Deadwood bar named one of best in the country

Travis Pearson has been shot and killed 15,000 times inside Saloon No. 10.

For more than 15 years, “I die and resurrect three times a day!” says the actor who portrays Wild Bill Hickok in the historic bar’s daily re-enactments of the famed outlaw’s death by the pistol of “Crooked Nose” Jack McCall in 1876.

The chair in which Wild Bill was shot while playing poker inside the dusty saloon still hangs on the wall today.  

But there’s such a larger history lesson inside the Deadwood, South Dakota, bar on Main Street. Built during the peak of the Black Hills Gold Rush 150 years ago and family-owned for 60 years now, Saloon No. 10 is a “museum with a damn good bar” for relics and folklore from the Old West. Peep more modern artifacts, too, like the stunning collection of George and Joseph Fassbender’s artwork, a 1990 Dick Termes spherical painting and an elk hide robe worn by actor Duane Howard in the 2015 movie “The Revenant.”

Now it’s been named one of the 29 bars included on the 2025 USA TODAY Bars of the Year list, created by USA TODAY Network food writers across the country. The list includes everything from humble dives to high-end cocktail bars with some wine bars and music venues thrown in the mix.

“There is a certain magic here,” says general manager and co-owner Louie LaLonde. Her parents, Lew and Marion Keehn who both died in 1999, brought ragtime piano and gambling back to Deadwood to boost tourism in an otherwise “crumbling” mining community. Today, Saloon No. 10 fills to capacity with ages 21 to “oh, folks at least in their 80s” line dancing in the back, bellied up to play blackjack, or shouting stories at the bar.   

“I’m only me, the one who hopes to god I’m making the right decisions up in my office,” LaLonde says. “I’m not the one who brings the magic — that’s our employees, they make this place feel like home.”

What makes Saloon No. 10 stand out?

Sure, Calamity Jane once caused trouble here and, more recently, Kevin Costner visited often after opening his own casino down the street in 1991, but it’s the Keehn family themselves who are the celebrities.

Lori Keehn-Moore, the baby of the four other siblings who run the bar today, says she used to help wash dishes or attend some of the live shows if her dad let her as a child. She grew up with the romance of the Old West as her lullaby, the history of Deadwood as her bedtime story and “loved every minute.”

“This is the best family you could ever work for,” says 30-year Saloon No. 10 bartender Kal Varland. “It is just the best job in the world, very gratifying. I’ve met some of the best people here and some of the worst, but there is a lure here you can’t get anywhere else.”

If you wake up in the morning with saw dust in your socks, poker chips in your pocket and a tattoo of Wild Bill Hickok on your face, well then Saloon No. 10 has treated you well and will tip their hats to you again soon.

What to order at Saloon No. 10

Co-owner Charlie Struble-Mook, who is the daughter of Keehn-Moore and also mayor of Deadwood, studied American whiskey and went to Kentucky to bring back her own barrels of Buffalo Trace, the bourbon they pour into the 10’s most-popular Old Fashioneds. Struble-Mook says they have at least 10 barrels, each of which encases around 250 bottles’ worth of bourbon.

“One barrel will maybe last six months,” she says, but that’s just their Buffalo Trace. They also have one of the most extensive whiskey collections in the Midwest, including over 400 different brands as well as limited editions and exclusive barrels.

Upstairs is the Deadwood Social Club, Saloon No. 10’s sister restaurant that opened in the ’90s and is where LaLonde will enjoy a nice scotch in a more “chill vibe” or on the rooftop patio. If you make it past the rowdy dance floor in the saloon, try the smoked tuaca pheasant.

Did you know?

The Keehn family is one of the most prolific philanthropists in Deadwood. On behalf of Saloon No. 10, they have raised more than $1 million for local cancer research and just last March donated $30,000 for chemotherapy patients using cold caps during treatments.

They are a very dog-friendly bar and also donate to the Twin City Animal Shelter in neighboring community Lead, S.D.