Our visit to this ancient facility was mostly for the purpose of ghost-hunting.

We arrived on July 22nd, my birthday, to a very sunny and warm Idaho afternoon. At first, the place just looks and feels like another tourist attraction. Then, once you enter the actual buildings, everything changes. For me, the feeling of claustrophobia was incredibly intense. I'm 6' 3", and everything looked like it was built for men much smaller. Some stairways are very narrow which I assume was to accomodate prisoners walking one-at-a-time. Plus, the cyclone fencing that encloses the stairs to the tier levels makes you feel like you're in a kennel.

The cells are beyond description.

The single cells are very tight and narrow adding to a feeling of extreme claustrophobia. Worse yet are the old territorial cells from the 1890's that have meshed doors. Add some suffocating summer heat and panic could easily set in. The cells that house four inmates are bigger, but I suppose once four people are in there, the space shrinks radically. Some of these cells are decaying, so imagine living in a musty basement, or the dankest, darkest back room of a junk store. Surprisingly, I felt no feelings of dread here, nor did I get the creeps, but rather felt a sad attraction. Later on however, as I approached the solitary cells known as "Siberia", a dreadful feeling was overwhelming. Again, the feeling of claustrophobia was intense.

Ghostly happenings have been reported, but we encountered only one inexplicable thing: the footsteps. It was in the hallway toward the last cell in the photo to the left that I heard the footsteps. My first reaction to the event was to separate everything I heard and explain it away. It must've been other visitors nearby. I immediately checked around the corner and looked through the windows toward the yards. There was nobody. It was then that I called to Terry. She heard them from the corridor. The steps belonged to a man. Men are heavy footed and steady in their stride. Also, the footsteps sounded absolutely of hard-soled shoes, and there was an echo to the steps which was also odd. Nobody wears hard-soled shoes on vacation anymore. Every tourist that I saw was wearing sandals or tennis shoes.

For one thing, you'll barely hear a pair Nikes going by. For another the footsteps stopped, then started again briefly. Again, they were at the last cell on the block. I believe I was in the 5 House, but I'm not completely sure. It was not frightening at all, but rather exciting, and again, I did feel a strange connection here that is difficult to put into words.

The death row cells look no different than the others except for they have only one bunk which gives it the very lonely feeling that each of the "row" cells project. Plus, death row is isolated, away from the main blocks. The Gallows was actually a "death room", about the size of a large master bedroom, with a trap door in the center, and a heavy eyelet hook in the ceiling for the rope. Near the trap door is a lever that trips the door open. The "Drop Room" shows how the gallows mechanism works, plus the cement floor where the body falls. Complete with floor drain and hose, this-for most tourists-could be the most unwelcome room in the entire facility.

The shower room is adjoined with the laundry room. It's a very small area with a series of hanging shower heads and a grated wall that separates the showers from the laundry room. Everything about this area is very old time industrial, with big monster washers and dryers, plus other types of strange looking machines including "Mangle Tables", giant roller-feeding machines that squeeze water out of laundered material.

This was perhaps the grittiest part of the facility. The cells are like concrete holes. When the door is shut it's pitch black inside, and the heat must have been suffocating. How people survived in here is beyond me. This must have been by far the worst punishment in the place. In the photo to the right, you can see a view from the inside of a cell. Note the heavy door with an opening at the bottom for ventilation. Riot ringleaders were segregated into these cells in order that the staff might bring order to the place, but eventually the rioting caused this place to fail, shipping the remaining population out of state to different prisons. Solitary consists of just the concrete flooring and walls.

The Women's Ward

is a small building near the main administration house. During it's time, there appeared to be only 4 or 5 cells. Note toward the upper left, is a photo of a grated door. If you click to enlarge the photo, you'll see it's a women's cell, very confining. I photographed the interior of these cells by putting the camera through the grate. Obviously the women's population of criminals in Idaho at the time must not have been that large. The building did house "Lady Bluebeard" though, a woman convicted of murdering three husbands by boiling flypaper in order to extract the arsenic to poision them with. Another woman was convicted for deliberately spreading communicable diseases. The cells are all singles and extremely confined. Note the photo at left.

"Marked Men: Prison Tattoos"

This was an exhibit within the prison which was probably one of the more interesting pieces of the place. It's described in the text that the sign of a great tattoo, (and tatooer) is the one that is done for free from the heart. Many of the intricate tatoos took weeks to design, and were followed to the letter. Click the images below to enlarge.