This town is best known for gold and such Wild West characters as Calamity Jane, Preacher Smith, and Wild Bill Hickock. The main street runs through Deadwood Gulch; the rest of the town crawls up the steep canyon sides. A bust of Hickock by Korczak Ziolkowski--creator of the Crazy Horse Memorial--stands on Sherman Street. At the height of the 1876 gold rush, 25,000 people swarmed over the hillsides to dig gold. When gold was first struck at Deadwood, nearly the entire population of Custer rushed to Deadwood; predictably, at the height of a newer strike, nearly the entire population of Deadwood rushed to the town of Lead. Recently legalized gambling has given Deadwood another boom.

The Nemo Ranger District office of the Black Hills National Forest is located in Deadwood.