I think you got me....

I can't say for sure one way or the other if that's a prototype photo or a model one. Most of the usual tells are missing, hidden - or not there because it isn't a model!

The only thing that looks even mildly suspicious is those three clumps of foliage alongside the embankment - they look like they might possibly be ground foam clumps. 

Well, that and I have my suspicions about being able to take that sharp a photo around 1900. 

Photo

This photo is on the Denver public Library, under Nevada gulch also Deadwood or South Dakota. it is an authentic photo circa 1900

One of a series of photos on the FE&MV (C&NW)

This is one of a number of photos that were taken along the FE&MV (later C&NW) narrow-gauge line above Deadwood. Each of the photos has the same locomotive and car, and in some of them you can recognize the same group of people. This is actually the left half of a larger photo that is on page 28 of Mildred Fielder's book, "Railroads of the Black Hills', long out of print. The location is on the FE&MV's Portland line. The spur just behind the train leads to a group of four mines. The track across the gulch is the FE&MV's line that split off earlier at Portland Junction and wandered through and across the gulches, through the town of Terry, and finally ended at Aztec.

The right half of the photo in Fielder's book shows the water tank in Nevada Gulch and the wooden trestle crossing over the Deadwood Central line at the bottom of the gulch. The concrete footings for the trestle can still be seen from the road that heads up Nevada Gulch to the Terry Peak ski area.

Most of this area has been cleaned up and reclaimed, although there is still a large open pit gold mine operating about where the map shows Green Mountain. The mine is expanding and it's hard to find the old right-of-way in that area.

By the way, the original photo also shows the cabin with the pig pen that jackanf54 accurately modeled.

I don't know...

If it's a prototype, then where's the poop!?!

Prototypes have bird poop on them! Because if they didn't, then what am I going to do with all of this bird poop I've been modeling!

On an unrelated note... is anyone interested in some HO scale bird poop?

Fantastic info!

That is some amazing information Tom! I love it!