The Great Fire of 1879
In the early days of the construction of Deadwood, few buildings were erected of brick or stone. The tent and pole structures which marked the arrival of the camp were quickly replaced with wood frame buildings, with the Black Hills providing an abundant supply of lumber, mostly pine. On Thursday, September 25, 1879, a coal oil lamp was knocked over in a bakery on Sherman Street. Deadwood had by then a fire brigade of volunteers, and they arrived at the scene quickly, only to find the bakery completely engulfed, and the fire already spreading to adjoining buildings. Many of the wood frame structures were lined on the inside with canvas, helping to insulate them. The canvas burned quickly.
After the fire spread across the street it ignited a hardware store, in which gunpowder was stored, leading to an explosion and raining embers landing on the roofs and porches of other structures. Even the few buildings built of brick found their roofs and interiors bursting into flames. The only method to stop the fire was to destroy buildings in the path of its spread, in the hope of containing the blaze. In the end more than 200 buildings, $2 million worth of goods and property (about $48 million today) were destroyed and much of the population homeless, penniless, and hopeless. There was only one fatality, a deaf man who slept through the fire alarms.