Home›Places›Lead, SD›Central City
Historic place

Central City

Central City (US-385, Deadwood Gulch), Lead, SD

Once a booming gulch town of 3,000 that nearly rivaled Deadwood and Lead, Central City absorbed half a dozen neighboring camps — including one named "Go To Hell Gulch" — before shrinking to fewer than 100 residents.

📅 1875–present🏛️ Ghost TownStill hereBuilt 1875
Open on the mapSlide back to 1875

The story

William Lardner and Ed McKay built the first two cabins here in late 1875, right after gold was found in Deadwood Gulch. Formally organized in January 1877 and named for Central City, Colorado, it swelled to about 3,000 people and absorbed camps including Blacktail, Gayville, and Go To Hell Gulch. A flood in 1883 and a fire in 1888 hurt it, milling moved to Lead, and the population fell steadily. Its post office closed in 1971. As of 2020, 93 residents remained — yet it's still a legally incorporated city.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

Central City absorbed several mining camps, including one literally named "Go To Hell Gulch."
Its population fell from roughly 3,000 in the 1870s to just 93 by the 2020 census.
Despite the "ghost town" label, it's still a legally incorporated South Dakota city.

Nearby history

Historic Homestake Opera House

313 West Main St · 1.9 km away
A $250,000 gift from the Homestake Mining Company gave Gilded Age gold miners their own opera house, heated swimming poo

Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF)

160 West Main St · 1.9 km away
The world's most productive gold mine became the deepest underground physics lab in the U.S., where scientists hunt for

Black Hills Mining Museum

323 West Main St · 1.9 km away
Built by more than 100 retired Homestake miners themselves, this museum lets visitors walk through a recreated undergrou

Hearst Free Library

315 West Main St · 1.9 km away
Phoebe Apperson Hearst gave the miners of Lead a free public library stocked with 10,000 books in dozens of languages —

Broken Boot Gold Mine

1200 Pioneer Way · 2.0 km away
Opened the same year as the gold rush itself, it barely made money on gold — its real product was fool's gold, sold for

Historic Franklin Hotel

700 Main St · 2.9 km away
Deadwood's first grand hotel opened in 1903 with an elevator, electric lights, and telephones — and hosted two future pr

Know something about Central City? An old photo, a date, a memory of what stood here before?

Add it on the map
Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_City,_South_Dakota