Cross stereoview depicting a bird’s eye view of Deadwood South Dakota in May 1901. A nice view of this famous town after its infamous history, but many well-known characters were still here at this time. Numerous buildings are seen nestled in the valley. The population was about 3500 at this time, down from the 25000 in its heyday. *William Richard Cross, photographer of the Nebraska-South Dakota frontier, was born in Bennington County, Vermont, in 1839. Cross and his wife moved to Creighton in 1871 where they spent seven years. In 1886, after some more traveling to photograph Native Americans in the Niobrara-Valentine area in north-central Nebraska, where Cross met his apprentice, John A. Anderson, he opened a studio at Fort Niobrara. In 1888, Cross and Anderson conspired at Fort Meade, proximal to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Anderson left to become a civilian photographer for the U.S. Army and became a well-known photographer while living on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Cross spent the remainder of the decade photographing in the Hot Springs, South Dakota area. He died in 1907 of pneumonia. Curved gray mount with Cross’s imprint on the front edges. Many of his view from this era are quite dark. This has good tone and visibility.