517 - Bismarck to Deadwood Stagecoach Trail

At a time in American history when the West was still wild, North and South Dakota were still the Dakota Territory, and gold was being discovered in the Black Hills, it was the waning days of the stagecoach. The railroad had connected the coasts as early as 1869, but here on the Great Plains, the terminus for the Northern Pacific Railroad was in Bismarck. In order to maintain contact with the developing gold-rush town of Deadwood, stagecoaches and stage trails were still essential. With the potential for profit generated by transporting freight, passengers, and mail, there was to be a brief economic boom associated with the formation of the Bismarck-Deadwood Stage Trail.

In April of 1877, the first stagecoaches of the Northwestern Express, Stage, and Transportation Company departed along the Bismarck-Deadwood Trail, carrying sixty-eight passengers along the approximately 240 mile journey. By the following month, regular tri-weekly runs of the trail were being made and soon, those trips would be made even daily.Those making the trip paid around twenty-three dollars and the journey could take anywhere from thirty-five to forty hours. Passengers were known to accidentally nod off; their heads sometimes landing on the shoulder of a neighbor–an incident considered rude at the time. Those passengers would have surely appreciated the chance to stop and rest along the way. Stations on the trail would allow the drive to be completed in stages - hence the name stagecoach. The twenty-or-so stage stations along the Bismarck-Deadwood trail would have been ten to twenty miles apart and would provide a fresh change of horses, water, and other supplies, with a couple stations offering hot meals and overnight accommodations. A loud “WHOOP!” from the stagecoach driver would thrill the passengers and alert the station master that a wagon was one or two miles out, ready for a break.

By 1880, the railroad had reached the city of Pierre in modern day South Dakota, and a shorter trail to the Black Hills was established, very quickly rendering the Bismarck-Deadwood Trail obsolete. The rutted-out road that had recently been traveled by dozens a day was soon used only by area ranchers or homesteaders. Today, the furrowed tracks of the wagon wheels and the ruins of a few stage stations are some of the only evidence that remains of this whirlwind of activity in Dakota history.