The following letter was sent to Douglas Reid Cook regarding John R. Bueter Junior, the son of John R. Bueter and Margarett Kraft.
May 28, 2000 Sunday
Don Clowser
Box 164
Deadwood, South Dakota 57732
Sir:
In 1946 I came back to Deadwood and started a used furniture business. I was in the business in 1939-40, then the Army. The business turned to a war surplus. In 1969 I purchased many bunk beds & bunk bed mattresses and I needed storage. I rented space from John R. Bueter Junior. The building is on Deadwood's Main Street and was used as a hardware store (Ayers Hardware) and is vacant at this time because of a gambling probation by owner.
Mr. Bueter was approximately my current age. I am 85. John would come downstairs and sit in the sun. We became friends. He arrived in Deadwood in summer of 1876. His father was named Gus.
John was seventeen years old when Bill Hickock was shot. He arrived at Wild Bill’s tent and saw a former barber washing blood from Wild Bill's hair. He was not one to exaggerate or exploit. He and his wife lived above the store. He had watched Wild Bill shoot, trimming twigs from a tree just before he was shot. I sometimes have the urge to say I am the only living person who talked to a person who was there when Wild Bill was killed.
He sold me the gun his father had brought into the hill. The gun was illegal because of the Indian Treaty of 1868. This may have been part of the mystery surrounding your family's reticence. The rifle Gus Bueter carried in the hills is a Spencer carbine. It will be on display in the gun section of the museum which you did not see. The artifact section of the museum was my collection that I had stored when gambling came to Deadwood and am now in the process of expanding.
I am sorry I missed you and was not available by phone as I am in Arizona in the winter and am just establishing residence in my cabin. (no phone) but can call you back on your cell phone. 76A Tucson # 605-578-2872
P.S. My brother Gail who died last year in Oakland, California stayed in Deadwood in 1940. I left that year. He worked for Bud Deiosier, who had a car agency next to the Bueter building. He had visited Mr. Bueter and Mr. Bueter told him several stories about the Chinese as the store was in the Chinese section.
As far as I know he was never interviewed by the press but the 1952 death sounds right. I was in business in Rapid City at the time and bought back and ran old trading post in Deadwood in 1954 and was in that business till 1990 and leased the property to gambling. Hope we can visit about this.
Rapid City, South Dakota Daily Journal
Sunday, August 6, 1950
John Bueter and Mrs. Hans Miller, Deadwood pioneers, meet for the first time.
Deadwood 76ers Meet; Exchange Remembrances
By Lois Miller
DEADWOOD. — Excitement ran high and threatened to overflow in the household of Mr. and Mrs. John Bueter a couple of days ago. John had just been told of the meeting arranged between him and another "seventy-sixer."
John is creeping close to 89 and has been bedfast for a couple of months. But the meeting was sim-ple enough. It was a matter of going a few blocks and getting Mrs. Hans Miller, the other “seven-ty-sixer” of Deadwood and bring-ing her up to the Bueter home.
John gets up and sits in his chair to read every day and his mind is still keen, so also is his appreciation of life as he finds it now.
Mrs. Bueter hovered around us excitedly, too, just like the devot-ed companion and nurse she is. The Bueters have passed their golden wedding milestone some time ago.
“Now, John,” said Mrs. Bueter, “I’ll just put a shirt on you and you can just sit in the rocker out in the kitchen to meet Mrs. Miller." John can walk that far by means of his cane and holding to chairs.
"I want a necktie on, too." John said it in the way that implies the event was something like a very special affair to him. Mrs. Bueter put the necktie on as he sat there on the bed.
"Now I’ll just wrap this blanket around you after you get out to the rocker and you'll be all right," said Mrs. Bueter attentively. Bue-ter has sharp, keen eyes that seem to see through you and even be-yond. He gave his companion the full benefit of their depths.
"I want my pants on, too—not just that old blanket" he told her.
…
"Well, as long as you're able to smoke that big cigar you've got going you must be all right; you can't kick." Mrs. Hans Miller told him.
"My hearing isn't so good as it used to be." said John.
"My hearing is all right, but my eyes are not. I have to wear glass-es."
"Oh, I read most of the time without glasses. Only I can't get out and around any more like I used to," John reminded her.
"I get around. I even go to the old-time dances." said Mrs. Miller.
John's eyes twinkled as he sized her up a bit before he answered. "You know I bet you can dance yet, too. You look pretty spry."
"Oh, yes, and I do my own shopping and my own house-work. I'll bring my husband up one of these days to visit you." she smiled happily. There was a small slice of silence as though the two seventy-sixers just enjoyed looking each other over.
Mrs. Bueter's face just beamed with pride and joy. It may have been partly due to seeing her hus-band fully dressed just as he used to be, or it may have been pure reflection from her husband's face for anything that gives her husband pleasure is her main aim in life.
"Awful lot of accidents nowadays — folks killed and hurt with cars," said John, “It isn’t much like it used to be.”
"Oh my, no. Why when we had just horses and wagons no-body ever thought of such a thing as killing each other," said Mrs. Miller.
"Different now, though. You just don't dare lose your bearings for even a minute," John told her with a smile.
…
“…hotel is now there was just a high hill and lots of mud?" asked Mrs. Miller.
"Oh, yes—and the bull teams coming in. I can just see them yet. Can you remember them, too?" John wanted to know.
“Do I! Why, my mother—she was Mrs. Flohrman — used to invite the bull team drivers in for coffee in the cold winter days. That's where I first saw Calamity Jane. She was with them."
"It's funny we never met before and both of us came here the same year and right now live within a few blocks of each other," John said. Then the two checked on
where each had lived, and what had happened.
"You know, it's peculiar about us old folks. Now me, for instance —I can remember things that hap-pened way back, but something that happened just lately isn't near as vivid," John said.
From there the talk went to old-timers still living, although their number are few. John has not been able to be out of his home for several years and the only old-timers he sees are those able to call.
Spry little Mrs. Hans Miller, out and around every day, sees those old-timers and as fast as John mentioned a name she brought him right up to the minute about how the old-timer fared.
Then they talked of old-timers long ago gone, old-timers both had known and liked. They talked, too, in a mellow and non-complaining manner of their own limitations brought along with the years.
They talked of the stale of affairs over the world today, and both lamented many changes and deplored war with all its modern horrors. But both expressed also a keen ap-preciation for many improvements which they now enjoy.
Both expressed a hearty wish to meet again as they shook hands in parting. Mrs. Miller smiled hap-pily and John puffed away contentedly on his cigar.
His shrewd, yet kindly, old eyes held in their depths satisfaction and enjoyment experienced in meeting the other seventy-sixer who had arrived in Deadwood the
same year he had, for living seven-ty-sixers are almost extinct.
About 1952
OLDEST PIONEER — John Bueter, center, Deadwood's oldest pio-neer, visits with his nephew Floyd whom he had not seen for 48 years when the 6-year-old boy and his father Charley visited here. Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Bueter live in Salt Lake City. The elder Bueter came to Deadwood in 1876 with his father at the beginning of the gold rush. Left to right in the picture are Floyd Bueter, John Bue-ter, Mrs. John Bueter and Mrs. Floyd Bueter. (Photo courtesy of Lois Miller.)
About 4 July 1952
John Bueter Dies Thursday In Hospital
John Bueter, 90, one of the few persons who did not see Wild Bill Hickok die, although he was a resident of Deadwood in 1876, died early Thursday morning. He had been a patient in St. Joseph's Hos-pital for several months suffering from the debilities of old age.
Mr. Bueter was born Oct. 3, 1861, in St. Louis, MO. At the age of 15 he accompanied his father to Deadwood when the gold rush in this gulch almost depopulated Custer. The Bueters set up a small grocery store in a tent.
The 15-year-old youth heard the noise and confusion when Hickok was killed on Aug. 2, 1876, and he ran to the tent where Charley Utter and Hickok lived, to watch the men wash Bill's long matted hair. The men, noting the youth, ordered him out but he stayed around until the excitement was over.
Mr. Bueter and his father built the first fire-proof building In '76-'77 on Main street; part of it still stands. He was married 53 years ago to Hilda Axen, Deadwood, who survives. In addition there are surviving several nieces and ne-phews living in other places.
Mr. and Mrs. Bueter have lived in the same home all their mar-ried life, with the exception of a few years when they were in Hot Springs. He worked in his fa-ther's store for a number of years and was later employed by Franklin and Baer in Deadwood.
He had been retired for a num-ber of years.
Rosary services will be held Fri-day evening at the Wells funeral home. Funeral services are ten-tatively set for 10 a.m. Saturday at the Wells chapel.