Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1929-07-04

MUCH has been written OF the wild
days of the old frontiers, the adj
~ venturous seekers of the golden
fleece, and the bad men, handy with
the %six-gun, who followed in their wake
and wove lurid pictures into the tapes
tries of western history. The Wild Bills,
the Holidays, the Earps and the Kids,
notchers Of deadly gun handles, have
found their places in biography and
served the purposes Of thrilling MARIA
tives of border days when the law was
with the man who was quickest on the
draw.
So much has the man-slaughtering
industry been stressed in the annals
of the border that many far more
picturesque and humanity interesting
phases Of pioneer social conditions
characteristic of the cities that grew up
on the hills and valleys Of gold have
escaped the historians pen or have
been relegated to the uses of the fiction
makers or the ballad mongers.
1t was not every camp or town of
those romantic days that was fortunate
enough to harbor a Bret Harte to per-
petuate in story and verse the complex
and fascinating figures of a civilization
whose memories are fast fading. But
Deadwood, of the glamorous Black Hills
country, whose social and civic lights
flared highest in the days Of its golden
glories was an exception-it achieved
a presidential chronicler in Roosevelt,
who made its Badlands famous, and
away back in its most spectacular days
it entertained ar observing
young woman who made note of the
things she saw and part OF what she
was'-"a chiel amang them takin'
notes'-which blossomed in long later
years into a book that reflects the
social side, as well as other phases, of
the Heterogeneous life of this famous
mining camp of the 70s and 80's.
A Social World of Curious Contrasts
Yes, the Wild West of those days had
its social side-possibly the strangest,
the most human, the most democratic
in its contacts that could possibly be
conceived. 1t was a sociological kaleido-
scope Of many and various highly
colored human particles-a civilization
of curious c~omradeships, Of funda-
mental sympathies, of equalities born
of common hardShips and dangers, OF
primitive ideas of social justice and
tolerance, that has vanished forever,
1t was a civilization made up, in its
human elements, OF prospectors, bull
whackers, gunner, Indians, gamblers
"sky-pilots," saloon keepers, claim
jumpers, college graduates and rough
drifters, Chinese laundrymen, profess
sional men. variety showmen and show
women, painted ladies of the bad
lands"-not the Rooseveltian Badlands
but the district where virtues were
easy-and quality, too; 1.-The stage
coach aristocracy' with p~retentious
homes IN the hills, and-as a pictur-
esque capsheaf-Calamity Jane, the
Vests greatest gunwoman.
And, of course, Deadwood like al
the frontier metropolises, had its Blue
Front and its Green Front, its Gem
and Melodeon and Bella Union and its
Opera House." its dance halls anc
gambling resorts. There were socia,
cleavages, naturally, but nobody ever
spoke Of an underworld" AS the GOLD
rolled in from the mines, the fortunate
possessors of wealth fashioned then
own circles and pleasures, but in times
of stress or misfortune or trouble the
colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady were
always found to be sisters under then
skins. Strange, yet primitively human
contacts, resulted. And the young
lady Of literary tastes who saw it al
tells the fascinating story in a book
"Old Deadwood Days." published by j