{"id":231,"slug":"old-minnehaha-courthouse-museum-sioux-falls-south-dakota","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["When Minnehaha County's first courthouse rose on Main Avenue in 1889–93, local architect Wallace L. Dow claimed it would be the largest courthouse between Chicago and Denver. It was built of native Sioux quartzite in heavy Richardsonian Romanesque — a squared block of reddish stone, arched windows, and a four-faced clock tower — with sixteen murals of early Dakota life painted inside by the Norwegian artist Ole Running. County business occupied it until 1962, when the courts outgrew the rooms and the old building was slated for a parking lot.","A citizen campaign saved it; the courthouse was listed on the National Register in 1973 and reopened in 1974 as the Old Courthouse Museum, still free to enter, with the restored circuit courtroom as its centerpiece."]},{"heading":"The sweeper who isn't there","paragraphs":["The reports filed against the museum are small and domestic. Visitors and staff describe an elderly custodian seen sweeping a courtroom floor who is gone on a second look; exhibits and small objects found rearranged when staff open the building; voices from the balcony; and the sound of someone tumbling down the stairs — which sends people running to help and finds nobody. Local media have ranked it among South Dakota's most haunted buildings.","The archive notes the fit rather than asserting the cause: a building deliberately filled with the county's dead effects keeps a staff-shaped ghost — a janitor still doing his rounds. Everything beyond the reports stays unverified, and the file says so."]}],"name":"Old Minnehaha Courthouse Museum","aliases":["Old Courthouse Museum"],"type":"MUSEUM","type_label":"Museum","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Museum associated with documented cultural history.","full_desc":"A museum in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Old Minnehaha Courthouse Museum is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Museum associated with documented cultural history. The archive files it under haunting reports. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":"200 W 6th St","city":"Sioux Falls","county":null,"state":"South Dakota","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":43.540696,"lon":-96.731962,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery pass. Earliest attestation, primary history, precise location and current access require independent enrichment.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":43.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":178,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Accounts describe a disappearing sweeper and moved exhibits. A site full of other people's belongings gives the reports an unusually well-documented inventory to haunt. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. The account appears in 'The Haunted Indoors of Eastern South Dakota'. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.7,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"The Haunted Indoors of Eastern South Dakota","url":"https://www.travelsouthdakota.com/trip-ideas/haunted-indoors-eastern-south-dakota","publisher":"Travel South Dakota","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Accounts describe a disappearing sweeper and moved exhibits. The site's claim set is modest — appropriate for a building whose exhibits already do the unsettling work. It circulates as local folklore — the kind communities keep rather than verify. The report is preserved in sources like 'The Haunted Indoors of Eastern South Dakota'. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"The Haunted Indoors of Eastern South Dakota","url":"https://www.travelsouthdakota.com/trip-ideas/haunted-indoors-eastern-south-dakota","publisher":"Travel South Dakota","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"The Haunted Indoors of Eastern South Dakota","url":"https://www.travelsouthdakota.com/trip-ideas/haunted-indoors-eastern-south-dakota","publisher":"Travel South Dakota","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}