The Most Haunted Places in South Dakota

Ranked

1. 

   1. Hotel Alex Johnson Rapid City · Haunted Hotel / Inn · Family Comfort: High

   The Hotel Alex Johnson opened in 1928 as Alex Johnson's Art Deco showcase in Rapid City; he ran it until his death in 1938. Hotel lore holds that a bride jumped from an eighth floor window in room 812 during the 1970s after being jilted on her wedding night. Guests report her apparition on the eighth floor, windows and drawers opening unaided, a young girl's giggling, and piano music with no one at the keys.

   6 original accounts · documented across 6 decades, 1928-2024 · retold in 3 later publications

2. 

   2. Historic Bullock Hotel Deadwood · Haunted Hotel / Inn · Family Comfort: High

   Seth Bullock, appointed Deadwood's first sheriff after Wild Bill Hickok's 1876 killing, built the $40,000 Bullock Hotel in 1895 with partner Sol Star; he died at his home in 1919, not at the hotel. Guests and staff report a tall figure in period clothing, most often near room 211, along with phantom cigar smoke, floral scents, a male voice calling their names, and glasses and plates that shake in the restaurant.

   5 original accounts · documented across 8 decades, 1876-2015 · retold in 6 later publications

3. 

   3. Historic Fairmont Hotel Deadwood · Haunted Hotel / Inn · Family Comfort: Moderate

   The Fairmont opened in 1895 on Deadwood's Main Street and over the decades served as a brothel, a Turkish bath, and a Prohibition-era speakeasy. The site is tied to Deadwood's first documented killing, the 1876 shooting of Ed Shaughnessy by 'Banjo Dick' Brown, and to the later death of Margaret 'Maggie' Broadwater, who fell from an upper window; tour operators say those upper floors are no longer rented to guests.

   4 original accounts · documented across 4 decades, 1895-2018

4. 

   4. Historic Adams House Deadwood · Haunted House / Historic Home · Family Comfort: Moderate

   Built in 1892 for Harris and Anna Franklin, the Queen Anne mansion was bought in 1920 by Deadwood mayor William E. Adams. His wife Alice died of cancer in 1925, and their daughter Helen died the next day in childbirth; Adams died in 1934 after a stroke. Staff and visitors report the shadow of a tall thin man pacing an upstairs window, the scent of cigar smoke, and a rocking chair that moves unaided.

   4 original accounts · documented across 7 decades, 1895-2024 · retold in 3 later publications

5. 

   5. Saloon No. 10 (Wild Bill Hickok Death Site) Deadwood · True Crime Site · Family Comfort: Moderate

   HauntBound identified three distinct published accounts at this documented crime site, across three kinds of published source. Reported phenomena include a sensed presence and phantom sounds.

   3 original accounts · documented across 8 decades, 1876-2014

6. 

   6. Easton Castle Aberdeen · Haunted House / Historic Home · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified three distinct published accounts at this historic home. One later publication retells those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions and cold spots.

   3 original accounts · documented across 6 decades, 1888-1973 · retold in 1 later publication

7. 

   7. Fort Sisseton Historic State Park Lake City · Battlefield / Military Site · Family Comfort: Moderate

   Fort Sisseton began in 1864 as Fort Wadsworth and was renamed in 1876; from 1884 to 1888 Companies E and G of the 25th Infantry, a Black regiment known as the Buffalo Soldiers, carved their names into the guardhouse bricks. Visitors report a woman in white in the officers' quarters, said to be a servant who once burned bedbugs off the walls, and a young boy seen on the parade ground since the 1920s.

   2 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1870-1990

8. 

   8. Mead Museum Yankton · Museum / Historical Site · Family Comfort: Moderate

   The Dakota Hospital for the Insane opened in Yankton in 1879, and a fire in the laundry cottage on January 31, 1899 killed seventeen women patients. The fireproofed Mead Building, built in 1909, housed women patients until the 1980s and reopened as a museum in 2018; the grounds hold a cemetery of more than 1,000 burials marked with patient numbers. Investigators and visitors report cold spots and unexplained sounds in the old ward corridors.

   3 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1909-2024 · retold in 1 later publication

9. 

   9. Historic Homestake Opera House Lead · Theater / Performance Venue · Family Comfort: High

   HauntBound identified two distinct published accounts at this working theater, across three kinds of published source. Reported phenomena include apparitions and cold spots.

   2 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1914-1990

10. 

    10. Orpheum Theatre Sioux Falls · Theater / Performance Venue · Family Comfort: Moderate

    HauntBound identified one distinct published account at this working theater, across four kinds of published source. Three later publications retell those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions and electrical anomalies.

    1 original account · documented across 2 decades, 1959-1970 · retold in 3 later publications

Superlatives