Through The Lens
The Padley Hotel, Geddes, S.D.
In much of our early exploring of abandoned places we traveled
mostly rural roads and sticking to the country side. When we did
that we started coming across small communities in South Dakota,
many that I had never heard of and I have lived in S.D. my whole
life. So, we started mapping out these little communities to revisit
them. We found that there were many that held hidden gems and a
great deal of lost history, in these once thriving towns. Some of these
communities were booming once upon a time because of the railroad,
but as passenger traffic was lost and major road arteries were built
by-passing many of these towns they started to decline in population
with some being on the verge of becoming ghost towns.
Geddes, S.D. is one of these locations. On main street sits a three
story, brick building, it’s magnitude in size is astonishing. I contacted
an old friend that I knew had grown up in Geddes to learn more
about this building. The Padley Hotel was built in 1907 as part of
the railroad expanding its’ territory, the thought that Geddes was
destined to become a regional city. The manager of the Padley Hotel
was quite the shady character, who had contacted women out of state
to be maids and cooks and once they arrived found they were to be
prostitutes for the traveling salesmen that were staying there. He was
eventually arrested and convicted and did time in federal prison. The
hotel later became a hospital when a Dr. Fyle purchased it in 1917.
He was very well respected and loved by the community. He went
missing in the winter of 1923 and was found a year later, still inside
his vehicle in a small river or creek near Yankton, S.D., apparently
having missed the curve of the road. The Geddes Hospital became
a hotel once again and when it closed in 1964 it was known as the
Castle Hotel.
When we entered through the front door the first thing you see
is French doors and arched entry way and windows, the lobby is
bare but off to the side through another doorway would’ve been the
grand dining room with its original metal tiled ceiling still trying
to hang on. A World Herald newspaper dated 1947 lay chewed up
on the floor. We make our way up the stairwell to the first floor. So
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