Trial of Jack McCall For Murder of Wild Bill

Deadwood was Lakota country when Jack McCall shot Hickok there, and that is why Yankton could try him twice. The town stood inside the Great Sioux Reservation that the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty set aside for the Lakota. As Mark Thorburn writes in Great American Trials, the Deadwood proceeding was not legal for that reason, so its acquittal barred nothing, and federal law governed the killing. The defense argued that territorial law should apply and lost. Congress took the Black Hills from the Lakota by the act of February 28, 1877, the day before McCall was hanged.

What the plaque says

Trial of Jack McCall for Murder of "Wild Bill" At Deadwood on August 2, 1876, Jack McCall shot "Wild Bill" Hickok in the back of his head. When a vigilante court tried him, he claimed Bill had killed his brother and the vigilantes let him go. Later, due to his boasting, at Laramie City, US Marshal Balcombe of Nebraska arrested him and turned him over to US Marshal Burdick of Dakota. In October a grand jury indicted him and he was tried December 4-5-6, 1876, found guilty by a jury before Trial Judge Peter C. Shannon who sentenced him to hang. William Pound was US Attorney, Gen. W. H. H. Beadle and Oliver Shannon, court appointed defense attorneys. The US Court room was on second story of Morrison Building, directly back of this marker. The story of the hanging is on a marker 2 miles N of US 81. Four witnesses told of the shooting in Mann & Lewis saloon in Deadwood where Bill was playing poker but not with his back to a wall. As he toppled over, the Deadman's hand, black aces and eights, was displayed. Erected 1960 by Gurney Hotel Company

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spirit Mound Historic Prairie — 22 mi
  A lone hill north of Vermillion that Lewis and Clark walked to on a scorching day in 1804, now one of the few places left where you can stand exactly where they stood.

More markers nearby

• First Territorial Capital — steps away
• First Building at Yankton Site May 1858 — steps away
• East Wall Yankton Stockade — 0.2 mi
• First Dakota National Bank of Yankton — 0.2 mi