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All the United States South Dakota Hermosa Spokane Ghost Town
Spokane Ghost Town is permanently closed.

This entry remains in the Atlas as a record of its history, but it is no longer accessible to visitors.

Spokane Ghost Town

Despite repeated attempts to make it work, this former mining town is now nothing but dust and memories.

Hermosa, South Dakota

Added By
Greg Janetka
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Spokane Ghost Town   Gregory T. Janetka
Spokane Ghost Town   Gregory T. Janetka
Spokane Ghost Town   Gregory T. Janetka
Stairs inside the watchman’s house   Gregory T Janetka / Atlas Obscura User
Inside the root cellar   Gregory T Janetka / Atlas Obscura User
Years of wallpaper in the watchman’s house   Gregory T Janetka / Atlas Obscura User
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About

The town of Spokane, South Dakota was born out of the fever of extracting lead, zinc, gold, and other metals from the Earth. However, it would go on to suffer the same fate as hundreds of other similar mining towns and is now abandoned.

Founded in 1890, the town was named for a silver mine in (the more famous) Spokane, Washington. The remnants of the town are situated in the Black Hills area of Custer County, 16 miles east of Custer. A functioning mine until the early 1940s, Spokane's profits fluctuated from year to year. According to surviving accounts, one of the best years for the town was 1927 when it shipped $114,742 worth of metals in today's dollars. The money allowed for a schoolhouse to be built and attracted plenty of miners to keep the place running.

With the stores of metal (and thus profits) drying up, the mine was closed in 1940. Several companies tried to turn a profit from it during the 1950s, including one that used it as an illegal dump site, but none of them had much luck. It is unclear when, but the mine's buildings burned down, while others which were deemed unsafe were destroyed by the U.S. Forest Service. A watchman stayed in the town until the mid-1980s, when it was officially abandoned.

Little has survived to this day, but explorers can still find the watchman's house, intact enough to walk through the first floor of, and the schoolhouse, which it is on its last legs. In addition to those buildings, there are some rusting cars, a root cellar complete with empty wooden shelves, and some foundations.

 

Related Tags

Ghost Towns Mines Ruins Abandoned

Know Before You Go

There are no signs for Spokane. It sits to the east of US-16, between North and South Playhouse Rd.

Community Contributors

Added By

Gregory T Janetka

Edited By

GlennL, EricGrundhauser

  • GlennL
  • EricGrundhauser

Published

May 23, 2014

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Sources
  • http://www.inlander.com/spokane/rip-spokane/Content?oid=2189166
  • http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/sd/spokane.html
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokane,_South_Dakota
Spokane Ghost Town
Spokane Ghost Town
Hermosa, South Dakota, 57744
United States
43.818708, -103.220183
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