By Jeannine P. Guern

Among those adopting the nickname at various times were a black cowboy, Nat Love; the actor Dick Brown; stagecoach drivers Richard Cole and Dick Bullock, and the man who maintained the epithet until his death in 1930, Richard Clark.

Born as a slave in Tennessee, Nat Love migrated to Texas after the Civil War and signed on as a cowboy on long distance cattle drives. In the spring of 1876, Love was working for an Arizona outfit that headed north with a herd, arriving at Deadwood City, Dakota Territory, on July 3, as the town prepared to celebrate the nation’s centennial.

In his autobiography the black cowboy wrote: "We arrived in Deadwood in good condition without having any trouble with the Indians on the way up. We turned our cattle over to their new owners at once, then proceeded to take in the town."

Taking in the town included entering the 4^th of July cowhand competition. Love won the $200 purse in a roping match and a shooting contest. "Right then," he said, "the assembled crowd named me ‘Deadwood Dick’ and proclaimed me champion of the Western cattle country."

Love didn’t stick around to defend his title, but headed back to Arizona with his outfit.

In 1907 he published The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as ‘Deadwood Dick’ --- a book that reads much like a Deadwood Dick dime novel.

That same summer of 1876 "Banjo Dick" Brown was entertaining mining camp prospectors with popular skits and songs about the gold rush. He might have held on to the Deadwood Dick name if he hadn’t left town in a hurry.

Returning from a business trip to Laramie, Brown brought back with him an actress named Fannie Garretson. He conveniently neglected to bring the other half of Miss Fannie’s act, one Ed Shaughnessy who was romantically involved with Fannie.

Dick and Fannie were performing at the Melodean (now the Fairmont Hotel) when Shaughnessy threw a packet of love letters from his seat in the audience onto the stage. Believing the package was an axe, Brown drew his gun and fired a fatal shot at Shaughnessy.

Brown and Garretson hastily departed from Deadwood. Brown was later apprehended and returned to face trial. Acquitted on the grounds of self defense, he was defended by his paramour in a letter to the local newspapers, in which Fannie explained she had lived with Shaughnessy but never married him, so was free to run away to the Black Hills with Brown.

Richard "Little Dick" Cole, who brought the first stagecoach into Deadwood, asked to be called "Deadwood Dick" in an attempt to discourage road agents. Two other stage drivers, Richard Dunn and Richard Wright, apparently didn’t think the name would scare off the bandits.

Dick Bullock was such a proficient guard of gold bullion shipments on early stagecoaches, and later on the railroads, he never lost a single ounce of gold entrusted to his care. His shooting skills, honed in sporting events in his native Cornwall, apparently were his ticket to claim the Deadwood Dick designation. In later years Bullock was a stock broker in Lead; his final years were spent quietly living in California, where he died in 1921 at the age of 73.

Others briefly associated with the Deadwood Dick name included Richard Palmer who died in Cripple Creek, Colorado in 1906, and Robert Dickey, who fought Indians with Crook and Terry commands, and died in a Denver hospital jail in 1912.

After a lapse of many years, another and final "Deadwood Dick" arose as a creation of Deadwood promoters. Garbed in buckskins, Richard Clark played the role to perfection and was presented to tourists as the real Deadwood Dick. The ladies auxiliary of the Deadwood Businessmen’s organization (forerunner of the Chamber of Commerce) presented Clark with a cabin up Deadwood Hill at Pinecrest Park and arranged his appearances at grand openings, parades, old settlers picnics, travel shows, and other public events.

Many historians say Richard Clark took on the title when asked to play the role in the Days of ’76 parade, but articles in the Deadwood Pioneer Times referred to him as Deadwood Dick as early as July of 1898.

Born in England, Richard Clark came to America at age 16, stayed for a time with an uncle in New Jersey, then headed west. He was seen on Dakota Territory prairies in 1874 by Buckskin Johnny Spalding, an early Black Hills scout and longtime friend of Clark. Spaulding wrote about meeting up with the "Colorado bunch" in November of 1874. The Colorado group included Clark and three of the Utter brothers, Jim, Sam and Charlie.

Clark came to the Northern Black Hills with the Ward party which was attacked by Indians. Several men were severely wounded and the cattle were run off. The Ward party went on to Crook City, where Clark settled for several months, before moving to the new town of Whitewood about 1892. There he married, reared a family and worked for Northwestern Railroad.

Buckskin Johnny wrote of seeing Clark carrying mail by horseback between Fort Pierre and the Hills; Mrs. Gertrude Wood said Clark boarded with her and her husband Archie at Dumont, a cattle shipping point on the Burlington Railroad. Mrs. Wood also said Clark was a guard on the stagecoach when she came out from Fort Pierre. Other sources mention Clark lived in Lead for a time and was a day man for a livery stable there.

In 1898, while working on his mining claim on Bear Butte Creek, Clark loaded five holes with blasting powder, lit the fuse and was ready to take off when a piece of rock hit him in the head, stunning him enough to prevent his escape. In the explosion both of Clark’s arms were broken in several places, several ribs were fractured and he was badly cut about the body and legs. Clark was treated at the Homestake Hospital which at that time accepted patients who were not company employees.

Eastern newspapers, in relating the incident, referred to Clark as "Deadwood Dick" and reported, "Dick is better known away from home than in the Black Hills where he has lived for 23 years."

Black Hills promoters capitalized on the spreading fame of their Deadwood Dick character as portrayed by Clark. Refuting a story of Clark’s serious illness, the Rapid City Journal on October 29, 1928, reported that Deadwood Dick was feeling fine; "He said so this morning as he hunched his knees up against a lunch counter and tackled a big plate of pork and beans."

Obviously Clark was feeling fine. A week later, on November 5, the Journal headlined a front page story: "DEADWOOD DICK GETS BIG OVATION AT CHICAGO FIELD; Party Reveals It Is on Way to Washington for Meeting with President Coolidge."

Clark told reporters he was going to Washington "to greet the President and thank him for his visit to ‘Deadwood Dick’ domain, the Black Hills of South Dakota, last year."

Clark’s royal suite in a Chicago hotel was compliments of the management. "He has but to whisper a wish to have it granted," according to one observer. A November 17, 1928, Chicago Daily News photo showed Clark on a roof top, against a background of skyscrapers, and was captioned:

During the jaunt through eastern cities a star was born---Judson Buntline Wheeler’s "Deadwood Dick" in the flesh---fringed buckskins, revolvers, rifle and all. Eastern newspaper reporters described his "long flowing hair" beneath his "sombrero" and cited him as a "hero of fact and fiction, a veteran of gold rush days, pioneer stage driver, marksman and hero of dime novels."

Whatever Richard Clark may have thought privately, he played the Deadwood Dick role with a flair right up until his death, giving the Black Hills a million dollars worth of free publicity.

Clark died on May 5, 1930. The Black Hills Society of Pioneers, of which he was a member, conducted funeral services at St. John’s Episcopal Church. (Richard Clark had been a member of the Church of England since the age of 16.)

During a late spring snowfall on May 11, two sets of active pallbearers, honorary pallbearers and a long line of mourners followed the horse-drawn wagon bearing Clark’s body up the steep, winding trail to the top of Sunrise Mountain. As a civilian scout, he was buried with full military honors in a grave blasted out of granite bedrock by Henry Brasch, a fellow 76’er. The funeral dirge was played by the Fourth Cavalry Band, three rifle volleys were fired and buglers stationed on surrounding peaks played echoing taps. In an impressive climax to the service a Belle Fourche pilot flew over the burial site and dropped a bouquet of roses.

The original character may have been a figment of a dime novel author’s imagination, but newspapers across the nation headlined Richard Clark’s obituaries under the name of Deadwood Dick.