No staredown with Seth at the Bullock Hotel
Written: Jun 14 '08 (Updated Sep 18 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Haunted, ghost tours, clean, friendly staff, relaxed atmosphere, centrally located for sightseeing
Cons: Lousy ironing boards
The Bottom Line: This boutique hotel is ideally located to see the historic sites in Deadwood or do a little bit of gambling and has loads of ghost stories.
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| adriennefoster's Full Review: Bullock Hotel - Historic Deadwood, South Dakota |
Ever since I saw the Unsolved Mysteries segment on the Bullock Hotel when it first aired on NBC in 1992, I wanted to visit the place. When I gave up on going to Worldcon last year, I decided to make South Dakota my big out-of-state trip. It took 15 years, but I finally made it to Deadwood. What a different atmosphere from what I was used to in California. I found my stay at this boutique hotel to be an easy-paced, pleasant stay, ideally located to see the sites in this historic town, do a little bit of gambling, and hear several true ghost stories. This time, I even witnessed a little something myself.
Seth Bullock was one of Deadwood's pioneer settlers. After working as a politician and lawman in Montana, he first arrived in 1876 (the year of Deadwood's founding) with his business partner, Sol Star, and opened a hardware store at what would become the intersection of Main and Wall Streets. Their first night in town, they started their business by auctioning off their stock of chamberpots. Seth went on to become the mining camp's first sheriff while Star would eventually serve a long tenure as mayor. Seth's reputation as sheriff was intense. It was said his penetrating stare would do more to make people behave than any strong arming or guns. When a fire swept through Main Street in 1894, it practically decimated its business district. Seth took full possession of the property. Instead of reestablishing the hardware business, he erected a brick structure and opened a hotel, which boasted having fully plumbed bathrooms on all three floors—quite a luxury in 1895. Seth and his wife, Martha, spent a lot of time at the hotel. He died of cancer in September 1919 at the age of 70. Some accounts say he died at his ranch near Belle Fourche, a town he has been given full credit for founding, while others say he was in room 211 of his hotel. Whichever the case, the hotel remained in business. The economy of Deadwood went into a tailspin when the Prohibition Act took effect. It revived for a while when the act was repealed, but gambling was specifically outlawed in 1947. The town began to deteriorate along with the Bullock until another bill passed in 1989 permitting small stakes gambling. This gave the locale the income to revitalize. The Bullock Hotel was thoroughly refurbished in the early 90s, reducing its number of rooms from 63 to 28, but giving modern guests ensuite bathrooms and other amenities they've grown to expect.
The Unsolved Mysteries segment described a few of the paranormal occurrences at the Bullock. One employee went to the office in the basement and swears he saw the shadow of a man pass him. When he turned to see who it was, no one was there. Another staff member said when he passed the otherwise empty bar in the same area, all of the chairs at the bar were neatly tucked under it. He heard a noise when he entered the office, then went back out to find every chair had been sloppily pulled out. Even more extraordinary, an open letter from a medium—coincidentally named Sandy Bullock—in the United Kingdom arrived from out of the blue in Deadwood during 1991. Sandy introduced himself and explained his psychic abilities. He went on to add that he has been communication with someone called Seth Bullock and wondered if anyone knew of him. Apparently, his spirit was tenacious and persistently demanded Sandy's attention whenever Seth could find his way into Sandy's trances. Seth wanted to warn the town that because of the gambling, a new crime wave would be coming in 1993 and it would overwhelm Deadwood, but it could be avoided if more law enforcement officers were hired. Unable to find much information on Seth or Deadwood, Sandy finally found an address and sent his letter. With a story like this, I was intrigued. I wanted to see this Bullock Hotel.
My Bullock Hotel experience
Wanting to ensure I booked the haunted room, I called the Bullock Hotel directly to see what they had available the three nights in July my parents and I wanted to stay. I wanted the most haunted room for myself. Unfortunately, room 313 was already taken. There was some hemming and hawing over which one was best, but I finally settled on one for myself while trying to book an inactive room for my parents. (I needed a separate room. My mother is one of those people who has to sleep in front of a blaring television. I like my room dark and quiet when I go to sleep.) Once I settled on two acceptable rooms, I guaranteed our reservation with a credit card number. My room rate was $132 per night. We were ready to go.
On leaving Keystone, we stopped off at Wall Drug for an early dinner and then drove through the Badlands, before we headed back west for my ultimate goal, Deadwood and the Bullock Hotel. On the way there I was pulled over for speeding. Drat. It is so easy to press the accelerator on these rentals without even realizing it. Since California is not a "compact state," the state trooper even made us stop at a Wells Fargo branch in Rapid City for some cash to pay the ticket on the spot. Gentle hint to other motorists: ignoring your speedometer can be costly. Otherwise, the drive through the Black Hills was beautiful and different from the mountains I'm used to looking at in California. Despite our trials and tribulations, our Rav 4 soon rolled onto Main Street in Deadwood, a pretty little town with several attractive historic buildings. We quickly saw the three-story Bullock Hotel, but no immediate parking. As we slowly drove down the street, we noticed a parking structure off to our right, but that was too far to unload our luggage. I hung a left at Pine and then again at Hwy 14A, where we saw a parking lot to right that said it was for the Bullock Hotel. We also spotted a rear entrance. I parked there to unload our bags and register. The parking lot across the street was gratis to overnight guests.
As it happened, most guests first enter the Bullock at the rear entrance. The traffic on Main Street is just too tight to unload a car there. The lobby was lavish by Old West standards, mostly by its length. In the old days, rooms tended to be very small, compared to what we're used to today. Today's visitors could walk directly to the front of the building with plenty of clearance. Very few Old West hotels had any kind of carpeting, but this one had it wall-to-wall with a large, green and gold floral print. An antique upholstered sofa was positioned in the corner to the right. It was surrounded by two small end tables and a modified tree stump for coffee. The flowers and plants by the back door would definitely be considered frivolous 130 years ago. An exhibit table and upright piano also lined the wall nearby. The floor, on the other hand, was dominated by rows of electronic slot machines. At the corner of what appeared to be an alcove, was the cashier's window.
The alcove turned out to be a short corridor and to the inside we found the front desk. Going out the other end one can find the lounge part of the lobby, which also had a few banks of slot machines. It also had a counter selling souvenirs of the hotel and Deadwood. In one corner was a display case of collector's dolls. (That's definitely not something that would be found in that town in 1876.) There was also a sign offering a guided ghost tour of the hotel in the afternoons for $3.
When we checked in, our reservations were quickly found and the clerk was quite friendly. We were handed real keys for our rooms. The elevator was right by registration. I hadn't thought about that, but I lucked out. This being a historic hotel, guests can't take it for granted there will be an elevator. My parents wouldn't have been able to handle the stairs to the third floor.
Room 311 turned out to be quite spacious and lovely. It had two queen beds with a night table in between. It also had a desk with a vanity mirror and a chest of drawers. The room had two chairs, one upholstered and one wooden. For lighting, there was a floor lamp and three others bolted to the walls by the beds and desk. Another dome light could be found on the ceiling by the entrance. It was decorated primarily in brick and off-white colors with varnished wood trim. The bedspreads were quilted with a dark blue floral print. A television sat over the drawer chest. The management also graciously provided a couple bottles of water. A clock radio topped the nightstand.
When I checked in on my parents, room 306 was much smaller, with only one queen bed, and it was similarly decorated. The Bullock never hides the fact that the sleeping rooms lost their uniformity when the building was remodeled, so they are different shapes and sizes. Their room rate was $110.
As it turned out, room 311 was a smoking room, offering plenty of ashtrays and matchbooks. I ended up stacking them or using them for coasters. Other than that, the only other proof to this room's unbecoming activities was the faint scent of tobacco smoke in the bed linen. I had no problems living with it. I could never put up with a room like the one at the Ayres Inn in Orange, California, again. Once more, like the Hotel Alex Johnson, I was impressed that the Bullock offered the full range of its 70-something basic cable channels. I was rather disappointed in the Travel Channel, though. Even when I took the time differences into consideration, it did not show Most Haunted that Friday night. To top it off, Ghost Hunters was on hiatus that week.
The bathroom was very spacious as well. A couple of people could have comfortably moved around in it. Also like the Alex, it had one of those manufactured bathtub compartments and was lighted by a row of dressing room style bulbs. The décor was mostly off-white with linoleum that had the print of a grid with black spots where the lines intersected. A coffeemaker with the appropriate accoutrements could be found on the counter of the sink vanity. The toiletries supplied were little bottles of conditioning shampoo (Breck), lotion, and few small bars of soap. There was no hairdryer, but the front desk fulfilled my request for one. The biggest complaint about the bathroom was the fluctuating pressure and temperature of the water flow in the shower. I've had this problem in 4-star hotels as well, but it was too minor an issue to think much about.
The room was clean and cozy. A little sign by the door informed guests that housekeeping tidied the rooms between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., so if we wanted our rooms cleaned we needed to put out the sign to tell them so. This was fair enough warning, unlike the surprise we had the Alex. I found the Bullock's service to be quite efficient.
At one point I wanted to press a garment, so I requested an iron and board from the front desk. It was probably one of the most frustrating ironing experiences in my life. The board was a compact one, meant to be used on the tabletop. The cord on the iron was too short to reach the desk. I had enough sense of adventure in me to iron this one piece on the floor, but the short legs of the board kept collapsing and I never could figure out how to keep them propped up. The result had to be one of the most miserable ironing jobs I've done since I was a child.
When my parents and I returned from sightseeing Thursday evening, they retired early. I changed and went down to the lobby to try my luck on the slot machines. There were machines that took various small denominations. I played the 5¢ machines for a while and lost about $40–60, then switched over to a 1¢ slot, where I cashed out $5 ahead. Instead of the paper vouchers generated when I played in Las Vegas, these machines actually dispensed coin-like chips with the image of Wild Bill Hickok. I preferred to keep them rather than recover my cash. They made better souvenirs of my trip to the town than anything offered in its shops.
The dining options at the Bullock were limited. Seth's Basement has a nice bar and dining room, but is only used for special functions, usually private. Using some coupons we were given at checkin, we ate breakfast in the restaurant/bar on the premises, Bully's. The menu was limited, offering a choice of two different fried egg platters and a daily special. Only one staffer did all the serving and cooking. Not that she was exceptionally stressed. There were only 28 rooms in the hotel. The guests' demands were easy enough to accommodate. It was nice to start out with a full, hot breakfast in the morning and the server was friendly. It was nice to talk to someone for insights of the locale. We ate elsewhere in the evening, but Bully's appeared to be used more as a bar than restaurant later in the day. At 10 p.m. every night, the managers pulled out their DVDs and showed an episode of the HBO series, Deadwood. (This is definitely not a show for children, but I would think that would be well past their bedtime anyway.)
Even before the HBO series, Deadwood has been South Dakota's second biggest tourist attraction for decades because of its notoriety in Old West history, being the site where Wild Bill Hickok was murdered and buried. Between it and its neighboring town, Lead, there are several attractions to the area, including Mt. Moriah Cemetery, Adams House & Museum, Homestake Mine, and the Black Hills Mining Museum. The Bullock is ideally located to visit all of them; some are even within walking distance. Walking through the historic district is attraction in itself and offers plenty of casinos, restaurants, and watering holes. A branch of Wells Fargo Bank was also nearby, for anyone needing an ATM.
Sadly, after three nights, it was time to go home. We had no problems with our bills when we checked out and returned our keys. We had the time to take in one last attraction in Deadwood before we had to return to Rapid City for our flight.
The ghost stuff
Back in 1993, I was coordinating a panel on ghost folklore for a local convention. The management of one of the local establishments, the LeBaron Hotel (now the Wyndham San Jose), I invited to join us did not even bother to reply. Not even to say no. (Which would have been fair enough. I let it go when the Claremont Resort in Berkeley opted out.) This was my pet panel for the convention and I didn't want to let it go. When the Bullock Hotel segment was rebroadcast, I gave the hotel a call to ask how it affected their business. I was told they were initially concerned it would scare people away, but instead guests flocked to the Bullock in bigger numbers than they had before. They had even taken a reservation from someone in San Jose earlier that day. If the management now tops the experience by offering a guided ghost tour, then they obviously have no regrets over cooperating with the show.
I did witness something odd when I arrived. After checking in, I found my room and turned the key in the lock. The darn door would not open. After a similar experience at the Alex, I was beginning to wonder if the ghosts of South Dakota were conspiring to play this trick on me. I tried pushing it again for a couple of more minutes, then went downstairs for help. The desk clerk winced when I told her my problem, saying the ghosts did this sometimes. She followed me up the stairs and, of course, the door easily opened with her there. As soon as it did, we were immediately subjected to the grating noise of the alarm clock radio. I immediately crossed over and turned it off. I thanked the desk clerk for her attention and said I would be fine. I am hesitant to say the sticking door was anything paranormal because I had problems with it throughout the rest of my stay. I found shaking it helped loosened it, but there is no way the housekeeping staff would have left the room with the noise that radio was making. It was just too irritating to tolerate for more than a few seconds.
I took the tour Friday afternoon. It started in the basement and was very well turned out with about 30–40 people. The guide dressed in Old West fashion and took on the persona of the ghost of old Seth Bullock. It was annoying when he kept saying how William Hearst ran the Homestake Mine. The HBO series may not have been a slave to historical accuracy, but Creator David Milch did correctly identify George Hearst as the main man in that operation. His son, William Randolph Hearst, was more interested in his newspapers and schmoozing with Hollywood celebrities. However, it was rather awesome when the guide pointed out the original foundations that Seth and Sol Star built in 1876. Seth isn't the only ghost at the Bullock, there is also the spirit of a little girl wandering around the building. The image of Martha has also been seen. Who knows how many others there are? He went on to say that phenomena has been reported in every room at the hotel at one time or another. The guide led us around the hotel, telling us stories and pointing out exactly where some of them happened. Probably the most amusing was the one about the "Wyoming cowboy." Apparently this guest checked in loudly claiming that he didn't believe in ghosts. These vocal skeptics are usually the ones most likely to targeted for ghostly pranks. The Wyoming Cowboy was in room 302 when he answered door, cracking it open because he hadn't bothered to dress before he responded. When he saw no one was there, he opened it wider, only to feel himself being pushed out with the door shutting and locking behind him, while he was fully naked.
I took 57 digital photos in and around the hotel.* Four of them definitely had orbs, along with a possible fifth. Most paranormal researchers rarely take these shapes as serious proof since they could be explained as either dust, bugs, or lighting anomalies. During the tour, I took another of an antique chest of drawers with a built-in mirror in the corridor. The white blackflash of the camera was clear enough, along with the reflections off the visible streaking from being cleaned. However, one "reflection" was green. Thinking it odd, I zoomed in on it and there appeared to be the vague features of a face, possibly that of a woman. When I showed it to a photographer friend, he told me I needed to clean my lens. If that was the case, then it seems this spot would have repeated in more pictures. Don't know if it's true spirit photo, but just the hue of that light spot is strange.
Most hotels that take pride in their haunted heritages also keep binders with the paranormal accounts they collect and the Bullock is no exception. At one point during my stay, they gave me permission to take it to my room and browse through their collection of letters and pictures. The darn thing was thick, which was all the better for me, but some of the folks who sent their anecdotes along showed no critical thinking skills. The "light anomaly" in one photo was clearly the reflection off a mirror in one room. My attention was particularly caught by one from someone staying in the same room I did. A young guest complained about the fluctuating water pressure while taking a shower. Apparently, mom and dad did not explain to him how this could also be affected by someone flushing the toilet in the next room. The kid did add that he saw the doorknob turn while he was in the shower, but since he was traveling with other people, someone could have been playing a trick on him. The Benders were a couple who stayed in 2002. The husband left the bathroom door open while he showered. The wife saw the toilet flush without any human help.
The best story had to be the one of a man who was hired to help out when the building was being remodeled in 1990. While Scott Stoddard was alone on the second floor, he heard a sound like a chair scraping across the floor. At that stage, there was nothing but support beams and joists on the floor. Stoddard felt as though he was being watched. He turned around to find a pale man with aquiline nose and bushy mustache staring at him. His face and clothes were faded and translucent. He quickly met his co-worker downstairs and decided to take the day off. It appears Seth's penetrating stare survives as well as his spirit.
There was one loose end to tie up, though. The Unsolved Mysteries segment was filmed in 1992. Sandy Bullock had made a prediction for 1993 and regardless of the fact this series would provide updates on the criminal and lost love cases it covered when the shows reran, it was not in the habit of doing it for its ghost stories. I had to ask what the outcome of Sandy's prediction was. Regardless of whether anyone took Seth's warning seriously, more lawmen were hired and Deadwood never saw the big crime wave he had feared.
The bottom line
The Bullock Hotel has 28 rooms to let, two of them Jacuzzi suites. Smoking and non-smoking rooms are available. It has private parking across the street on Hwy 14A. It also has three gaming halls and full-service liquor bar. All rooms come with cable TV, a clock radio, and coffeemaker. Hairdryers and irons with boards are available on request. Checkin is 3 p.m. and checkout is 11 a.m.
Overall, I really enjoyed my visit at the Bullock Hotel. The people are friendly and relaxed. I love the character of historic hotels and the fact this one had been updated with ensuite bathrooms and temperature controls was a bonus. My father wasn't as pleased with this hotel as he was with the others we stayed at, but that was probably because his room was smaller and there was no major dining establishment on the premises. Had I known more about the paranormal activity at the time we checked in, I would have gladly swapped rooms with my folks. This definitely is not the type of hotel everyone would like, but for anyone looking for history or a bit of paranormal adventure, it is ideal. I recommend it.
*The noteworthy pictures can be found at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?memberId=160480&articleId=281474977395588&nav=MyGather.
Recommended:
Yes
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