After the 1874 expedition led by George Armstrong Custer confirmed the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, the town of Bismarck experienced its first boom. As the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway, gold-seekers and settlers poured into Bismarck seeking transportation to southern Dakota Territory.

To accommodate these needs, the Dakota Territorial Legislature authorized the construction of a road from Bismarck to Deadwood in 1877. Soon after, the Northern Pacific Railway and the Minnesota State Company formed the Northwest Express and Transportation Company to begin construction of a stagecoach trail to Deadwood.

The first stagecoach left Bismarck on this day, April 11, 1877 with 68 passengers paying a one-way fare of $23. Stretching for 240 miles, the journey took nearly 40 hours.

The venture was immediately successful. By May, three stages were running the route weekly. Eventually, the company’s 26 Concord coaches and freight wagons pulled by 200 teams of horses were hauling freight, passengers and US mail daily.

The company’s headquarters in Bismarck employed 175 men and the city’s hotels were filled with travelers headed for the Black Hills. In October of 1879, the Bismarck Tribune reported, “There are no rooms available at the hotels in Bismarck tonight as there are many transients in town bound for the Hills. Our freight and passenger business to the gold fields has been very heavy during the past ten days, amounting to 300,000 pounds of freight and seventy passengers…There are at present two and sometimes three stages a day.”

Its success however was short-lived. By the summer of 1880, the railroad had reached Pierre in southern Dakota Territory. Much nearer to the Black Hills than Bismarck, the Northwest Express and Transportation Company began disposing of property in Bismarck while transferring equipment and employees to Pierre. By October of 1880, a stage route from Pierre had opened and the service from Bismarck was soon abandoned.

Today, evidence of the stage trail can be seen in several locations. Near Flasher in Morton County, grass-lined wagon ruts are still visible next to a Bismarck-Deadwood Stage Trail Historic Marker and the remains of two dugouts and the rectangular outline of a barn can be seen at the Cannonball Stage Station near Carson, ND. Across the state border, in honor of the Bismarck-Deadwood stage trail’s 100th anniversary, more than 60 cement markers were erected along the trail in South Dakota.

Written by Christina Sunwall

Sources:
Holst, Vernon S. A Study of the 1876 Bismarck to Deadwood Trail (Butte County Historical Society; 1983)
Snortland, J. Signe, ed. A Traveler's Companion to North Dakota State Historic Sites 2nd Edition, (Bismarck, ND: State Historical Society of North Dakota; 2002)
The WPA Guide to 1930’s North Dakota (State Historical Society of North Dakota; 1990)

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