What is the Adams?

The Adams Museum & House, Inc. (AM&H) is the governing institution that oversees the operation of the Adams Museum, the Historic Adams House and the Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center. While the City of Deadwood owns the buildings, the AM&H’s board of directors oversees the operation of the three entities. The mission of the non-profit AM&H is to identify, preserve, collect, interpret and promote the history and culture of Deadwood and the surrounding Black Hills for the benefit of members of the Northern Black Hills community, visitors to the area and researchers.

The Adams Museum and the Historic Adams House are open year round. The Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center is currently under construction.

Adams Museum

In 1930 pioneer businessman W.E. Adams founded the Adams Museum in downtown Deadwood with the purpose of preserving and displaying the history of the Black Hills. He donated the building to the City of Deadwood and placed the operation of the organization in the hands of a board of directors. The board oversaw the collecting of some of the Black Hills’ greatest treasures including Potato Creek Johnny’s gold nugget, beloved American illustrator N.C. Wyeth’s pencil sketch drawing of Western legend Wild Bill Hickok, the mysterious Thoen Stone record of the Ezra Kind party’s discovery of gold in the Hills in the 1830s and a one-of-a-kind plesiosaur (marine reptile).

In 1989 South Dakotans gave Deadwood a second renaissance by voting to allow limited stakes gaming with tax proceeds benefiting historic preservation. This breathed new life into the Adams Museum, giving the City of Deadwood and the Adams Museum board the opportunity to hire a professionally trained museum staff with the goal of restoring the building, instituting professional collections management practices, creating engaging and educational exhibitions and developing community based public programming. In 2005, the Adams Museum underwent a major renovation of the then 75-year-old building to address safety issues, make the facility more accessible to people with disabilities and to improve public programming spaces. The Adams Museum is wheel-chair accessible. In addition to exhibits on all three levels, a western history bookstore is included on the main floor and restrooms and a meeting room are located on the lower level.

Historic Adams House

The Adams Museum’s leadership in historic preservation led naturally to its involvement in restoring the Victorian home of two of Deadwood’s founding families, including the Adams Museum’s founder W.E. Adams. Built in 1892, the Queen Anne-style home with its oak interiors, hand-painted canvas wall coverings, stained glass windows, thoroughly modern 19th century plumbing, electricity and telephone service and original furnishings sat silent for almost 60 years after W.E. Adams’ death in 1934, when his second wife Mary Adams closed the doors. Mrs. Adams left everything intact from the sheet music in the piano bench, the books in the library, the china in the pantry, to the patent medicines in the bathroom, the gilded settee in the parlor and even the cookies in a cookie jar. The home was purchased by the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission in 1992.

The Adams Museum entered into a partnership with the City of Deadwood in 1998 to restore the home as a house museum. Matching funds from the Adams-Mastrovich Family Foundation and the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission allowed the AM&H to bring in the leading experts in historic preservation to restore and interpret the home. In 1999, the Adams Museum incorporated in South Dakota as the Adams Museum & House, Inc. so as to appropriately assume the role of a non-profit organization operating two museums. One year later, the restored Historic Adams House opened to the public on July 1, 2000. The Historic Adams House property includes the Mary Adams Orientation Center featuring wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, orientation exhibition and a gift shop with a complete inventory of Victorian and Art Deco Era-styled jewelry, accessories and more. The Historic Adams House itself is wheelchair-accessible on the first floor.

Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center

In 2005, Barrick Gold Corporation donated over 10,000 cubic feet of documents that detail the Homestake Mining Company’s 126-year history. To protect this valuable collection and make it accessible to the public, the City of Deadwood purchased a building that is being retrofitted with appropriate climate-control equipment, security measures and storage furniture. With an anticipated opening date in 2009, the Homestake Adams Research and Cultural Center (HARCC) will serve as an archive repository, research center and educational facility. The HARCC will house the archival collections of the Homestake Mining Company, notable pioneer lawyer and rancher Henry Frawley, the Historic Adams House and the Adams Museum. The Homestake collection includes historic photographs and negatives, architectural drawings, underground mine surveys, land plats, geological records of the Black Hills, company correspondence and operation and production records. The Frawley collection contains archival materials focusing on frontier law and ranching during the late 19th and early 20th century. The Adams Museum and Historic Adams House archive collections are comprised of materials that detail the cultural history of the Black Hills area, including historic photographs and negatives, original correspondence, business records and western ephemera.

When the HARCC opens to the public in 2009, the building will include state-of-the-art research space, classrooms, a lecture hall, conference room and a gift shop. The handicap-accessible facility will include public restrooms on the first floor.

The Adams Museum & House, Inc. is a non-profit that qualifies as a federally tax exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Service Code Section 501(C) (3). This has several key implications: The AM&H does not pay federal taxes and donations of cash, services and goods may be tax deductible to the person or organization making the donation.

Download floor plans of Deadwood’s Adams Museum and Historic Adams House