“Seth Bullock is a true westerner, the finest type of frontiersman.”
Those are the words of President Teddy Roosevelt and there were few people on Earth for whom he had greater respect. That was a two-way street as Bullock was one of Roosevelt’s most ardent supporters and the two developed a strong friendship during the last two decades of their lives.
But let’s be honest. Seth Bullock is mainly remembered for one thing – Deadwood and the role he supposedly played in taming a wild and lawless land and turning it into one of the most thriving towns on the frontier. But let’s see how much of that reputation is truly deserved.
Early Years
Seth Bullock was born in the town of Amherstburg, in modern Ontario, Canada. His date of birth is a little uncertain, but the most common version claims it was July 23, 1847. His parents were George Bullock and Agnes Findley. The family history describes Seth’s father as “an irascible, retired Major in the British Army” who was “a somewhat testy, strict disciplinarian,” while his mother was the exact opposite—” a sweet-natured, docile Scotch woman.”
There is not much information on Seth’s childhood. The family moved around a bit, eventually settling in Michigan where he met his future wife Martha Eccles. If you’re familiar with the Deadwood television show, this is where it took a significant departure from reality. While “TV Martha” was supposedly the widow of Seth’s brother and Bullock married her out of a sense of duty, the real Seth and Martha were childhood sweethearts.
Teenage Seth tried running away from home several times. When the American Civil War broke out, he attempted to enlist in the Union Army several times, only to be rejected due to his young age. Eventually, when he turned 18, Bullock left home for good and made his way to Helena, Montana.
There were two things that interested young Bullock – business and politics. When he reached Montana, he tried his hand at both. He partnered with a man named James Gostling and opened a retail and wholesale grocer together. Bullock discovered that he was a good auctioneer, but that he didn’t like the constraints of working in a store. Therefore, after a while, he dissolved the partnership and became an independent auctioneer to have the flexibility of traveling wherever and whenever he pleased.
From an early age, Bullock adopted a business mantra that he would maintain throughout the rest of his life and would turn him into a pivotal pillar of the town of Deadwood – his idea was that, if the local community thrived as a whole, then the individuals in that community would also prosper. To improve said community, Seth Bullock entered politics and quickly became a promising up-and-comer in the Republican Party. In 1867, the 20-year-old Bullock tried to win the Republican nomination for the territorial legislature. He didn’t get it, but that did little to dampen his spirits, so four years later, he tried again, and this time the Republican Party nominated him for the territorial council. And he won, serving his term between 1871 and 1873.
Bullock tried to accomplish several things during his time on the council, such as moving the capital from Virginia City to Helena and building a railroad between Montana and Utah. However, the highlight of his term was his effort to create Yellowstone National Park.
The park was, indeed, established on March 1, 1872, after President Ulysses S Grant signed into law the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act. Yellowstone was the first national park in the country so, naturally, having anything to do with its founding would have been like a giant peacock feather in Bullock’s hat. However, it’s possible that his role in the endeavor has been exaggerated just a smidge to enhance Bullock’s legend.
What Bullock did was introduce a motion to the Montana Legislative Council to adopt a memorial asking Congress to create a “great national park” in the Yellowstone Area. And Bullock’s supporters argue that it was his original legislation that convinced Congress that Yellowstone should become a national park.
There are two problems here. First, creating the park wasn’t even the key issue on Bullock’s legislation, but rather taking Yellowstone from Wyoming and giving it to Montana. That didn’t fly. Today, over 95 percent of Yellowstone National Park is in Wyoming, and only small sections are located in Montana and Idaho. And second, the debate over Yellowstone was already happening in Congress by the time Bullock introduced his motion. Two other Montana Republicans were advocating for it – Cornelius Hedges and William Clagett. Hedges had published articles about it since before Bullock was even elected, and Clagget was the Montana congressman who actually introduced the bill into the House of Representatives. And if there is one person who deserves credit for convincing Congress, it’s probably geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, who led a surveying expedition to Yellowstone before Bullock’s legislation and strongly advocated for the creation of the national park. So it is far more likely that they influenced Bullock than the other way around.
Montana Lawman
During his time on the territorial council, Bullock also dipped his toes into other public roles. First, he joined the fire department, eventually becoming chief engineer before switching to law enforcement and serving as a deputy sheriff. Then, in 1873, when his term in office ended, Bullock ran for sheriff of Lewis and Clark County and won by 66 votes.
His time as sheriff in Montana was relatively quiet and mostly involved disarming drunks and troublemakers and letting them cool off in the hoosegow before they got too rowdy. There is a notable exception to this, however – In 1875, Sheriff Bullock presided over the first hanging in the Montana Territory…the first legal one, anyway. An angry mob, however, didn’t feel like waiting, so they charged the jail in Helena to do the deed themselves. But Bullock was determined to see justice get served, not vigilantism. So, armed with his trusty six-shooter, he kept the crowd at bay with one hand and hanged the convict himself with the other.
This story was recreated in the very beginning of the Deadwood show to give the audience an impression of Seth Bullock’s character. Unfortunately, however, it seems that it was more fiction than fact. Newspapers of the time wrote that the execution was carried off without a hitch. There was no mob, although there were a lot of spectators who weren’t supposed to be there. Montana law stated that the hanging be done privately, but a bunch of people climbed the roofs of nearby buildings to witness the event. But Bullock issuing citations and yelling at those darn kids to climb down from the roof wasn’t quite as thrilling as him fending off an angry crowd with a gun.
Before his time as sheriff ended, Bullock oversaw another hanging, again without incident, but executing people was not something he was fond of. In fact, it affected him enough that he did not seek reelection and, instead, wanted to become an auctioneer again. That is when he decided to team up with a friend of his called Sol Star, a name that will be familiar to fans of the show. The two of them had met when Bullock entered politics and had even rented a room together for a while. So when word reached them that there was gold in the Black Hills, Bullock and Star formed a partnership and set out to seek their fortunes in a burgeoning settlement in the Dakota Territory known as Deadwood.
Deadwood or Bust
Bullock and Star set off for the Black Hills in the summer of 1876, embarking on an extremely perilous trip that took several weeks to complete. The Great Sioux War was in full swing and Custer’s Last Stand had just happened a couple of weeks before the two left Helena, so the chances of an ambush were high. But Star and Bullock arrived safely in Deadwood sometime in early August and, unfortunately, we have to bust another myth involving the legend of Seth Bullock – his relationship with Wild Bill Hickok.
The show presents Bullock and Hickok becoming friends and temporary allies shortly before Hickok’s untimely demise at the hands of the cowardly Jack McCall. They even shot a guy together which, in Wild West times, instantly made you BFFs. But, alas, Wild Bill was killed on August 2 and Bullock arrived in Deadwood on August 3, so unless Bullock dabbled in spiritualism as a hobby, the two had never met.
As you might imagine, Deadwood was in a bit of a tizzy upon Bullock’s arrival, so few people noticed two new additions to the camp. But even so, on that same night, Bullock and Star began hawking goods right from their tent – pans, picks, shovels, axes, rope, dynamite, even chamber pots; everything a miner would ever need. The two came well-supplied.
The very next day, the two business partners purchased an unfinished building on the corner of Main Street and Wall Street, the future site of Star and Bullock Hardware, as well as an auction, commission, and storage house. The two intended to operate the business similar to how Bullock had done in the past. Star was “the inside man” aka the guy who ran the store day-to-day, while Bullock was “the outside man” who ran the auction house and handled the general schmoozing with the Deadwood community.
A month after Bullock had settled in Deadwood, he wrote to folks back in Montana to tell them about things. He was happy that Deadwood was a booming mining town but worried that it could get easily oversaturated. Already, there were 21 grocers, 11 clothing stores, and 27 saloons in town, but fortunately for him and Star, only two hardware stores, so it seems like they picked the right trade. What really concerned him was the level of violence. Even for a frontier town, Deadwood was a lawless land. Bullock wrote:
“We have no law and order, and no prospect of either. Several murders have been committed and nothing done.”
This disturbed Bullock more than other residents of Deadwood because, by that time, he had married Martha Eccles and already had a baby together named Margaret. He didn’t bring them along because he wanted things to get settled a bit first. He also didn’t want to leave them behind in Helena alone so, for the time being, they were living with Martha’s parents in Michigan. But the way things were going, it didn’t look like Bullock would send for them anytime soon. Not unless he did something about it…
Law in Deadwood
Living in an unruly settlement away from the prying eyes of the government might sound appealing to some people, but it can get old pretty fast. Especially when problems like fires, disease, and crime run rampant without anyone to solve them. Deadwood might not have been ready for a sheriff just yet, but it decided to establish the Board of Health and Street Commissioners. It had five members and, even though he had only been in Deadwood for a short while, Seth Bullock was one of them. It seemed that his reputation in Montana had preceded him and many miners from that area trusted him.
The board’s first priority was to build a pest house away from the camp for sick people, especially since there was concern over a smallpox epidemic. Of course, something like that cost money, so the miners agreed that the board could request contributions from the inhabitants of Deadwood. Those who refused to contribute risked being kicked out of camp…or even worse.
The board lasted less than a month before people admitted that it still wasn’t enough. There were social, political, and legal issues that an ad-hoc group with no real authority simply couldn’t handle. Elections were set for September 11, 1876, to vote on the formation of a local government and to elect the necessary city officials.
Come election time, the people cast over 1,000 votes in favor of forming a city government, with only 57 votes again. Clearly, the residents of Deadwood had had enough of frontier lawlessness, although we should point out that this new administration still wasn’t recognized by the US Government. Deadwood was settled on Native American land, so the entire town was, technically, illegal, at least for a little while longer. Sol Star was elected to the city council and Seth Bullock…um, wasn’t elected to anything. Bullock is often touted as Deadwood’s first marshal, but that’s not true. It was a guy named Isaac Brown, who only held the job for a few weeks before he was killed while traveling.
The truth is that Bullock didn’t run for anything. He didn’t even stay for the elections. He left Deadwood and was gone for almost half a year. First, he went to Tecumseh, Michigan, to spend time with his family, and then he traveled to New York City to secure new merchandise for the store such as tea, whiskey, and cigars.
While Bullock was away, the US Government engaged in one of its favorite pastimes of the day – screwing over Native Americans. The Black Hills region belonged to the Sioux, but it was simply too rich to let them keep it. Therefore, in February 1877, Congress removed the Black Hills from under Native American control and created three new counties in Dakota: Lawrence, Pennington, and Custer, with Deadwood becoming the seat for Lawrence County.
With three more counties, Dakota Territory Governor John Pennington had to appoint some new officials. For the position of Lawrence County Sheriff, he wanted someone with experience in law enforcement who also had connections to Deadwood. Enter the perfect candidate: Seth Bullock. And the fact that the two were pretty chummy together didn’t hurt, either.
Sheriff Bullock
When Bullock finally returned to Deadwood, he did so as the new Sheriff of Lawrence County. Contrary to popular belief, Bullock was never sheriff or marshal of Deadwood itself, but since Deadwood was the county seat, that’s where he was based. He used the hardware store as his office. The fireproof storage facility he and Star built doubled as the local jail.
Bullock had a difficult task ahead of him. Deadwood’s population was constantly on the rise and so was the crime rate. He took his job seriously, but we can best describe his tenure as sheriff as a mixed bag. Bullock was good with the day-to-day problems. He hired eight deputies to help police the county and also organized a night watch to check for fire hazards. He routinely investigated claims of theft and burglary, but allowed most fights and arguments to play themselves out, only interfering when the fighting spilled into the streets or someone drew a weapon. Bullock never killed anyone during his time as sheriff, managing to diffuse most tense situations just with his presence and a few stern words.
We’d like to tell you some stories about Bullock’s run-ins with his most notorious adversary, the proprietor of the den of infamy known as the Gem Theater, Al Swearengen. Alas, such tales have not been preserved for posterity. As much as Bullock wanted Deadwood to become a safer, cleaner town, there were plenty of others who liked it nice and sleazy. The real Al Swearengen had enough connections and alliances that he was able to operate his business unimpeded from the law. When he finally left Deadwood, it wasn’t because of anything Bullock had done. It was because the Gem had burned down and Swearengen felt like getting a new start someplace else.
Disputes over land and mining claims were a frequent problem in Deadwood, but one that Bullock tried to avoid since they were settled by the courts and were typically outside his purview. However, they often escalated to violence, so the sheriff had no choice but to get involved. One shootout on a hill above South Deadwood led to one man dead and two injured. Bullock arrested two men named May and Blair who later became the first persons convicted of murder in the new county.
Bullock suffered a few black eyes during his time as sheriff. On one occasion, a gang of five outlaws robbed a stagecoach coming to Deadwood and killed the driver, Johnny Slaughter. Bullock organized a posse and spent months tracking them down with no success.
On another occasion, Bullock had to deal with a strike when 30 miners refused to leave Keets Mine after not being paid. This time, stern words did not work. Eventually, Bullock got them out by sealing the air shafts and smoking them out with burning sulfur, but this did not endear him to the people of Deadwood, many of whom were either miners or had miners in their families.
The truth was that most people in Lawrence County were unhappy, not just the ones in Deadwood. They never liked the fact that Governor Pennington simply appointed the officials in the three new counties instead of holding elections. They feared that he got his buddies into power to benefit himself, something referred to politically as the “Yankton Ring.” Eventually, the problem got big enough that a district federal judge ruled that a special election would take place in November 1877.
This was just nine months after Seth Bullock took office and, to nobody’s surprise, he lost the election, as did most of the governor’s appointees. His association with Pennington and his treatment of the miners were his undoing. A guy named John Manning became the new sheriff. Then, in 1878, when the regularly scheduled election took place, Bullock ran again, but Manning defeated him once more. It seemed like Seth Bullock’s career as a lawman in Deadwood was over before it truly got started.
Pillar of the Community
Although it seemed like Deadwood didn’t want Bullock anymore, the feeling was not mutual. In fact, Bullock and Sol Star were two of the very few characters featured in the TV show who remained in town for the rest of their lives, always trying to help it grow. Bullock simply focused his attention on business. He and Star bought 160 acres of land where they started a dairy farm, grew cattle, bred horses, and planted alfalfa crops.
The land that Bullock and Star owned proved to be invaluable to the development of the region when the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad wanted to lay down track in the area. Originally, the railway was going to go past Minnesela, the county seat of Butte County. However, the owner of that land wanted a fortune to let the railroad pass through. Bullock and Star, on the other hand, offered 40 acres of prime real estate for the princely sum of $1, as long as they built the terminal in their neck of the woods. Obviously, the railroad company couldn’t pass up such a deal, so it complied, and the new train depot was built on the site of an earlier stage station. People quickly bought plots of land nearby and the town of Belle Fourche was founded. It thrived and became one of the largest livestock shipping points in the country, eventually being named the new county seat of Butte County, whereas Minnesela turned into a ghost town.
Things weren’t going so well back in Deadwood. The town saw two major fires during the late 19th century which destroyed most of Main Street on both occasions, including Star and Bullock Hardware. The first one happened in 1879 and the second in 1894. The partners rebuilt after the first fire bigger and better, including a stone warehouse and “the finest private office in town,” according to them. They even franchised, opening hardware stores in other towns such as Spearfish, Rapid City, and Sturgis. After that, they expanded to Wyoming and Montana.
For decades, the hardware stores and the ranch represented the bulk of Bullock’s business interests, barring some investments in mining, banking, and iron smelting that didn’t pan out. But after the second fire in 1894, he was struck by a bolt of inspiration. Instead of rebuilding the hardware store, he constructed the Bullock Hotel on the site. With three stories and 63 luxury rooms, it was, by far, the swankiest place in Deadwood, and it still operates today. And, of course, the hotel is apparently haunted by Seth Bullock’s ghost, who’s still around to make sure that the employees don’t laze around too much.
Business acumen might have made Bullock successful, but it was his law enforcement career that created his legacy. And although his stint as sheriff was short-lived, he found a new job immediately after losing the election when he was named deputy marshal for the Dakota Territory. He kept this position for a decade, but it just wasn’t the same. He was basically a freelancer, getting paid a fee every time he accomplished a task, and most of the jobs involved serving summonses or enforcing liquor laws. It wasn’t the kind of action we would associate with a famed Wild West lawman.
Bullock and Roosevelt
While his deputy marshal gig might not have been anything to write home about, Bullock did have one more memorable stint with law enforcement thanks to his most iconic friendship with none other than President Teddy Roosevelt.
The two met in 1892 when Roosevelt passed through Deadwood while working for the US Civil Service Commission. They struck up a mild acquaintance which blossomed into a great friendship in 1898, during the Spanish-American War. Both men enlisted and were given command of their own cavalry regiment, but while Teddy’s Rough Riders achieved fame and glory and turned Roosevelt into a war hero, Bullock’s Troop A never got the chance to earn a cool nickname because they were still training in Georgia when the war ended.
Bullock might not have seen any action, but it was the thought that counted and it cemented the friendship between him and Roosevelt. In 1900, when Roosevelt was campaigning as William McKinley’s vice president, Bullock accompanied him on the campaign trail in the Dakotas and Montana. Then, in 1905, when Roosevelt was elected president in his own right, Bullock organized a group of cowboys known as Bullock’s Brigade to ride during Roosevelt’s inaugural parade. Fun fact: this group included Tom Mix, who went on to become a popular star of silent westerns.
In return, Roosevelt appointed Bullock US Marshal for South Dakota in 1906, and then so did his successor, William Howard Taft. But Bullock was almost 60 years old at that point. He wasn’t going to chase down outlaws or anything like that. He did go after the occasional bootlegger or embezzler but, for the most part, this was a supervisory role, with his deputies handling the day-to-day stuff. He left the office in 1914, at the age of 67, but just like his friend, Teddy Roosevelt, he had no intention to retire. In 1917, he wanted to be part of a volunteer formation organized by Roosevelt to serve in World War I, but President Woodrow Wilson rejected the idea.
The spirit might have been willing, but the flesh was spongy and bruised. Bullock’s body simply couldn’t keep up. That same year, he fell ill and slowed down considerably. Then, in 1919, when his dear friend Teddy Roosevelt passed away, Bullock erected a memorial to him on Sheep Mountain near Deadwood. He dedicated it on July 4, but getting it built took all the energy he had left. Seth Bullock died of intestinal cancer two months later, on September 23, 1919, aged 73. He was buried in Deadwood’s Mount Moriah Cemetery, close to Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Dora DuFran, and other “colorful” characters who turned Deadwood into a quintessential part of Wild West history.
