Haunted Hotels in South Dakota: 5 Historic Places to Stay, From Room 812 to Deadwood
Gold rush Deadwood, the gateway to Mount Rushmore and a prairie school for the blind: South Dakota’s haunted hotels pack a lot of Western history into a small map.
Most of South Dakota’s haunted hotels are in the Black Hills. Hotel Alex Johnson in Rapid City is the state’s most famous, with a Ghost Adventure Package and Room 812. Fifty minutes away in Deadwood, the Historic Bullock Hotel runs its own ghost tours and the Franklin carries the names of famous guests on its doors. Add the Alpine Inn in Hill City and, at the other end of the state, the Herrick Hotel in a former school for the blind. Each hotel has been checked against its own website, historic records and recent press. The Fairmont in Deadwood no longer rents rooms, so it is listed separately.
$$ · $150 to $300Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 523 Sixth St, Rapid City, SD 57701
Where to look Room 812 and the eighth floor
Reported ghosts The Lady in White, Alex Johnson, a little girl who knocks on doors
Booking the haunted room The Ghost Adventure Package includes a reported haunted room, a K2 meter, a $25 dining credit and Vertex Sky Bar access; book by phone on 605-342-1210.
Railroad executive Alex Carlton Johnson opened this Tudor-style tower in downtown Rapid City in 1928, mixing German timbering with Lakota designs. Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint stayed here while filming North by Northwest, which name-checks the hotel as the Sheraton-Johnson. It is now part of Hilton’s Curio Collection.
This is South Dakota’s best-known haunted hotel, and it says so. Room 812 belongs to the Lady in White, a young woman who died in a fall from an eighth-floor window in the 1970s. Guests also report a little girl knocking on doors and Alex Johnson himself. You can book the Ghost Adventure Package with a stay in a reported haunted room and a K2 meter.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book the Ghost Adventure Package by phone if you want Room 812, then add your story to the ghost book at the front desk.
$$ · $150 to $300Ghost tours or eventsHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 633 Main St, Deadwood, SD 57732
Where to look Second and third floor hallways, Room 211, Bully's restaurant and Seth's Cellar
Reported ghosts Sheriff Seth Bullock, a cowboy silhouette, a giggling little girl
Booking the haunted room There is no haunted room package; ask for a second or third floor room or Room 211 when you book.
Seth Bullock, Deadwood’s first sheriff, and his partner Sol Star built this Italianate stone hotel on the site of their hardware store after the fire of 1894, and it opened in 1896 with 63 rooms. After years as a hardware store again it was restored in the early 1990s and now has 28 rooms above a casino and Bully’s restaurant.
Staff say Bullock still runs the place: a tall figure in the restaurant and basement, a male voice calling guests’ names, and trouble for any employee caught standing idle or whistling. The hotel runs its own ghost tours, has appeared on Unsolved Mysteries and Ghost Adventures, and is one of the easiest haunted stays in the Black Hills.
Haunted Rooms tip: Take the hotel’s own ghost tour (Friday to Sunday at 5 p.m.) before you check in, then ask for a second or third floor room.
Where to look The second floor and the dining room
Reported ghosts A woman in an old-fashioned gown and a tall tin miner
The Alpine Inn began as the Harney Peak Hotel, built in the 1880s on Main Street in Hill City for the executives of an English-backed tin mining company, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Today it is best known for its European-style restaurant, with four historic rooms upstairs.
Owner Monika Matoush told KOTA she once woke to a very tall figure at the end of her bed that looked like a tin miner in bib overalls. Two people have seen a woman in an old gown in the dining room, and guests on the second floor report lights going out, footsteps and voices. Locals even credit a protective spirit with sparing the inn in a bad hailstorm.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book dinner as well as a room; the restaurant fills up fast in summer.
Where to look The upstairs hallways and the historic rooms named for famous guests
Reported ghosts Harris Franklin, the investor behind the hotel, and a man in period clothing
The Franklin opened on Main Street on June 4, 1903, with 80 rooms, named for Harris Franklin, its chief backer. It spent years as apartments, came back as a hotel after gaming was legalized in 1989, and is now owned by the neighboring Silverado. The doors of its historic rooms carry the names of famous guests: Theodore Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, John Wayne, Will Rogers and Buffalo Bill among them.
Deadwood guides say Harris Franklin, the investor the hotel is named for, still watches over the place. Guests report footsteps following them down empty hallways, and a story goes that a housekeeper quit on the spot after seeing a man in old-fashioned clothes watching her clean.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask for one of the historic rooms named for a famous guest rather than a standard room.
Where to look The upper floor and the old tunnels between buildings
Reported ghosts Children from the days of the School for the Blind
South Dakota’s School for the Blind opened in Gary in 1900 and moved to Aberdeen in 1961, after which the brick campus sat mostly empty for decades. In 2009 it was reborn as Buffalo Ridge Resort, with guest rooms in the Herrick Hotel, a spa, a restaurant and the tunnels students once used between buildings.
Guests report the laughter of a child from the school days and footsteps on the upper floor when nobody is up there, and the Herrick, once the boys’ dormitory, is said to hold the ghosts of young boys. A staff member says she hears children running in the tunnels. The stories are gentle, and the setting on Lake Elsie on the Minnesota line makes it an unusual small-town stay.
Haunted Rooms tip: Ask staff whether the old tunnels are open for a look during your stay.
Deadwood’s 1895 brothel and gambling hall no longer rents rooms. Its upper floors are open on nightly ghost tours, and the Bullock and Franklin a few doors away take overnight guests. Read the full guide.
Removed from this guide: the Daneville Inn in Viborg, which we could only find operating as a restaurant, not as a place to stay.
Stayed in one of these hotels? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from guests and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your stay. We read every story before it’s published.
Hotel Alex Johnson in Rapid City, known for the Lady in White of Room 812. In Deadwood, the Historic Bullock Hotel is just as famous for the ghost of Sheriff Seth Bullock.
Can you book a haunted room in South Dakota?
Yes. Hotel Alex Johnson sells a Ghost Adventure Package by phone that includes a reported haunted room and a K2 meter.
Can you stay at the Fairmont Hotel in Deadwood?
No. The Fairmont no longer rents rooms, but it runs ghost tours nightly at 8:30 p.m.
Does the Bullock Hotel do ghost tours?
Yes, Friday to Sunday at 5 p.m. for about 90 minutes, $20, no reservation needed.
Are there ghost hunts in South Dakota?
Haunted Rooms has run public ghost hunts in Deadwood, including at the Historic Adams House and a former Deadwood brothel. See the South Dakota ghost hunts page for new dates.
Sources and how we research
Every hotel in this guide is checked against the hotel’s own website, historic register listings and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as the hotels, guests and local historians tell them; we note where a story can’t be confirmed. Read how we rate haunted hotels.
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About the authors
The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every hotel in our guides using hotel histories, local archives, news coverage and the accounts of guests and staff, and we review each guide regularly so you are not booking a hotel that has closed or changed its name. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
Booking links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects which hotels we include or how we score them.
