Viewers of “Deadwood,” the popular HBO series set in the American West of 1876, are likely to associate the South Dakota town with violence, corruption, and extreme profanity. On a recent trip through the real Deadwood, however, I heard not a single bad word.

Nestled in the Black Hills of South Dakota, about an hour’s drive from Mount Rushmore, Deadwood has attracted fortune-seekers since 1876, not long after troops under the command of George Armstrong Custer discovered gold was plentiful in the area.

Now, almost 130 years later, the town is still attracting fortune-seekers. Even before HBO brought this Old West town to the small screen, Deadwood was a destination for history buffs visiting the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, as well as for people looking to make a quick buck in one of the town’s 86 gambling establishments (calling them all casinos would bestow a level of grandeur not really befitting a souvenir shop with two slot machines tucked in the back).

According to the town’s chamber of commerce, more than 1 million people arrive in Deadwood every year looking to play a hand of blackjack, buy a T-shirt, and take a picture of the building built on the site of the saloon where Hickok was shot and killed. (Hickok, perhaps the town’s most famous resident and a regular character on the HBO show, actually only lived in the town for three weeks.)

Something to keep in mind when heading to Deadwood is that while the town is a National Historic Landmark, visitors expecting to see things exactly the way they were when Hickok, Calamity Jane, and others walked the streets will be disappointed – a fire in 1879 destroyed many of the original buildings.

Still, Deadwood’s done a good job of recreating some aspects of the old town’s feel; just try to ignore the neon lights.

Any trip to Deadwood should start at Old Style Saloon No. 10. A theater, gaming hall, and restaurant, it has so much memorabilia from the Old West that it calls itself the only museum in the world with a bar (657 Main St., 605-578-3346, www.saloon10.com).

It was built in 1928 to replicate Nuttall & Mann’s No. 10 Saloon where, on August 2, 1876, Hickok was killed during a poker game (his hand – aces and eights – is still known as the “dead man’s hand”). Hickok’s murder is re-enacted four times a day at the site. The establishment has the only original photograph of Jack McCall, who gunned down Hickok.

The town’s second most famous resident was Calamity Jane, who lived in Deadwood for more than three years. During that time she managed a boardinghouse, became a dance hall celebrity, worked as a prostitute, developed a reputation as an extraordinary drinker, and even worked as a nurse during the smallpox outbreak of 1879. She also became very close to Hickok; when she died, nearly 20 years after he did, she was buried next to him, in accordance with her wishes. Today, their adjacent gravestones in Mount Moriah Cemetery overlooking the town are frequently covered with stones left by well-wishers.

One of the few businesses with real ties to the Deadwood of old is Goldberg’s Casino (670 Main St., 605-578-1515). Originally Big Horn Grocery, it was a tent set up by pioneer Jonah Goldberg in 1876. It operated until the 1980s as a grocery store, but when parking was banned on Main Street in 1989, it was converted into a gaming hall.

Goldberg is also one of the key figures in Deadwood’s rich but little-known Jewish history. While only a couple hundred of the town’s 5,000 residents in the 1870s were Jewish, they owned nearly one-third of the businesses. Many of them were Eastern European immigrants who had moved west to find fortune and acceptance.

Another important early Jewish figure in Deadwood history was Sol Star, a Jewish immigrant who was Deadwood’s second mayor (he served three terms), its first postmaster, and the organizer of its fire department. Together with Seth Bullock, the town’s first sheriff, he opened Star and Bullock’s Hardware Store, which is now the Historic Bullock Hotel (633 Main St., 605-578-1745, www.heartofdeadwood.com). A renovation 16 years ago changed the hotel’s 63 rooms with shared bathrooms in the halls to 28 rooms, each with its own private bath.

The Historic Franklin Hotel (700 Main St., 605-578-2241, www.historicfranklinhotel.com) also has a Jewish heritage. Built in 1903 by a coalition led by Harris Franklin, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, this hotel with a wide veranda and rocking chairs has hosted John Wayne, Babe Ruth, and Theodore Roosevelt.

When it opened, the hotel had all of what was then considered modern convenience including bathrooms in every room and telephones in most rooms. The Otis elevator installed in 1911 is still there, as are the original fireplaces in the lobby and original claw-foot bathtubs in the rooms. The hotel is now home to one of the town’s better restaurants, 1903, which features piano music at dinner.

Franklin, whose son Nathan would become the second Jewish mayor of Deadwood, commissioned noted architect Simeon Eisendrath (whose New York buildings include what is now the Stephen Wise Synagogue on West 68th Street) to build his family home. Eisendrath designed a Victorian mansion now known as Adams House. The house, built in 1892, is currently a museum open to the public (22 Van Buren St., 605-578-3724, www.adamsmuseumandhouse.org; guided tours: $5 adults, $2 children). The Adams House is managed by the nearby Adams Museum (54 Sherman St., 605-578-1714, www.adamsmuseumandhouse.org), which is dedicated to the history of the area.

Next to the Historic Franklin Hotel is the public library, which has a collection of almost every issue of every newspaper published in Deadwood as well as an extensive – nearly 3,000 volumes – library of books on frontier history.

Even before HBO started airing “Deadwood,” the town had a Hollywood connection that attracted tourists. It started in the 1980s, when Kevin Costner was in the area filing “Silverado.” Borrowing the name of the bar in that movie, Mr. Costner opened a casino and restaurant called the Midnight Star. It now boasts perhaps the greatest collection of Costner memorabilia outside of Mr. Costner’s (677 Main St., 605-578-1555, www.themidnightstar.com).

Among the treasures to be found are the outfits Mr. Costner wore in “Waterworld,” “Robin Hood,” and “The Untouchables,” as well as a Chicago White Sox uniform from “Field of Dreams.” If you choose to eat in the casino’s bar, Diamond Lil’s, your choices include the Upside of Anger Duck Tenders, the Dances with Wolves Buffalo Burger, the Waterworld Halibut Burger, and JFK’s Lemon Pepper Chicken.

The Midnight Star is also home to Jake’s, whose wine list received the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence every year from 2000 to 2004. Appetizers run $9 to $14 and entrees are $20 to $29.

Perhaps not wanting to be known locally solely for opening a casino where he can store costumes from his movies, in 2003 Mr. Costner opened Tatanka: Story of the Bison just north of the town. Tatanka consists of a larger-than-life sculpture of 14 bison being pursued by three Native American riders and an educational center that traces how the animal went from a population of 30 million to less than 1,000 (Highway 85, one mile north of Deadwood, 605-584-5678, www.storyofthebison.com).

If the Midnight Star doesn’t sate your appetite for celebrity memorabilia, you can also stop by the Celebrity Hotel (629 Main St., 888-399-1886, www.celebritycasinos.com) where you can see a tunic worn by Charlton Heston in “Ben Hur,” the motorcycle used by Evel Knievel to jump over 14 Greyhound buses in Ohio in 1975, and a motorcycle once owned by Peter Fonda.