Often a dangerous and desolate trail for travelers in the 1870s through the 1880s. The coaches were routinely besieged by horse thieves, stage coach robbers, Sioux warriors protecting their own land, along with a a host of other problems and invaders.

Along the rough and tumble trail, travelers were tossed about the coach, wheels often broke on the rocks, and blizzards swept across the prairie. The spirits of Persimmons Bill Chambers and “Big Nose” George Parrott, outlaws, Stuttering Brown, a hired agent for the stagecoach company, along with those of the robbers, and Sioux warriors, might still be felt along stretches of the trail. There are possibly echoes of famous passengers such as Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hickok. Hat Creek Station, along with Robbers Roost were busy stops along the trail.

Imagine riding from the hard benches and the breathing the choking prairie dust as one bumped along on the rutted and rocky trails. The stage left Cheyenne every Monday and Thursday, with returning stages leaving Deadwood on Tuesdays and Saturdays. It was a little less than 200 miles one way. Top speed of travel was about eight miles per hour.

The route was blazed by freighters, seduced by the lure of gold in the Black Hills. Most of the land the trail covered was owned by the Sioux Indians. Eager to partake of the latest gold rush, this fact was largely ignored by the miners, settlers, and government, thus inviting trouble for trespassing.

Some of the trails heaviest use occurred during the United States military’s last campaign against the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians at the Battle of the Little Big Horn when Sioux warriors under Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull destroyed most of George A. Custer’s command.

In the early 1900s, the stage itself, gained much notoriety traveling with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. The Stagecoach Museum in Lusk exhibits an original coach used in the show.

The Road is marked by monuments and informative signs at intersections with public roads. Most of the actual trail is on private land, but much of the route is paralleled by improved county and state roads, near Cheyenne, Chugwater, Lusk, and Newcastle. US Highway 85, also known as the the CanAm Highway, links Canada with Texas, using the Old Deadwood-Cheyenne Stage Line in several locations.