Deadwood Dick is a fictional character who appears in a series of stories, or dime novels, published between 1877 and 1897 by Edward Lytton Wheeler (1854/5-1885). The name became so widely known in its time that it was used to advantage by several men who actually resided in Deadwood, South Dakota. Those who took the nickname included: Others more briefly associated with the name were Richard Palmer, who died in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in 1906, and Robert Dickey, who died in a Denver hospital jail in 1912.