Here is the Traditional Ballad Index entry for Dreary Black Hills.

Dreary Black Hills, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer arrives in the Black Hills to find "loafers and bummers" filling the streets of Cheyenne -- but there is no gold to be found. He misses his home, and warns others against going there; all they are doing is making the railroad speculators rich
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c.1885 (see the comment on the ADDITIONAL Wehman reference); 1909 (Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety)
KEYWORDS: gold hardtimes railroading
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1875 - Announcement that gold has been found in the Black Hills
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE,Ro,So)
REFERENCES (16 citations):
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, pp. 249-350, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text plus mention of 1 more)
Peters-FolkSongsOutOfWisconsin, pp. 116-117, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Ballard/Brown/Barry-NewGreenMountainSongster, pp. 108-109, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, pp. 264-265, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 176, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 438-440, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife/Fife-CowboyAndWesternSongs 24, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pound-AmericanBalladsAndSongs, 87, pp. 185-186, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text)
Welsch-NebraskaPioneerLore, pp. 9-10, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #161, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Larkin-SingingCowboy, pp. 95-97, "Dreary Black Hills" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, pp. 480-481 "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text plus a broadside print)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 59, "The Dreary Black Hills" (1 text)
cf. Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan, p. 478, "The Dreary Black Hills" (source notes only)
DT, DREARBLK*
ADDITIONAL: Wehman's [Universal Songster] Collection of 96 Songs No. 6 (New York, n.d., digitized by Internet Archive), p. 26, "The Black Hills" [see notes re source]
Roud #3604
RECORDINGS:
Bill Bender (The Happy Cowboy), "Dreary Black Hills" (Varsity 5150, n.d.; rec. 1939)
Harry Stephens, "The Dreary Black Hills" (AFS, 1940s; on LC28)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Captain Old Blue" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
Captain Old Blue (File: PrivCOBl)
NOTES [87 words]: Regarding Wehman's Collection Norm Cohen writes, "Songbook #6 was undated, but most likely 1884-5." Each page except the first is headed Wehman's Universal Songster. The first page is undated but states, "Published Quarterly -- January, April, July and October. Norm Cohen's Finding List ... has WE29, Universal Songster as "monthly serial ... [beginning] 1881 (Norm Cohen, A Finding List of American Secular Songsters Published Between 1860 and 1899 (Middle Tennessee State University,Murfreesboro,2002), p. 150). - BS
Last updated in version 3.8
File: San264

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DREARY BLACK HILLS (Digital Tradition lyrics) Kind friends, you must pity my horrible tale, An object of pity, l'm looking quite stale, I gave up my trade selling Wright's Patent Pills To go hunting gold in the dreary Black Hills. Don't go away, stay at home if you can, Stay away from that city, they call it Cheyenne, For big Wallipee or Comanche Bill They will lift up your hair on the dreary Black Hills The roundhouse at Cheyenne is filled every night With loafers and bummers of most every plight; On their backs is no clothes, in their pockets no bills, Each day they keep starting for the dreary Black Hills. I got to Cheyenne, no gold could I find, I thought of the lunch route l'd left far behind; Through rain, hail, and snow, froze plumb to the gills, They call me the orphan of the dreary Black Hills. Oh, I wish the man who started this sell Was a captive, and Crazy Horse had him in hell. There's no use in groaning or swearing like pitch, But the man who would stay here is a son of a bitch. Kind friend to conclude my advice I'll unfold Don't go to the Black Hills a hunter for gold Railroad speculators their pockets you'll fill By taking a trip to the dreary Black Hills Don't go away, stay at home if you can, Stay away from that city, they call it Cheyenne, For old Sitting Bull or Comanche Bill They will take off your scalp on the dreary Black Hills.

DREARY BLACK HILLS (corrections in bold from Lomax 1916) Kind friends, you must pity my horrible tale, I am an object of pity, I am looking quite stale, I gave up my trade selling Right's Patent Pills To go hunting gold in the dreary Black Hills.     Don't go away, stay at home if you can,     Stay away from that city, they call it Cheyenne,     For big Walipe or Comanche Bills     They will lift up your hair on the dreary Black Hills The round-house at Cheyenne is filled every night With loafers and bummers of most every plight; On their backs is no clothes, in their pockets no bills, Each day they keep starting for the dreary Black Hills. I got to Cheyenne, no gold could I find, I thought of the lunch route I'd left far behind; Through rain, hail, and snow, frozen plumb to the gills,— They call me the orphan of the dreary Black Hills. Oh, I wish the man who started this sell Was a captive, and Crazy Horse had him in hell. There's no use in groaning or swearing like pitch, But the man who would stay here is a son of a bitch. Kind friend to conclude, my advice I'll unfold Don't go to the Black Hills a-hunting for gold Railroad speculators their pockets you'll fill By taking a trip to the dreary Black Hills     Don't go away, stay at home if you can,     Stay away from that city, they call it Cheyenne,     For old Sitting Bull or Comanche Bills     They will take off your scalp on the dreary Black Hills.

From Lomax, Cowboy Songs
@mining @gold @home
filename[ DREARBLK
TUNE FILE: DREARBLK
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