The Homestake Adams Research & Cultural Center in Deadwood houses items like the Homestake Mining Company’s records, old surveys and plattes of the mine, as well as an extensive photo collection of Lead and the surrounding area. The Center is a useful resource for researchers.
The Homestake Adams Research & Cultural Center in Deadwood can be a helping hand to those researching the rich history of the area – whether it be for business or pleasure.
Assistant Archivist for Deadwood History, Inc. Jessica Michak says the Research & Cultural Center has a wide array of information on the people and places of the Black Hills dating back to the late 1800’s and it’s available to the public. Michak says they handle a variety of requests.
“A lot of what we have is actually genealogy research, people want to know if their - my father worked in the mine in this year - I want to know if you have anything on that, but we also have a lot of people come in from the Sanford Underground Research Lab,” says Michak
While walk-ins are welcome at the Research & Cultural Center in Deadwood, Michak says digitizing its collections is a goal.
“Which is pretty exciting. Most of the records in the vault aren’t accessible online yet. Most of them are cataloged in a database and we’re trying to get those organized and put online for the public so that way they can just go to our website,” says Michak.
Michak says getting the photograph collection online and available to people that live outside of South Dakota is a priority.
“We’re really trying to do things according to the professional archival standard and really trying to preserve not just Deadwood and Lead but also the Black Hills area in general,” says Michak.
The public is also welcome to ask advice on how to preserve heirlooms of their own.
“We are super open to contacting people or talking with people so if you have a research question or something you may possibly want to donate we will gladly work with you and that’s kind of why we’re here and why it’s important for us to be here so we can help you through those processes,” says Michak.
Michak says along with aiding researchers, the Homestake Adams Research & Cultural Center helps keep historically significant items and information in South Dakota and in one place.
