Today we went to the mining towns of Deadwood & Lead (pronounced Leed) So. Dakota.It was very interesting in that we learned all about gold mining in the 1800's.The Homestake mining co. had operations all over the country and were looking for the "BIG" score when they heard about this area.They sent their scouts and found lot's of good signs.They started mining the area in the 1860's & were very successful!!
What's really interesting is that George Hearst(father or grandfather of William Randolph) was one of the founders of the mine in Lead and that's how he started amassing the Hearst fortunes!! These are the facts according to the Homestake museum and the Bartender at an old, old bar in Lead !! He also said Patty Hearst was brought there to de-program her after her so called kidnapping !! WOW !!!
While learning all this cool stuff, we met some really nice people from the Delta area of Calif., Come to find out he (Randy)& she (Candy) knew alot of people,including my uncle Wimpy.Randy is also a crane operator (with Operating Engineers) and knows a bunch of people I know. What a small world this is !!
As for the mines, Homestake made a fortune and shut the mines down in 1998 and left a BIG, BIG hole in the ground and in the lives of the miners !!!(Good Job Bob)
Guess whoo????? The Red uniform was a firefighter from Lead.
We also went into Deadwood same stuff lots more gambling though. Saw a land mark posted "Historic site where Wild Bill was shot Aug. 2 1876" Don't know if he was killed it didn't say so I will have to find that out. The town showed alot of the same old buildings more shops, but we found a wine tasting place. Should have kept walking....It was awful. They charge $5.00, won't do that again or just get one glass. The white was ok a little sweet but their reds sucked!!!! You could even tell just by the color, we just looked at each other and put our glasses down after just one sip. I think the girl thought we were wine snobs, no we just know what wine is supposed to taste like! Not like our Bridgeview!!! Not EVEN CLOSE!! But we are going to try one more place and have positive thoughts.
Lead was in the leed so far as what we liked.
then we went to Sturgis, needless to say they were having a Mustang car show and had all the roads blocked off and parking was nill. By this time it was later in the afternoon so we just decided to head back we took the scenic route. It was a nice ride. Got back here around 5:45, had bbq and a nice fire. We are going to go into Keystone today there is a Museum there on the sculptor who built Mt Rushmore, Happy Labor Day!!!!!
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