An Overview

An Accidental Museum

The Days of ’76 Museum started out as a storage shed. Deadwood kept its horse-drawn wagons, carriages and stagecoaches from the annual Days of ’76 Celebration parade in the building. When the celebration began in 1923, the wagons were merely old. But as time went on, the carriages became valuable pieces of American history.

Other artifacts – Wild West memorabilia, period clothing, saddles and guns – joined the collection. The storage shed became a museum. And when longtime businessman and historian Don Clowser added his collection, the Days of ’76 Museum became a significant museum.

Now we need a facility that does justice to these collections and preserves the history of the Black Hills and the West.

The Capital Campaign

The Days of 76 Museum Board has a $6 million plan to build a new 32,000-square-foot main museum for the Days of 76 Museum’s historically significant collections of Western and Native American artifacts, archives, photos and artwork.

The new museum will stand two stories tall. It will have better lighting, more space for displays and a better indoor environment to preserve the fragile artifacts.

In addition, a separate 6,300-square-foot storage building, completed in June 2008, will house collections during construction of the main building and serve as an ongoing workspace and storage facility after construction is done.