6/9/2007:
For seventy-two years she stood, majestically dominating the shoreline on Stump Lake. When it opened in 1882, the Wamduska House reflected the hope of prosperity in Dakota Territory at the time. As guests watched from a full length porch, steamboats tied up at the dock and patrons bathed in the medicinal waters of the lake. Ladies in their evening dresses and gentleman in tails ascended the spiral staircase that led up three floors to the thirty-three rooms or graced the twenty-five by forty foot dinning room.
But prosperity was short lived when the railroad survey chose a route ten miles north of the resort a few year later, and another blow came as the lake began to shrink in the late 1880's limiting steamboat access. The Wamduska House remained a site for dances or local programs but on this date in 1954 it was announced that the grand structure was being razed, its illustrious history dimmed by time.
By Jim Davis
Devils Lake World June 9, 1954