Preservation efforts in communities

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on August 31, 2008 at 11:07am

This art is found on a recently restored Bank in Glens Falls New York notice if will the time spent to paint eachtile on the Facide.

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Permalink Reply by KaTrina on December 4, 2008 at 5:09am

I moved to a small town of Deadwood SD back in 1989 just as they were getting legalized gambling approved. This would be the first place outside of Atlantic City, NJ and the State of Nevada to have legalized gambling. Deadwood is not an Indian reservation. The City was a dying mining town that had its glory day with Gen Custer's discovery of gold in 1874. The towns real fame comes from Wild Bill Hickock's death. Wild Bill spent very little time in Deadwood, just long enough to have a few drinks, play a few hands of porker and to die from being shot in the back while holding what would be come known as the Dead Man's hand in porker.

With the glory days of the gold rush gone and the FBI coming in and shutting down the illegal houses of prostitution in the late 1970, the locals were struggling to keep the community alive with the loss of their best industry shut down. On a personal note, I was very surprised at how so many of the church going citizen of Deadwood morned the loss of their local girls!! The city's income in the small town of 1800 people depended highly on the tourist dollars coming into the area, with the loss of the girls the hunting season was almost non-existing. In 1986 the “Deadwood U Be” organization was formed and advocated legalized limit stakes gaming to increase tourism and to generate historic preservation funds. As part of this the entire City of Deadwood was designated as a National Historic Landmark.

There comes some draw backs with the entire city being an historical landmark. Homes would also have to meet the standards of the Historical Preservation committee formed. There were many wild battles of elderly denied the ability to put vinyl or other low maintenance siding on their homes because according to the standards set it could jeopardize the city's standing with the National Historical Landmark. My favorite is the backhoe gone wild at 4 am while the local law enforcement officers were out for breakfast. The backhoe somehow knocked down a small building that Historical committee declared historical and the property owner wanted to removed for parking for his casino guess.

On a good note many of the truly historical building were preserved within the city limits. My favorite would be the Phoenix Block building which would be justly named. The building was build in the 1880, a 3 story landmark for the city. In the 1960 the upper floor of the building, which were apartments caught fire and the floor was removed from the building. In 1990 Kevin Costner purchased the building after filming Dances with Wolves in the area. He rebuilt the third floor of the building turning it into a 4 diamond restaurant, with a casino on the lower two floors.

In 2006 Deadwood's neighboring town of Lead started the application process and receive a city wide Historical Landmark. This would be another struggling gold rush town. Lead is the home of the Homestake Gold mine. Homestake produced ten percent of the world's gold during the 125 years of continuous mining of the largest gold claim from the 1876 gold rush. I am not sure how things are going with Lead, since I left the area back in 2006 to move to NC.


But throughout the Black Hills of SD and the state of SD there is a huge movement to preserve most of the building with historical value. Most of the money comes from the gaming industry of Deadwood. Also a great deal of the tax money for education throughout the state comes from the taxes from the casinos.

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