South Dakota is located within the Mid-western part of the United States. Outside of agriculture and industry, you don’t hear too much about it in national news. However, don’t let that fool you, South Dakota is a popular place for tourists, and sight seeing, mostly during the summer and winter seasons. Much like almost anywhere else, it has also had it’s share of paranormal activity.
Let’s dive a little deeper into the some of the most haunted places in South Dakota.
- San Haven Sanatorium Dunseith, North Dakota
The San Haven Sanatorium was built the Turtle Mountains, not far from Dunseith, near the Canadian border. It opened in 1912 and treated tuberculosis patients and the developmentally disabled until the 1980s, at the time it closed due to lack of financial help. At one time, the building housed up to 900 patients, and conditions were scrappy, best case scenario. In 1987, the last patients which were at San Haven were moved to Grafton State School. It finally stopped its entryways in 1989. The property now belongs to Chippewa Indians, who bought it in the mid 1990s, and has relentlessly crumbled from neglect. More than 1,000 individuals passed on at the hospital while it was in operation, but there have been many more deaths as well. In October 2001, a 17-year-old met his untimely death while researching about the abandoned building. There are rumors around that San Haven is haunted, but they are vague. Apparitions have been listed for in the windows and the sound of a baby crying has been heard. Never-the-less, it is an extremely creepy place.
- Eastons Castle, Aberdeen
Eastons Castle is a yellow brick home that was built sometime around 1886 and 1889. It was initially a 30 room, three stories Queen Anne style mansion, meanwhile, in 1902 it was bought by Carroll Francis Easton who had an exterior clad in yellow bricks. After the demise of Easton and his wife, their child got to be a hermit and vacated the house. It disintegrated so rapidly and people were saying it was haunted before he met his death. Right from that time there have been reports of Mrs. Easton’s ghost, the spirit of the family home keeper and maybe the most important a ghost that pursuing people using a knife!
- Lucky Nugget Casino, Deadwood
Yet another of the building in Deadwood that surely deserves a spot on any list of the most haunted places in South Dakota would be the Lucky Nugget Casino. This spot is so much loved by paranormal agents and over the years there has been all possible evidence gathered here to say for sure that the building is haunted! Only a portion of the activities that has been listed at the Lucky Nugget Casino during those years the scent of perfume all of a sudden appearing and afterward disappearing into the air, ghost footsteps and shadow people.
- Rough Riders Hotel Medora, North Dakota
This hotel was built in 1884 and initially known as the Metropolitan, the Unpleasant Riders Hotel is situated in the heart of downtown Medora. It was renamed in 1903 to respect President Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, who served in the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt was the primary US President to visit Medora.
The hotel undergoes critical renovation in 2008 and is currently running at Nonprofit. For some hidden reason, over the last most recent three decades guests at the hotel have revealed encountering the ghost of a young boy on the upper floor. They would be awoken by sounds of a child playing in the hallway, but upon further research, they could find no child. Immaterial laughter and the sound of toilets flushing are reported as well. Till date, no historical occasions have been found to explain this other words presence.
- Old Minnehaha Courthouse Museum, Sioux Falls
Old Minnehaha Courthouse is now a museum which is said to be haunted by different types of spirits making it a specially left aside amongst the most haunted places in South Dakota. Staff and visitors alike have explained hearing somebody roll down the stairs, but when they go to look there is no one at the stairs. There are moreover free sounds and ghost footsteps moving from room to room. A few visitors claimed to have seen a man sweeping the floor of one of the courtrooms who then disappears once he is moved closer to!
- Sage Hill Bed and Breakfast Anamoose, North Dakota
Built in 1928 and known as White School, this structure originally housed one of the first solidified primary schools in rural North Dakota. The citadel of learning was advanced for now is the right time, hot showers, and meals are filled in as a “model school” in which progressive teaching ways could be practiced. With the height, the school served 100 students, yet it still closed in 1968. In 1996, a couple purchased the building and converted it into an overnight boardinghouse called Sage Hill. As building on the B&B began, workers reported hearing moans and perceiving of a cigar smell. As said by Rich Newman, author of The Ghost Hunter’s Field Guide, guest went on to experience strange movements, including lights getting turned and on it, disembodied voices, and ghost smell. It is believed that the ghost of a previous schoolmaster haunts the building; however he is not threatening presence.
- Orpheum Theater Sioux Falls, South Dakota
A ghost named “Larry” said to haunt this historic, 100year old theater in Sioux Falls. The Orpheum Theater was inherent Beaux-Arts style and opened in 1913. It was purchased in 1954 by the Sioux Falls Community Playhouse, and many strange things started to happen. Its new owners saw an old, ornate coffin in the boiler room. When they got back to tidy the room, the casket had disappeared. In 1959, an actor named Ray Loftesness saw the figure of a man bathed in blue-green light showing at him from the balcony. He felt this icy blast of air, and was later knocked unconscious by a dropping sandbag—not just once, but twice! A dim shadow in the state of a man has likewise showed up in a photo of the gallery. Throughout the years, this apparition came to be called “Larry,” and there is much hypothesis about who he may have been. Concurring to one unusual story, Larry was a actor who disappeared during dress rehearsal after a gunshot was heard in the light booth. His co workers found a pool of blood, meanwhile no body.
- Mount Rushmore Brewing Company, Hill City
Once upon a time, Mount Rushmore Brewing Company was a restaurant but the building is now a Harley Davidson store. It has served in the past filled in as funeral service home what’s more, a crematorium so it is positively no outsider to death. Employees say objects move around all alone and there are unexplained commotions, especially in the basement where the remaining parts of the creation furnace can still be seen!
