There will be no Pamplona-like running of the buffaloes in Deadwood, officials in the South Dakota town have decided.
The city where gunslingers once faced off and Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down rejected the idea after liability insurance issues came up, Mary Jo Nelson, Deadwood’s finance officer, told Reuters on Wednesday.
She said local businessmen had supported the idea of turning American bison loose on the one street running through the gulch into which the Black Hills town is squeezed.
People would have been allowed to take their chances with the big, lumbering animals in the same way that men and bulls race through the streets of Pamplona, Spain.
Since 1910, 15 people have died in the event made famous by Ernest Hemingway’s 1920s novel “The Sun also Rises.” The majority were gored.
“They were mostly worried about liability insurance,” Nelson said of the city commissioners who voted 4-1 against the proposal on Tuesday. She said Deadwood’s own insurer had declined to provide coverage.
The run would have taken place in July and promoters wanted to continue it for at least the next 10 years if it was a hit. Deadwood was founded in 1876 during the Black Hills gold rush and still resembles a set for a cowboy movie.
