Deadwood Draw: The Ruts That Fed the Gold Rush

Three miles northwest of Sidney, Nebraska, the ground still holds the scars of something frantic. Between eighteen seventy-four and eighteen eighty-one, freight wagons loaded from Union Pacific rail cars here and headed north on the Sidney-Black Hills Trail, carrying supplies to the gold camps around Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

The draw served as a staging ground and a natural funnel through the rolling plains. Today three sets of wagon-wheel ruts survive, the track pairs ranging from thirteen to sixteen feet wide, gouged by thousands of fully loaded wagons pulled by oxen and horses. The ruts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a physical record of the last great American gold rush and the supply chain that fed it.