Historic Adams House (Deadwood)

Deadwood began in 1876 as an illegal mining camp in the Black Hills, and within a few years it had enough money to build in stone and brick. In 1892 the pioneers Harris and Anna Franklin put up a Queen Anne mansion on Van Buren Street that the press of the day called the grandest house west of the Mississippi. Its dining room hosted dinners at which business leaders talked over the news of the town, and its parlor, with a fireplace, an upright piano and a Victrola, was where the family received guests.

The house was later the home of W.E. Adams, a prominent civic leader and his family. Today Deadwood History, Inc. operates it as the Historic Adams House, a carefully restored museum where guided tours trace the way the Franklin and Adams families lived as Deadwood changed from a rough mining camp into a more settled community.

The oldest ghost story attached to the house is a remark rather than a sighting. According to local telling, after W.E. Adams died, his wife Mary moved to California, saying she could not live in the house because it was haunted. Skeptics have suggested that she may have said so to keep vagrants and curiosity seekers away from an empty mansion. Whatever the truth, the line gave the building its reputation, and by the 21st century it was regularly named among Deadwood’s most haunted places.

More specific reports come from Deadwood History staff and from visiting paranormal teams. KELOLAND television has reported that a team from Rapid City found shadow figures in five rooms of the house – three on the main floor and two upstairs – and recorded electronic voice phenomena, including a woman’s voice that seemed to ask “where is Rose going?” while the organization’s communications director, Rose Speirs, was out in the hall. Speirs herself says she has never seen anything, though she once felt something brush against her calf in the dark and allows that it might have been a dog as easily as a ghost. Others have described a woman in 1890s dress coming down the stairs. The reports are anecdotal, and the museum treats them as part of the house’s story rather than as established fact.

Shadow figures, electronic voice recordings, the sound of an older woman’s voice, a woman in 1890s clothing on the staircase, and a touch on the leg reported by a staff member.

Five rooms of the house – three on the main floor and two on the second floor – and the main staircase.

The house is one of the stops on Deadwood ghost tours and featured in local television Halloween segments. Deadwood’s Old West reputation, from the HBO series Deadwood to Wild Bill Hickok’s grave, makes its ghost stories part of the town’s tourism.