Sol Star
Though most well known stories of the early years of Deadwood are of gunfighters, saloon keepers, sporting girls, gamblers and rogues their’s are not the only stories. Wherever there was a confluence of people 
and money on the Western frontier, there was opportunity, and Deadwood, that beacon of opportunity, attracted tradesmen and shopkeepers, retailers and service providers of every kind. These men and their families arrived at the same time as the more colorful characters, but their influence was much more lasting. Those who stayed planted roots, and grew a community complete with businesses and banks, schools and churches, civic and social organizations and clubs. The endurance of modern Deadwood is their legacy.
The founders of Deadwood were people of distinction and drive and a large percentage of them were Jewish. 41% of members of the Society of Black Hills Pioneers (those who could trace their Black Hills roots to 1876) were foreign born. Among the most influential and successful of these early pioneers was Sol Star.
Sol Star was born in Bavaria, Germany on December 20, 1840 and emigrated to the United States about ten years later, settling in Ohio. At an early age he traveled to Montana, engaging in business in Helena. There he began a hardware business with Seth Bullock, and together they followed the gold rush to Deadwood in August of 1876. They established the Office of Star and Bullock, Auctioneers and Commission Merchants at the corner of Main and Wall Streets, selling pans, Dutch ovens, picks, axes, dynamite, much-welcomed chamber pots, and anything else the miners or local population desired. Watson Parker says of them in Deadwood the Golden Years, they were "…effective and adroit businessmen, politicians and guiders of the economic destiny of the Black Hills." In 1878 they sold the first farm machinery in the area. Plows, reapers and rakes were sold as fast as they could be unloaded from the wagons, an indication that interests in the area were diversifying from the pursuit of gold.
In partnership with his friend Seth Bullock, Star expanded his business interests to the outlying towns of Spearfish, Sturgis and Custer, as well as a livestock business in Belle Fourche. He and Bullock partnered with Harris Franklin in the Deadwood Flouring Mill Company in 1880, and he served as its general manager.
Star had distinguished himself in public service in Montana, serving as territorial auditor and personal secretary to the Governor. He continued that service in Deadwood, serving fourteen years as mayor, and hosting William Jennings Bryan when he made a presidential campaign stop here in 1899. He was one of the first town councilmen elected in 1876 when the vote was taken to incorporate as a town, and served as postmaster in 1879. He served twenty years as Clerk of Courts when Lawrence County was established, holding that office until his death on October 10, 1917.
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