The Hebrews in the Hills of old Deadwood

I climbed hill after hill today. But it was worth it, exploring the little-known Jewish history of the Old West.

Deadwood, South Dakota is an 1800s gold rush town that evokes images of gunfights, saloons, gold nuggets, and cheesy low-budget Westerns. But in Deadwood, there were also an extremely high number of Jews. In fact, there were probably more Jews per capita in the Black Hills of old than there are in Brooklyn today.

Last night I had the pleasure of staying with Phil and Georgette, whom I met at the Reform Jewish synagogue in Rapid City on Friday. We had a lovely vegetarian Indian meal with the presidential debate blaring in the background and constant jabs aimed at John McCain. (No one asked me where I stand politically; they just assumed that I agreed with them, and so were unabashed. In fact, it seems like no matter whom I’m with, the same thing happens. Either I’m a moral chameleon or people rather see a world of allies than have to accommodate others.)

The had the most charming cottage, hidden in the hills with amazing views of the trees changing colors. Speaking of hills, in the winter, cars get stuck in the huge snowdrifts that amass in the many-mile grades. Georgette told me the story of a rabbi that came through to visit them from Brooklyn a few years ago. Stuck in a ditch, a good Samaritan stopped to help. But he didn’t understand what was happening. “What’s he doing? What’s he doing?” she fretted, waving her hands and imitating a man freaking out in a high-pitched New York accent. Apparently, the man had stopped, hooked up a chain to his car, and pulled him out, barely saying a word. He couldn’t handle the niceness, as he was totally unused to it.

So, anyway: Deadwood. Although they never had a formal synagogue, there was a Jewish presence and holiday observance from the earliest days of settlement. Their Torah, now known as the “Deadwood Torah”, came from Koenigsburg, Germany, in 1886, with Freda Lowenberg, young bride of Benjamin Blumenthal. The Torah traveled overland across Europe, over the Atlantic, across the United States by train, and finally by stagecoach into the Hills.

I started this morning trekking the roads snaking up the mountain overlooking the city, atop of which rests the Mount Moriah Cemetery, commonly known as “Boot Hill,” for all of the rough and tumble characters of the Old West that reside there. But the Jews bought a large parcel of land within it, which gained the names “Mount Zion” or “Hebrew Hill,” very common terms for a Jewish cemetery. Check out the entrance gate:

See the three circles worked into the metal? On the left is are three rings symbolizing the Christianity, followed in the middle by a triangle representing the Black Hills sacred to Native Americans. In the circle on the right is a Jewish star.

Of course, most people come for the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, which aren’t Jewish and have the best preserved graves of anyone here. There probably aren’t many gunfighters and prostitutes whose graves are fenced in and manicured, but such is the unique charm of Deadwood. Here’s a picture, but you probably can’t see the bottles of Jack Daniels and lipstick marks at the bottom of Hickok’s tombstone:

But at the other end of Jerusalem Street lie dozens of Jews in a little nook of Hebrew tombs, like here, where you can see Margolin, Blumenthal, and Jacobs:

Also here are people like Sidney Jacobs, owner of old Deadwood’s men’s clothing store, Blanche Colman, South Dakota’s first (or second, depending on the source) woman lawyer, and Harris Franklin, one of Deadwood’s most esteemed residents.

Born a Finkelstein, he changed his name to Franklin to blend into American society. Worth $5 million in 1880s dollars, he profited off of the alcohol and mining that were the lifeblood of the gold rush town. He even has a bit of his own tall tale. It’s said that in the severe winter of 1886-1887, he bought the survivors of 23 livestock brands left on the open range. In the spring, he had 30,000 head of cattle, multiplying his wealth.

Here’s his grave, towering over the others in the cemetery:

And here’s his establishment, the Franklin Hotel. Like almost everything else in Deadwood these days, it’s a gambling hall. Without the mines, which shut down in 1989, Deadwood would have died. Only by acting like an Atlantic City with its saccharine entertainment but without the ocean, can the small town get the bucks to employ its citizenry and refurbish its buildings.

And here’s the city streets, which are being made to look like they did in the old days, except without the bullet holes and with towering tour buses clogging pavement:

The Jewish-American Society for Historic Preservation has worked hard to keep the memory of Deadwood’s Jews alive, putting up plaques wherever they can, like this one:

But they’re rather bland and uninspiring, unfortunately. Here’s a quote:

“Jewish American pioneers significantly contributed to the commercial development and establishment of responsible government in Deadwood. Gritty Jewish Westerners, such as Sol Star, arrived with his business partner Seth Bullock in the middle of the Gold Rush in 1976. The firm of Star & Bullock, located at Wall and Main Streets, proved to be one of the most prosperous in the Black Hills. Sol Star served as mayor of Deadwood for 14 years. Star established the Deadwood Flouring Mill with partners Ben Baer and Harris Franklin, two other early Jewish Deadwood pioneers. It was said that as long as Star was with the company, no one in Deadwood ever went hungry. The families of Harris Franklin and his son, Nathan Franklin (Deadwood’s second Jewish mayor), Jacob Goldberg, Nathan Colman, Joseph Hattenbach, Ben Baer, Jacob Wertheimer, Sam Schwarzwald, Sidney Jacobs and many of their friends, took their places beside their non-Jewish neighbors in helping to tame the wild Dakota frontier.

The efforts of the Jewish business community helped bring prosperity, recognition and jobs to the region. Not only did they help build the town and helped rebuild it after its many fires and floods, but they also were able to convince the railroads that Deadwood was entitled to take its place as a major commercial center with a railroad link to the outside world.”

Yawn. While Hickok and Calamity Jane entertain beyond the grave, those who preserve Jewish memories just list names like Old Testament lineages.

As the gold rush waned, Deadwood’s population plummeted. The younger generation, seeking higher education and Jewish mates, gradually drifted away. But Rapid City was booming, and in the 1950s the Deadwood Torah, center of Jewish worship, was finally brought there, to the Synagogue of the Hills, the small Reform congregation I visited last weekend.

I don’t like tourist traps so much, so I pushed up some major hills and headed out. Here’s a nice view of the Black Hills as I left, with the dark Ponderosa pine dotted with orange and yellow deciduous leaves: