The story
The Old Idaho Penitentiary rises in quarried sandstone at the foot of the Boise foothills — the territorial prison of 1872 grown into a walled complex of cell houses, solitary 'Siberia', gallows and rose gardens that held over 13,000 prisoners across its century, including the famous and infamous from Harry Orchard to Lyda Southard, Idaho's 'Lady Bluebeard'; riots in the early 1970s hastened closure in 1973, and executions and deaths in custody belong to its record, told soberly with the dead respected. The Idaho State Historical Society preserves the site, interpreting prison life alongside collections including a renowned historic arms exhibit, and it embraces its reputation deliberately: paranormal investigations, 'Frightened Felons' Halloween programming and after-dark tours whose telling — gathered from staff and visitors — includes voices and cell doors in the cell houses, oppression in solitary, footsteps in 5 House, and figures in the yard, presented by the society itself as experience and atmosphere rather than fact. Present the Old Pen as corrections history first, its programming the model of institution-run haunted heritage. Hours and events from the society's pages.