The Cataract hotel, built 1901. (Photo courtesy Argus Leader)
“Brave and brilliant was the long expected opening,” The Sioux Falls Press wrote of the opulent reception attended by hundreds at the opening of South Dakota’s finest hotel, the Cataract.
Rising from the ruins, the rebuilt hotel opened its doors after fire destroyed the iconic Sioux Falls building one year earlier, according to the Oct. 1, 1901, edition of The Sioux Falls Press.
Harry Corson was determined to build a hotel in the new city of Sioux Falls in 1870, but the unbroken sod of the prairie had yet to be platted into lots. He waited a year for the town to be laid out, and when that occurred in August 1871, he began construction of the first hotel in Minnehaha County.
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