Haunted South Dakota

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — October is a month of frights, spooky occurrences and spirited imaginings. Some places in the state are more known than others for these sorts of paranormal apparitions. Here, is haunted South Dakota.

A map of spooky sites is all well and good, but what’s a ghost without a story? For a more in-depth look, KELOLAND News spoke with Rose Speirs, communications director for Deadwood History, Inc. (DHI), which operates three museums in the Deadwood area, including the Historic Adams House, found on our list of haunted joints.

DHI is about to kickoff their yearly round of paranormal investigations at the Adams House (starting October 6, 2023), which will run over the course of three weekends until October 21.

For those just finding out, sorry. They’re booked out for this year.

“We go into the Historic Adams House with a paranormal team from Rapid City,” said Speirs. “They conduct an actual paranormal investigation with our guests.” Speirs added that these investigations are accompanied by DHI staff on each floor who give info on the history of the property.

Speirs also gave some insight into what has been found during these investigations at the Adams House.

“They have seen shadow figures in five of the rooms; three on the main floor and two on the seconds floor,” counted Speirs. “They have a lot of EVPs,” she added, explaining that these are audio recordings taken in the midst of the investigation with the goal of recording unnoticed voices.

“That has happened,” said Speirs, who recounted the story. “The team leader had asked me to walk out in the hall — we were in the master bedroom — he thought he heard something in the hallway, so he asked me to check.”

Speirs says she didn’t see any sort of apparition, for which she was thankful, but something did happen.

“At the same time he was running an EVP with his recorder,” Speirs said. “When he got back to the office — he played it back and there was an old lady’s voice on the recorder that said ‘where is Rose going?’.”

Speirs claims that nobody along for the investigation matched the voice, and no voice had been heard in the room at the time the recording was taken.

Others, said Speirs, have also seen an apparition, coming down the stairs of the house, of a woman in 1890’s garb.

Speirs said she’d place herself on more of the skeptical end of the spectrum when it comes to believing in paranormal encounters, but noted that she has an open mind. Despite being the marketer of the investigations however, she says she’s never actually seen anything.

“That’s because I don’t want to,” she said. “I really don’t want to. I think that would — that might change my whole opinion of a property that I have to market and sell to groups — I don’t tend to invite that into myself.”

While she hasn’t seen anything herself, Speirs does think the has felt something, recalling the feeling of something brushing past her calf in the dark during a past investigation. It could have been a ghost, she reasoned, though it also could have been a dog.

“I believe that energy does stick around, because if you touch something, that energy doesn’t really go away,” said Speirs. “I believe there are things that are unexplained.”

In addition to the public investigations, the DHI also offers psychic readings by psychic Dani Jo Butler to a handful of guests over the investigation weekends.

The Adams House is just one of many supposedly haunted places around South Dakota. We’ve put together a list of others below, linked to the pages from which we’ve found them.

Know of an experience not on this list? Email me at jnewton@keloland.com.