WHERE WE'VE BEEN

The first issue of Deadwood Magazine rolled off the presses in March 1991, the brainchild of Rapid City entrepreneur Rena Webb. Under Rena's guidance, Deadwood Magazine grew into the most popular periodical in the northern Black Hills. History stories - including the legendary Girls of the Gulch department, which has been published in every issue since 1991 - became its editorial staples. However, Rena was quick to pursue current events and everyday features of interest. In September 1991, for instance, Deadwood Magazine featured a story on the ghost of Seth Bullock, a specter rumored to haunt modern visitors of the Bullock Hotel. One year later, the NBC program Unsolved Mysteries featured the same story in their television show.

Rena continued to print the bimonthly 24-page magazine until July 2005. Later that month the magazine was purchased from Rena's Ad Lib Productions by TDG Communications, an advertising, marketing and publishing firm. TDG was established in 1994 in Rapid City, but moved to Deadwood in 2001. There the company grew from two employees to its current staff of nine.

TDG Communications is primarily a marketing, advertising and public relations firm, although it has frequent forays into publishing. Aside from producing chamber of commerce directories and community guides for seven towns in South Dakota and Wyoming, the firm's staff regularly writes travel articles and books for major publishers, including Frommer's, Fodor's and Globe Pequot Press.

TDG's specialists have worked with Warner Bros. Records, Country Music Television, the Travel Channel, the Outdoor Life Network, Great American Country, Sky One and the News of the World, among others. To find out what TDG can do for you, click here.