Historic Hotels & Inns in South Dakota

Ways in

Themes in South Dakota

Deadwood and the Black Hills gold rush

Deadwood was established in 1876 by the gold rush, on land that, the National Archives says, the 1868 treaty had recognized as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. Wild Bill Hickok was shot by Jack McCall on August 2, 1876, in Nuttall & Mann’s No. 10 Saloon. A fire in September 1879 burned 300 buildings, and the town rebuilt in brick and stone within six months. Our five Deadwood stays come from the years after: the Adams Block, now The Landmark Hotel & Casino, from 1894–95; the Historic Iron Horse Inn’s stone building from 1896; the 1899 Inn, which the inn dates to 1898–99 and City records to about 1903; the Historic Franklin Hotel, opened June 4, 1903; and The Branch House, the 1912 Armour & Co. cold-storage warehouse. Deadwood was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961, and limited-stakes gaming opened there on November 1, 1989. Nearby in Lead, home of the Homestake Mine, Town Hall Inn is the 1912 city hall that became Homestake’s general offices.

Coolidge’s summer at the State Game Lodge

Custer State Park was established in 1919. The first Game Lodge was built in 1921 and burned within three months, and Phelps Wyman of Minneapolis designed the present lodge, built in 1922. President Calvin Coolidge, his family and about eighty staff, servants and reporters stayed in the summer of 1927, from June 15 to September 9, and he kept offices at Rapid City High School, 32 miles north. The lodge is listed on the National Register as the Custer State Game Lodge, with the common name Coolidge’s Summer White House, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited in 1953. Book ‘Historic Rooms’, the six second-floor rooms in the 1922 lodge, not the 1963 wing rooms, Creekside Lodge or the cabins. Summer 2027 was on sale when we checked on October 30, 2026.

Mineral baths, ranches and prairie towns east of the Hills

In Midland, the Stroppel Hotel began in 1905 as the Bastion Road House, moved into town in 1907 and began offering mineral baths in 1940; it was listed on the National Register in 2025. The hotel lists five en suite rooms and six that share, and winter hours vary, so call ahead. Near Philip, Triangle Ranch is the Sears ‘Alhambra’ catalog house that H.H. and Grace Williams hired Carl Werner to build in 1923, on the ranch he homesteaded in 1904. Book Esther’s, Mathilda’s, Grace’s or Louisa’s Room in the main house. In De Smet, Prairie House Manor is the 1900 Thomas H. Ruth House, two houses from the Ingalls Home. Colonel Ruth founded the Kingsbury County Bank with his brother and served as mayor; only the Japanese Garden Room allows dogs.

Road trip

Sioux Falls to Deadwood, east to west

Sioux Falls

Start at Hotel On Phillips, built in 1917–18 as the Sioux Falls National Bank Building, where the vault door is now the entrance to the Treasury lounge. For a house instead of a tower, the Historic Victorian Inn is a Queen Anne the inn dates to 1888, with self check-in and no breakfast.

De Smet

Stay at Prairie House Manor, the 1900 Thomas H. Ruth House, two houses from the Ingalls Home. Only the Japanese Garden Room allows dogs.

Midland

Stop at the Stroppel Hotel for the mineral baths, 14 miles off I-90 at exit 170. One plunge per stay is included. Winter hours vary, so call ahead.

Custer State Park or Rapid City

In summer, book ‘Historic Rooms’ at the State Game Lodge; the main lodges close from about the end of October to the end of April, and a park entrance license is required. Outside the lodge season, stay at Hotel Alex Johnson in downtown Rapid City, opened July 1, 1928.

Deadwood

End with a night or two in Deadwood. Pick Main Street, a block off it or the Ingleside hillside from our Deadwood guide.

Context

History and architecture

South Dakota became the 40th state on November 2, 1889. The National Archives says the treaty signed in 1868 recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, for exclusive use by the Sioux; the 1874 expedition found gold, miners followed, the government confiscated the land in 1877, and ownership is still in legal dispute. The stays we list start after that. The earliest date is the Historic Victorian Inn in Sioux Falls, a Queen Anne house the inn dates to 1888. In Deadwood, the Adams Block dates from 1894–95 and the Historic Iron Horse Inn’s stone building from 1896. The Thomas H. Ruth House in De Smet followed in 1900, the Historic Franklin Hotel in 1903 and the Stroppel Hotel’s road house in 1905. The Branch House and Lead’s city hall are from 1912, and the Sullivanesque Sioux Falls National Bank Building from 1917–18. The State Game Lodge dates from 1922, Triangle Ranch’s Sears house from 1923, and Hotel Alex Johnson in Rapid City and The Alonzo Ward Hotel in Aberdeen from 1928. The newest is the Covered Wagon Resort at Piedmont, a roadside tourist court begun in 1945.