Lead, SD

Lead on When It Was is 7 addresses and the 8 businesses that have occupied them, the oldest from 1875. 6 are still open today; 2 are gone, and 1 of the buildings themselves have been demolished. Every entry below opens a page with the full history of that address, and the map lets you slide the year and watch the city change.

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Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF)

160 West Main St · 2006–present · 2 businesses here

The world's most productive gold mine became the deepest underground physics lab in the U.S., where scientists hunt for dark matter nearly a…

Black Hills Mining Museum

323 West Main St · 1986–present

Built by more than 100 retired Homestake miners themselves, this museum lets visitors walk through a recreated underground gold mine built b…

Cheyenne Crossing Stage Stop

21415 US Highway 14A · 1877–present

The last horse-change stop before the Cheyenne-to-Deadwood stagecoach made its final run into the gold camps is now a working restaurant on …

Hearst Free Library

315 West Main St · 1894–present

Phoebe Apperson Hearst gave the miners of Lead a free public library stocked with 10,000 books in dozens of languages — a gift she personall…

Historic Homestake Opera House

313 West Main St · 1914–present

A $250,000 gift from the Homestake Mining Company gave Gilded Age gold miners their own opera house, heated swimming pool, bowling alley, an…

Terry (mining town)

Terry Peak area (Terry townsite) · 1887–1929

A hard-rock mining boomtown of nearly 1,200 people vanished almost entirely — swallowed by open-pit mining — and it's where Calamity Jane di…

Lead, decade by decade

• 1870s
  3 opened — Homestake Gold Mine, Central City, Cheyenne Crossing Stage StopSee the map in 1875 →
• 1880s
  1 opened — Terry (mining town)See the map in 1885 →
• 1890s
  1 opened — Hearst Free LibrarySee the map in 1895 →
• 1910s
  1 opened — Historic Homestake Opera HouseSee the map in 1915 →
• 1980s
  1 opened — Black Hills Mining MuseumSee the map in 1985 →
• 2000s
  1 opened — Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF)See the map in 2005 →

Still here, and gone

By kind of place

Ghost Town (2)

Terry (mining town) · Central City

Research Facility (1)

Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF)

Mine (1)

Homestake Gold Mine

Museum (1)

Black Hills Mining Museum

Opera House (1)

Historic Homestake Opera House

Library (1)

Hearst Free Library

Landmark (1)

Cheyenne Crossing Stage Stop

Collections that cover Lead

Every place in Lead (7)

• Black Hills Mining Museum 323 West Main St · 1986–present
• Central City Central City (US-385, Deadwood Gulch) · 1875–present
• Cheyenne Crossing Stage Stop 21415 US Highway 14A · 1877–present
• Hearst Free Library 315 West Main St · 1894–present
• Historic Homestake Opera House 313 West Main St · 1914–present
• Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) 160 West Main St · 2006–present · 2 businesses
• Terry (mining town) Terry Peak area (Terry townsite) · 1887–1929