, Charlie was doing business on August 2, 1876, when Jack McCall murdered Hickok while playing cards in the Number 10 Saloon on Deadwood’s Main Street. As soon as he heard about the shooting, Charlie rushed to the saloon and claimed the body.
Utter placed the following notice in the Black Hills Pioneer:
“Died in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876, from the effects of a pistol shot, J. B. Hickock [sic] (Wild Bill) formerly of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Funeral services will be held at Charlie Utter's Camp, on Thursday afternoon, August 3, 1876, at 3 o'clock, P. M. All are respectfully invited to attend.”
All day people filed past Wild Bill's coffin, paying their last respects. During McCall’s murder trial, Hickok was laid to rest in a plot paid for by Charlie Utter. The marker read:
“Wild Bill, J. B. Hickock [sic] killed by the assassin Jack M'Call in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2d, 1876.
Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting ground to part no more.
Good bye, Colorado Charlie, C. H. Utter.”
Charlie returned to Colorado in 1877, but came back to Deadwood several times in the next year. He oversaw the relocation of Wild Bill's body to Mt. Moriah Cemetery in 1879, and lost all of his property to the great Deadwood fire on September 26, l879. Charlie returned to Colorado shortly thereafter, then seems to have dropped out of view, although his biographer Agnes Wright Spring traced him to Panama after the turn of the century. Spring believed he was known in that locale as Dr. C. H. Utter. It is not known when or where Utter died.
Charles H. Utter—trapper, hunter, gold prospector, mine owner, express rider, transportation businessman, gambler—a man of diverse abilities as well as a true friend of Wild Bill Hickok.
Information:
Adams Museum
“Pioneer Days in the Black Hills” by John S. McClintock,
“The Black Hills After Custer” by Bob Lee
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