On July 8, 1877, the New York Herald declared that Deadwood, a South Dakota town near the Black Hills that had been established on land stolen from the Lakota Indians, "was beyond question the wickedest spot this side of the infernal regions."
Writer Peter Cozzens' "Deadwood" asserts that this view -- which also appeared in the National Police Gazette, a popular men's magazine, and dozens of Edward L. Wheeler's "Deadwood Dick" dime novels -- hardened the town's reputation "as a place to hunt gold, gamble, consort with prostitutes and then die brutally."
Cozzens -- the author, among many other books, of "The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West" -- provides an often-fascinating account of the early years of this iconic frontier town.
"Deadwood" busts myths about the town's colorful characters. When Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back of his head while playing poker, Cozzens reveals, the legendary lawman probably was not holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights, now known as the "dead man's hand." Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Canary) was nothing like Wheeler's heroine, who became an outlaw to get revenge on men who had sexually abused her and to protect innocent women from a similar fate. Nor did she marry Hickok or try to track down his killer.