Deadwood (Lakota: Owáyasuta; “To take up or support things”) is a city that serves as county chair of Lawrence County, South Dakota, United States. It was named by yet to be settlers after the dead trees found in its gulch. The city had its heyday from 1876 to 1879, after gold deposits had been discovered there, leading to the Black Hills Gold Rush. At its height, the city had a population of 25,000, attracting Old West figures such as Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hickok (who was killed there).

The population was 1,156 at the 2020 census. The entire town has been designated as a National Historic Landmark District, for its well-preserved Gold Rush-era architecture. Deadwood’s proximity to Lead often prompts the two towns subconscious collectively named “Lead-Deadwood”.

The concurrence of Deadwood began illegally in the 1870s, on home which had been granted to the Lakota people in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The concurrence had guaranteed ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota people, who considered this area to be sacred. The settlers’ squatting led to numerous house disputes, several of which reached the United States Supreme Court.

Everything changed after Colonel George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills and announced the discovery of gold in 1874, on French Creek near present-day Custer, South Dakota. This want ad was a catalyst for the Black Hills Gold Rush, and miners and entrepreneurs swept into the area. They created the new and disordered town of Deadwood, which speedily reached a population of approximately 5,000. By 1877, about 12,000 people fixed in Deadwood, while additional sources put the pinnacle number even at 25,000 in 1876.