The Death of Wild Bill Hickok
James Butler Hickok plays his last hand
James Butler Hickok, better known as Wild Bill Hickok, joined a wagon train and headed for the Dakotas. He stopped at Deadwood and would never leave. On arriving at Deadwood Wild Bill turned to his old standby of gambling to make money and made his headquarters in Carl Mann’s and Jerry Lewis’s Number Ten Saloon.
Wild Bill’s Last Day
Wild Bill had a premonition that Deadwood would be his last camp and expressed this belief to two of his friends Colorado Charlie and Tom Dosier. He was right; he would never leave Deadwood alive.
On August 2nd 1876 Wild Bill Hickok was sitting in a poker game at the Number Ten Saloon with Carl Mann, Charlie Rich and Captain William R. Massie. On this fateful day Wild Bill violated one of his own cardinal rules and was sitting with his back to a door. Twice he asked Rich to change seats with him and on both occasions Rich refused.
Wild Bill was having a run of bad luck that day and was forced to borrow a poker stake from the bartender. That run of bad luck worsened when an ex-buffalo hunter called John (“Broken Nose Jack”) McCall walked in unnoticed. Jack McCall walked to within a few feet of Wild Bill and then suddenly drew a pistol and shouted, “Take that!” before firing.
The bullet hit Hickok in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The bullet emerged through Wild Bill’s right cheek striking Captain Massie in the left wrist.
Dead Man’s Hand
Wild Bill Hickok slowly slipped from his stool, dropping the hand of cards he was holding. The cards he was holding were aces and eights which would forever be referred to as ‘Dead Man’s Hand’.
Wild Bill Hickok is Laid to Rest
James Butler Hickok was buried the next day on 3rd August 1876 on a hillside called Ingleside where his remains rested until August 3rd 1879. In 1879 Wild Bill Hickok’s remains were moved to Deadwood’s Mount Moriah cemetery where there was erected a huge headstone.
A Surprise When Wild Bill is Disinterred
Interestingly when the remains of Wild Bill were disinterred it was found that his face, head and upper portions of his body, as well as the many pleats of his dress shirt, although decomposed, remained visible on his form. It appeared that the body had undergone some process of petrification, although it may have been a unique process of embalming by the disposition of the minerals in the soil, which had percolated through the coffin into the body tissues.
Source - The Gunfighters by Dale T. Schoenberger published by The Caxton Printers Ltd 1971
Wild Bill Hickok
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Place where Wild Bill met his end
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