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Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage Line

Major stage line originating in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory and terminating in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.[1]

Known informally as the Deadwood Stage, the Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage Line operated from 1876 until February of 1887 when railroads made stage travel into the Black Hills obsolete.[1]

According to Hoyle: In 1876, Bret Maverick and Samantha Crawford arrived in  Cheyenne, where they traveled by stage[3] on the Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage Line[4] to Wagon Wheel, Wyoming Territory.[3]

The Long Hunt: In 1877, Lefty Dolan was lying in ambush on a ledge in preparation to rob the south-bound stage when Bret Maverick, chased and shot at by a mob of angry poker players, fell off his horse nearby. Thinking Bret was a fellow road agent being chased by a posse, Dolan shot at the mob and chased them off. Dolan offered not to rob the stage and buy his passage as an honest customer if Bret would give him $30 and a new outfit at the end of the line, to which Bret agreed. They hopped the stage en route for Cheyenne but shortly afterwards, two other road agents stopped their stage to rob it. Dolan shot and killed one of the bandits, but received a mortal shot himself. The momentary distraction allowed Bret to capture the other outlaw. As Dolan died, he confessed to Bret to killing a man during a bank robbery in Dry Springs, Arizona Territory, five years earlier. Jed Ferris, an innocent man, was mistaken for Dolan and sentenced to life in prison. Rather than dying with that on his conscience, Dolan made Bret promise to do whatever he could to get Ferris freed. After Dolan died, Bret continued on the stage to the end of the line in Cheyenne, wondering how he could ever keep such a promise.[5]