#42: The Haunted Hotel Alex Johnson
A presidential ghost busting South Dakota accommodation
Alex Carlton Johnson was not only an assistant manager of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, but also an admirer of both the ‘Indians’ and the work ethic of German immigrants in South Dakota. In 1928, his diverse interests came together in The Alex Johnson, a Tudor-style hotel with ‘Sioux Indian Nation’ interior accents.
Ten years after the hotel opened, its namesake died. Soon, the building was haunted. For the first three decades after his death, Johnson’s ghost roamed the lobby alone. But after a female guest fell from the window of room 812 in the 1970s, he was joined by ‘The Lady in White’. Their paranormal activities transformed Johnson’s luxurious accommodation into South Dakota’s Most Haunted Hotel. The popular SyFy Channel show ‘Ghost Hunters’ went on a hunt here, and guests can get a K-2 meter to check their room for ghosts before going to bed….
Hitchcock
Alex Johnson did not live to see his hotel grow into his showcase of the (Wild) West. Nor did he live to see the presidents who spent the night or the leading role his hotel played in Hitchcock's 1959 classic: North by Northwest. But, if we are to believe the Ghost Hunters, Johnson's ghost was in the front seat to see everything that happened in his 'showplace' as of his death in 1938. Texts in the bathroom, guests being bitten, a cold breath in the neck, knocking sounds and paranormal meters going off.
555-2368
Sleep is a relative concept here. ‘South Dakota’s most haunted hotel’ offers guests with an adventurous disposition ‘ghost packages’. Part of the package is an overnight stay in room 812, the room from which ‘The lady in White’ threw herself (?) to the ground on the night before her wedding. Armed with the K-2 meter and the Ghostbusters number (555-2368) under speed dial, you might not fall asleep while you anxiously await the arrival of Alex Johnson or the Lady in White…
