Broken Boot Gold Mine
Step into the Black Hills' best underground mine tour and return to a time when the powerful punch of a miner's pick and the roaring boom of another dynamite blast signaled the ongoing search for the richest veins of gold on Earth.
Visit the authentic Broken Boot Gold Mine, step into history and dig into the past.
In the spring of 1876, the call of GOLD led a flood of miners, merchants, muleskinners and madams to sweep into Deadwood Gulch. The intriguing story of one of America's last great gold rushes comes to life at Deadwood's Broken Boot Gold Mine, established in 1878.
Eager to enter the untamed frontier and become rich on the gold that was surely concealed in it, Olaf Seim and James Nelson came to the Black Hills and dug a mine just outside Deadwood in 1878. Known simply as Seim's (pronounced SIMES) Mine, it produced about 15,000 ounces of gold for its two young owners over a period of 26 years, which, for the two men averaged only about 1.5 ounces of the yellow metal per day.
But gold wasn't the only metal Seim and Nelson found in their mine. They also found plenty of iron pyrite, or fool's gold. Fortunately for the miners, iron pyrite was in demand. Indeed, the mine made more profit from selling fool's gold than they did real gold.
Eventually, however, even the iron pyrite wasn't enough to support the mine. It closed in 1904, only to reopen briefly, and then in 1917 sat vacant for thirty-six years. Olaf Seim's daughter decided to repair and reopen the mine in 1954 as a tourist attraction. During the renovations to make it safe for tours, the crews found an old worn boot (among other long-forgotten relics) in a back chamber. Seizing the opportunity, Seim's daughter decided to rechristen the mine as the Broken Boot.
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