Home›Places›Deadwood, SD›Broken Boot Gold Mine
Historic place

Broken Boot Gold Mine

1200 Pioneer Way, Deadwood, SD

Opened the same year as the gold rush itself, it barely made money on gold — its real product was fool's gold, sold for gunpowder in two world wars — and it only got its current name because renovators found an old boot in a back tunnel.

📅 1878–present🏛️ MineRepurposedBuilt 1878
Open on the mapSlide back to 1878
Broken Boot Gold Mine, 1200 Pioneer Way, Deadwood, SD
Broken Boot Gold Mine, Deadwood · Unknown author, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The story

Olaf Seim and James Nelson staked "Seim's Mine" in 1878, at the height of the Black Hills gold rush. Over 26 years it produced only about 15,000 ounces of gold, while yielding abundant iron pyrite — fool's gold — which was more valuable because it could be processed into sulfuric acid. The mine closed in 1904, briefly reopened in 1917 for WWI gunpowder materials, then shut for good in 1918. It sat idle 36 years until 1954, when Deadwood businessmen reopened it as a tourist attraction — and, finding a worn-out boot abandoned in a back chamber during cleanup, rechristened it the Broken Boot Gold Mine. Public tours have run continuously since 1954.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

Its name comes from an old boot found abandoned in a mine tunnel during 1954 renovations.
It made more money from fool's gold (iron pyrite, used for sulfuric acid) than from actual gold.
It briefly reopened in 1917 specifically to supply materials for WWI gunpowder production.

Connected places

Mollie Johnson's Brothel

Deadwood, SD
Black Hills Gold Rush

Sturgis Commercial Block

Sturgis, SD
Black Hills Gold Rush

The 1880 Train (Black Hills Central Railroad)

Hill City, SD
Black Hills Gold Rush

Rand Tower Hotel

Minneapolis, MN
World War I

German Insurance Company Building

Buffalo, NY
World War I

Nashville Union Station

Nashville, TN
World War I

Explore the full web of connections on the map.

Nearby history

Historic Franklin Hotel

700 Main St · 1.0 km away
Deadwood's first grand hotel opened in 1903 with an elevator, electric lights, and telephones — and hosted two future pr

Homestake Slime Plant (Deadwood Mountain Grand)

1906 Deadwood Mountain Drive · 1.0 km away
A gold-processing plant built with Douglas fir beams railed in from Washington State ran until 1973, then sat as a count

Mollie Johnson's Brothel

100 Sherman Street · 1.1 km away

The Midnight Star

677 Main St · 1.2 km away
Kevin Costner turned a historic Deadwood building into his own casino after falling in love with the Black Hills filming

Deadwood Main Street Historic District

Historic Main Street · 1.2 km away
A gold-rush boomtown, gutted twice by fire and left to fade, saved itself in 1989 by legalizing the very vice — gambling

Adams Museum

54 Sherman St · 1.2 km away
A Deadwood businessman gave the town its first museum in 1930 — and it's still city property nearly a century later.

Know something about Broken Boot Gold Mine? An old photo, a date, a memory of what stood here before?

Add it on the map
Sourceshttps://www.brokenbootgoldmine.com/about-the-boot