Henry Weston Smith

The granite obelisk the Society of Black Hills Pioneers raised in 1914 says Henry Weston Smith was killed here by Indians on Sunday, August 20, 1876. Nobody knew that then and nobody knows it now. He was found shot on the Crook City road and not robbed; Sheriff Seth Bullock wrote the next day that a band of Indians had done it, while others blamed thieves or saloon men who resented his preaching. No one was ever charged. The obelisk moved with Highway 85 in 1994.

What the plaque says

Henry Weston Smith The Pioneer Preacher. Who was killed here by Indians, Sunday morning, Aug. 20, 1876. Erected by the Society of B.H. Pioneers Aug. 20, 1914.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Deadwood Historic District — 2.0 mi
  A gold-rush town on treaty land, rebuilt in brick after the 1879 fire and rescued a century later by a vote to let casinos pay for its preservation.
• Mount Moriah Cemetery — 2.0 mi
  The hillside where Deadwood moved its dead: Wild Bill and Calamity Jane side by side, Seth Bullock looking at his friend's tower, and the Chinese burner of 1908.
• Homestake Open Cut & Sanford Lab Visitor Center — 4.2 mi
  A 1,250-foot pit on Lead's Main Street, the visible top of a gold mine that went down 8,000 feet in 125 years and is a physics laboratory now.
• Spearfish Canyon — 11 mi
  A limestone canyon nineteen miles long whose waterfalls ran dry for most of a century while the Homestake piped their water to its power plants.

More markers nearby

• Preacher Smith of Deadwood Gulch — steps away
• First Deadwood Gold Discovery — 1.3 mi
• 1940 DAR Penny Pines Forest — 1.6 mi
• Second Deadwood Gold Discovery — 3.1 mi