Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-07-29
DEADWOOD NOW ALIVE
Once Toughest Town: Now
Moral as Can Be.
PEOPLE PROUD OF PLACE
Vice No Longer Flourishes There as
in Days Of Yore.
GONE Is THE GUN FIGHTER. TOO
But What the City Has Lost in Pic
turesqueness It Has Gained
in Self-Respect.
GONE IS THE GUN FIGHTER. TOO
By WILLIAM f. CURTIS.

By WILLIAM f. CURTIS.
Soeria! Correspondence Of The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald.
DEADWOOD. S. D., July 26, 1909.
peadwood used to be the toughest town
in the world. and that not many years
ago, but today there is no more orderly
or civilized community in the country,
and the laws that govern the moral con-
duct of mankind are enforced here by a
public sentiment that would do credit to
Massachusetts or Maine. The notoriety of
Deadwood as a tough town extended
from one end of the world to the other.
and many of the stories that are told
of events and incidents here in Wild Bills
time were true; although there is no
gravestone in the cemetery, as currently
reported, with this epitaph:
HE done his damdest
Angels could do no more"
When was in Deadwood several years
ago there were still several large gambling
houses in which the games were running
as openly as the dry goods stores or
groceries. Almost every other door led
into saloon which was always open and
there were generally a dance house and
other disreputable connections. But gam
bling was entirely stopped in 1906 and
every one of these disreputabie places
was closed. Public sentiment would not
are doubtless many games of chance
played at the clubs, in private rooms at
the hotels and III other secluded places,
the professional gamblers and the tough
element are all gone. They went to Gold
field. Tonopah and other new camps in
the far west, and 1 understand that they
have been driven from there also under
q law passed by the Nevada legislature
last winter
These reforms are not confined to Dead
wood, but prevail throughout the Black
Hills. very different class of popula-
ton are here now from those that occu-
pied the country fifteen or even ten years
ago, and in no part of the United States
can be found communities of higher
degree of morality, of a better education
or of greater sympathy with law and or
der. The gamblers and dsreputable char
acters were driven>out of one town after
another until the Hills were entirely rid |
of them. The last place to CLOSE down |
the Id was Edgmont, railroad and
cattle town, in 1907.
Couldn't Stand It Any Longer.
As one gentleman expressed it. the
people of the Black Hills stood it" as
long as they could and were finally pro-
voked into a law and order movement
by a fragrant disregard of public senti-
mcnt by the city officials of Deadwood
in granting licenses to certain disrepu-
table resorts under conditions that were
notorious and against the formal and
emphatic reinonstranceS of the taxpay-
ers and the business element of the
community. Then the outraged citizens
organized. the church people, the w. c.
L. Z. and other associations appealed
TO Gov. Wesley and Attorney General
Clark, who promptly notified the county
attorney to see that the law was en-
forced. and 1t has been enforced. New
laws have been passed by the city coun-
Gil in obedience to the same sentiment
which is now recognized as supreme by
the city governments of Deadwood and
other towns in the state instead of the
saloon and gambling house keepers who
controlled the municipal policy before.
There are now sixty-one saloons in
Lawrence county, with a population of
1900, and sixteen saloons in Deadwood
city. with a population of 1000, and
each pays a license fee of $780, Since
May | every saloon has been closed all
day Sunday and at IL o'clock pm. on
week days. Until then they were open
all night. Some of tIrem have never
been closed for an hour for twenty
years or more, and when the order
came from Mayor Adams to lock up at
IL o'clock at night the barkeepers could
not find any keys. In some cases there
had never been a lock on the door.
All screens and tables and chairs are
out and are forbidden. so that the sa-
looms are not so comfortable as loafny
places as formerly. In Hot Springs
the license fee is $500. and as a conse-
auence every saloon but three has been
closed.
Everybody agrees that the results have
been wholesome. There is no disorder
there are no crimes the iails are empty,
the police arc idle and the dissolute
and vicious classes have gone else
where.
Liquor Interests Aid Law.
The brewers. wholesale liquor dealers
and several of the saloonkeepers are very
urgent in using their influence to secure
d strict compliance with the new regula-
tons for fear of the enactment of