Patricia a Campbell

Deadwood Trail Dust Patricia a Campbell

1876 was a momentous year during the Black Hills Gold Rush. The author's research on the famous Cheyenne-Black Hills Stage and Express Route, led her to numerous maps and descriptions about the trail, with dashes and dots, and a few geographical features. To better understand these stage stations and her ancestor's role as shotgun messengers, the author began to document what can still be seen today. Using the locations in this book, you can see where many of the stations used to be situated, including old horse corrals, telegraph wire roads, relics of possible stations, and numerous trail ruts made by heavy freight across the prairie. Campbell relates, "While it's been difficult to know exactly where the wheels on the famous coach rolled all of the time, it is possible to see many aspects of the Deadwood Stage route using satellite imagery based on early maps. All the credit goes to those dedicated individuals who preserved the trail years ago before there were computers. Thankfully, we no longer need to use a surveyor's measuring wheel and give dimensions in chains to study the old trail."