Broken Boot Gold Mine in Deadwood

Our next tour after the Boot Hill Cemetery was the Broken Boot Gold Mine. We actually got to go down inside of the mine. The history of this mine is pretty neat. The mine was established in 1878 but the owners only got about 15,000 ounces over a 26 year period, which was not very much. But ironically the mine did have lots of iron pyrite (fools gold) which was in high demand because it was used among other things to make sulfuric acid used to process real gold. But even that demand diminished and in 1904 the mine closed only to reopen in 1917 when WW I was in need of iron and sulfur but again closed in 1918. The mine sat vacant for 36 years when the mine owner's daughter decided to open up the mine as a tourist attraction. She was pondering a name which would interest visitors when while renovating the mine interior to make it safe for tourists, one of the workers found an old miners broken boot. Thus the mine became known as Broken Boot Gold Mine. Ironically, Broken Boot has operated longer and more successfully as a tourist attraction than it did as a mine.