Sorry I’ve been awol this week everyone but I’ve been on vacay! Still am, actually. Nobody guessed correctly my destination but I’m ready to reveal it now. We’ve been on a Wild West road trip through 3 states: South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana.
Our first stop was Deadwood South Dakota and we stayed at the #1 most haunted location in the entire state, the Bullock Hotel, according to this top 10 list here. We flew into the Rapid City South Dakota airport, and Deadwood was a comfortable 45min drive from there.
And Deadwood was great as far as preserving the history and the stories of the Wild West days. They have several tours and if you want to cover everything you easily can, it’s all jam-packed into about 3 blocks. I heard that they do a daily reenactment too but we missed it unfortunately.
Here are some photos of the small town of Deadwood South Dakota, you may recognize the names of some of it’s most famous residents, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane…
Deadwood South Dakota
We also stayed the night at the famous Bullock Hotel which is said to be the most haunted location in South Dakota. Apparently, Deadwood had so much lawlessness during those Wild West days that murders and tragic endings were the norm, so there is more than enough material to fuel all the ghost stories.
My only “weird” experience at the Bullock Hotel was that I was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of my hotel keys jingling. They didn’t use card keys, but the older metal keys on a metal keychain instead. And that’s exactly what I heard jingling. It freaked me out, but I didn’t pick up my head to look bc I didn’t want to see anything. So I kept my head buried in the pillow until it stopped. And then it stopped. And that was it.
Lol, too bad I don’t have a better haunting story for you all! But here are photos I took of the hotel and room 320 we spent the night in….
There are actually a couple of ghost tours in Deadwood to choose from. We ended-up chosing to do the ghost tour for the hotel across the street instead, the Fairmont Hotel, because it was featured on an episode on one of my favorite shows “The Dead Files” and I wanted to see it in person. They said it was also on an episode of “Ghost Labs” too but I haven’t seen that one.
It doesn’t look like people can stay overnight at the Fairmont Hotel anymore; it seemed to be a casino and restaurant/bar only now. But they do host the ghost tours on the 2nd and 3rd floors where the guest rooms should be.
I’ll say, the ghost tour would be very valuable even for those of you that aren’t interested in ghosts at all, because 75% of the tour was historical information and characters and context for how the Wild West days used to be. So I learned alot and not much about ghosts actually.
But it was still creepy for those of you that like ghosts too. The only weird thing that happened to me during the ghost tour through the supposedly haunted rooms of the Fairmont Hotel, was that I kept hearing my daughter say something to me, but I could never catch what she was saying, so I would turn and ask her “What did you say?” and she’d look at me strange and answer “I didn’t say anything.” But I swear she said something to me, so I’m quite stumped as to what happened there.
So here are some pics from the ghost tour…
Anyhow, that sums up how my visit to Deadwood South Dakota went. And I enjoyed it very much. I hope you all enjoyed reading about it.
If you’re into the haunted experiences, I’ve also visited a haunted castle in Ireland and you can check it out here.
Until next time…
The keys jingling is very interesting! This sounds like a fun trip. But what about the mannequin on the bed? Now that’s creepy! 😁
Lol I don’t know about the mannequin on the bed! They didn’t mention it during the tour. And when I got home, I re-watched that episode of “The Dead Files” that featured this hotel from 7 years ago, and the mannequin was there too! The show didn’t mention it either. Hmmmm…
Oh mother Mary you are freakin’ brave! I am terrified of ghosts or anything freaky! My sister loves this stuff! Were you in the room by yourself when you heard the keys jingling??! I also wonder if it was the staff that comes around every night at 3AM to keep up the charade of the “haunted hotel!” LOL But I’m like you, if something freaks me out, I just keep my eyes closed and don’t acknowledge it until I can escape safely or will myself to sleep! LOL oh my Lord what was with the mannequin on the bed!!??!
No way I wasn’t alone! I’d be too scared to do that. I was with my dad, my niece, and my daughter in a single room. They didn’t hear a thing.
Oh my. It all looks amazing. Being from the UK, the ol’ Wild West is a different world to me. Fabulous pictures, really enjoyed reading your post. And one to add to the travel bucket list for sure!
The Wild West was definitely a unique time/place for sure! It’ll be cool if you get to visit someday and I’d love to hear what you thought about it after! 🙂