Deadwood's 1892 Queen Anne Mansion
22 Van Buren St, Deadwood, SD 57732
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Standard daytime mansion-tour admission. Evening paranormal investigations available seasonally for a separate fee.
Access
Limited Access
Multi-floor Queen Anne house with original stairs
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1892 · National Register of Historic Places · Black Hills Mining-Era Architecture · Eisendrath Queen Anne Design
Harris and Anna Franklin commissioned Chicago architect Simeon D. Eisendrath to design a Queen Anne residence on Van Buren Street overlooking the booming Black Hills mining town of Deadwood. Completed in 1892, the home featured radiant heat, running water, electric service, and a private telephone line — state-of-the-art domestic technology for the era. Contemporary Deadwood newspapers described the residence as the grandest house west of the Mississippi.
Harris Franklin died in 1923; Anna had predeceased him. Their son Nathan ran the family commercial holdings and was elected Deadwood mayor in 1914, defeating incumbent William E. Adams. In 1920 Adams — the merchant and former mayor he had unseated — purchased the Franklin home together with his wife Alice; they bought it during his return term as mayor (1920–1924). In June 1925, while Alice was in California for the birth of their first grandchild, she died of cancer; their daughter Helen, distraught at the loss, died the following day in early labor, along with the infant. These losses came five years after the purchase. Adams remarried in 1927 to Mary Mastrovich; he suffered a stroke at a bank board meeting on June 7, 1934, and died nine days later. Mary lived in the home until her own death, preserving the contents intact.
In 1992 the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission acquired the property and restored it as a house museum. More than 80 percent of the furnishings are original to the Adams family — preserved largely because Mary Adams retained the contents intact after W.E.'s death. The house is operated by Deadwood History, Inc., and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources
Adams House staff have collected paranormal accounts continuously since the museum opened in the mid-1990s. The most-cited phenomena cluster around the figure of W.E. Adams himself. A museum director recorded an incident in which lights came back on in the closed building after she had switched them off and confirmed with staff that no one remained inside. On a separate evening she described seeing the shadow of a tall thin man pacing in an upstairs window from the parking lot below. The cigar-smoke detail — Adams was a documented cigar smoker — appears in multiple staff accounts.
Mary Adams's rocking chair is the second focus of reports. Staff and visitors have observed the chair rocking on its own when the room was otherwise still, sometimes during tours when guides have called attention to it. The reports have continued long enough that the rocking-chair phenomenon is incorporated into the museum's standard tour narrative.
The family's history of cumulative loss — three children to childhood illness, the first Mrs. Adams, the Adams's only surviving daughter Helen, and the brief childhood of Helen's own child — gives the house a documented emotional weight. The Black Hills Paranormal Investigations group has published several investigation reports on Adams House activity, and US Ghost Adventures includes the house on its Deadwood ghost tour. Deadwood History, Inc., supports paranormal programming as a complement to the documentary tour, treating the reports as authentic visitor experience without endorsing supernatural interpretation.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
A docent-led tour of the 1892 Queen Anne mansion built for the Harris Franklin family and later home of mayor William E. Adams. More than 80 percent of the furnishings are original to the Adams family, including Mary Adams's rocking chair, frequently associated with reported activity.
Deadwood History, Inc. periodically offers small-group after-hours investigations of the mansion in partnership with local paranormal researchers. Programming is announced on the Deadwood History site.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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