The Old Idaho Penitentiary State Historic Site was a functional

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

from 1872 to 1973 in the

western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, east of

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown are ...

. The first building, also known as the Territorial Prison, was constructed in the

Territory of Idaho The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 3, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as Idaho. History 1860s The territory w ...

in 1870; the territory was seven years old when the prison was built, a full two decades before statehood. From its beginnings as a single cell house, the

penitentiary A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...

grew to a complex of several distinctive buildings surrounded by a

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

wall. The stone was

quarried A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

from the nearby ridges by the resident

convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...

s, who also assisted in later constructions. Less than southeast of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Boise, the Old Idaho Penitentiary is operated by the

Idaho State Historical Society The Idaho State Historical Society (ISHS) is a historical society located in the U.S. state of Idaho that preserves and promotes the state's cultural heritage. The society was founded as the Historical Society of Idaho Pioneers in 1881, nine years ...

; the

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of the site is approximately above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

Prison history

Over its 101 years of operation, the penitentiary received more than 13,000 inmates, with a maximum population of a little over 600. Two hundred and sixteen of the inmates were women. Two famous inmates were

Harry Orchard Albert Edward Horsley (March 18, 1866 – April 13, 1954), best known by the pseudonym Harry Orchard, was a miner convicted of the 1905 political assassination of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. The case was one of the most sensational an ...

and

Lyda Southard Lyda Southard (October 16, 1892 – February 5, 1958), also known as Lyda Anna Mae Trueblood, was an American female suspected serial killer. It was suspected that she had killed her four husbands, a brother-in-law, and her daughter by using arsen ...

. Orchard assassinated former Governor

Frank Steunenberg Frank Steunenberg (August 8, 1861December 30, 1905) was the fourth governor of the State of Idaho, serving from 1897 until 1901. He was assassinated in 1905 by one-time union member Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple C ...

in 1905 and Southard was known as Idaho's

Lady Bluebeard Belle Gunness, born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset (November 11, 1859 – possibly April 28, 1908), nicknamed "Hell's Belle", was a Norwegian-American serial killer who was active in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908. Gunness is thought ...

for killing several of her husbands to collect upon their life insurance. Serious

riots A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targeted ...

occurred in 1952 1971 and 1973 over living conditions in the prison. The 416 resident inmates were moved to the new

Idaho State Correctional Institution Idaho State Correctional Institution (ISCI), also referred to as "The Yard," is an Idaho Department of Correction state prison for men in unincorporated area, unincorporated Ada County, Idaho, near Kuna, Idaho, Kuna. Located in the desert five mi ...

south of Boise and the Old Idaho Penitentiary was closed on December 3, 1973. Five years earlier in 1968, numerous prison trusties had escaped by walking away. In 1992, the Idaho State Historical Society recorded oral history interviews with fifteen former prison guards. These tapes and transcripts cover prison operations and remembrances from the 1950s to the closing of the prison. The collection is open for research at the society.

Prison buildings

The Territorial Prison was completed in 1872 and received its first 11 inmates from the Boise County Jail. This building was converted into a chapel in the 1930s and was destroyed by fire in the 1973 riot. The New Cell House (1889–1890) consisted of three tiers of 42 steel cells. The third tier closest to the Rose Garden served as "Death Row." The area now known as the Rose Garden (as this is what it is now) was once used to execute prisoners by hanging. Of the 10 executions in the Old State Penitentiary, six occurred here. The Administration Building (1893–1894) housed the warden's office, armory, visitation room, control room, and turnkey area. The False Front Building (1894–1895) held the commissary, trusty dorm, barber shop (1902–the 1960s), and hospital (originally the blacksmith shop, but was remodeled in 1912 and remained the prison hospital until the 1960s). The hospital was then converted into the social services office but burned down in the 1971 riot. The Dining Hall (1898) was designed by George Hamilton (an inmate at the time) and burned down in the 1973 riot. Cell House 2 (1899), also known as the North Wing, contained two-man cells. A honey bucket was placed in each cell to serve as a toilet. Inmates burned the building in the 1973 riot. Cell House 3 (1899) was built the same as Cell House 2. It was eventually condemned for habitation, but in 1921 was converted into a shoe factory. In 1928, this building was remodeled for inmate occupancy and became the first cell house with indoor plumbing. Old Idaho Penitentiary

The Women's Ward dormitory (1920) was built out of necessity. Prior to its completion, the women moved into the warden's old house in 1905. Previously women did not have separate quarters and several scandals forced their relocation. Male inmates built a wall around the old warden's home in 1906 to serve as a separate facility for women. This building had seven two-person cells, a central day room, kitchen, and bathroom facilities. This building held the infamous

. Built by inmates, the Multipurpose Building (1923) served as a shirt factory, shoe shop, bakery, license plate shop, laundry, hobby room, loafing room, and housed the communal showers. Solitary confinement consisted of two sections. The first, built in the early 1920s, was the Cooler. Although built for solitary confinement, each cell contained 4–6 men. The second section, known as Siberia, was built in 1926 and housed twelve cells, with one inmate per cell. Cell House 4 (1952) was the largest and most modern cell house at the penitentiary. Some inmates painted their cells and left drawings on the walls that can be seen today. Cell House 5 (1954) was maximum security where the most unruly and violent offenders stayed. This building also served as a permanent place of solitary confinement. It includes a built-in

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

and "

Death Row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...

." Although not a building, there is also an outdoor recreational area that is now the

Idaho Botanical Gardens Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

where inmates boxed and played baseball, basketball, handball, tennis, horseshoes, and football. The baseball, and later softball, team was named The Outlaws and frequently played teams from across the

Treasure Valley The Treasure Valley is a valley in the western United States, primarily in southwestern Idaho, where the Payette, Boise, Weiser, Malheur, Owyhee, and Burnt rivers drain into the Snake River. It includes all the lowland areas from Vale in rur ...

. A baseball stadium was located in what is now referred to as "Outlaw Field" where the Botanical Gardens hosts outdoor concerts. The prison cemetery is located in the Botanical Gardens.

Museum and Historical Society

The site was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1973 for its significance as a Territorial Prison. The site currently contains the buildings and cell houses with exhibits, the Idaho

Merci Train The French Gratitude Train (french: Train de la reconnaissance française), commonly referred to as the Merci Train, were 49 World War I era " forty and eight" box cars gifted to the United States by France in response to the 1947 U.S. Friend ...

boxcar, and the J. Curtis Earl Memorial Exhibit, all managed by the

. In late 1999, J.C. Earl donated his personal collection of historic arms and military memorabilia to the state of Idaho. These items were placed on exhibition in 2001 as the J. Curtis Earl Memorial Exhibit at the Old Idaho Penitentiary. They range from the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

to those used today for sport, law enforcement, and military purposes. The

Luristan Bronze Luristan bronzes (rarely "Lorestān", "Lorestāni" etc. in sources in English) are small cast objects decorated with bronze sculpture from the Early Iron Age which have been found in large numbers in Lorestān Province and Kermanshah in wester ...

collection dates to about 1000-650 BC.

In popular culture

The Travel Channel's television show Destination Fear filmed at the location for the thirteenth episode of their second season.

Prison history

Prison buildings

Museum and Historical Society

In popular culture

References

External links