HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
A Rockerville saloon whose ghost is said to have followed the bar fixtures from a demolished Rapid City hotel
13490 Main Street, Rockerville, SD 57702
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Full-service restaurant and bar; standard menu pricing
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic restaurant building off Highway 16 in the former mining camp of Rockerville
Equipment
Photos OK
Black Hills Gold Rush · Rockerville Ghost Town · Harney Hotel Salvage
Rockerville grew up in the late 1870s as a placer-mining camp in the Black Hills, named for the rocker boxes miners used to work gold from the gravel of the surrounding gulches. At its height the camp supported a sizable population, but the easy placer gold played out and the town shrank over the following decades.
The community's slow decline accelerated in the mid-1960s, when U.S. Highway 16 was rerouted and the old Main Street through Rockerville was bypassed. Today the town is largely abandoned, and the Gaslight Restaurant & Saloon is among the last operating businesses on the old route.
The saloon's bar fixtures carry their own history. The bar, counter, and brass footrail were salvaged from the Harney Hotel, a historic Rapid City hotel that was demolished in 1976, and installed at the Gaslight. That provenance is the seed of the building's best-known ghost story, in which the spirit attached to the old hotel is said to have moved along with its bar.
The restaurant trades on both its mining-camp setting and its folklore, and it has been profiled by regional news outlets covering Rockerville and the Black Hills.
Sources
The Gaslight's ghost is a benign one, by every account. Patrons and staff describe a well-dressed, sometimes transparent figure who appears near the front door as if to welcome guests, and who is blamed for small pranks on the staff. The restaurant's general manager has described the presence as a friendly spirit rather than anything threatening.
The folklore ties the ghost to the building's bar, counter, and footrail, which were salvaged from the Harney Hotel in Rapid City before that hotel was demolished in 1976. The story holds that the spirit was attached to the old hotel and moved to Rockerville along with its bar fixtures, taking up residence at the Gaslight.
Unlike many haunted-bar legends, there is no documented violent event behind this one — the appeal is the idea of a hospitable presence carried into a new building on a piece of furniture. The account has been reported by regional news coverage of the saloon and appears in South Dakota tourism material about haunted Black Hills sites.
Notable Entities
A meal in the historic saloon, which sits in the largely abandoned gold-rush camp of Rockerville off Highway 16. Staff and patrons say the resident spirit greets people at the door and plays harmless pranks; the bar, counter, and footrail were salvaged from the demolished Harney Hotel in Rapid City.
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