HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Idaho City's 1863 gold-rush burial ground where, of the first 200 deaths, only 28 were natural; fire erased most of an estimated 3,000 graves.
Pioneer Cemetery Rd, Idaho City, ID 83631
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public historic cemetery on a hillside a short drive from town. No fee; the Idaho City Historical Foundation maintains the grounds.
Access
Limited Access
Hillside cemetery on roughly forty timbered acres with uneven dirt paths; sturdy footwear recommended.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1863 · Established early 1863 during the Boise Basin gold rush · Estimated 2,000-3,000 graves on roughly forty timbered acres · Of the first 200 recorded deaths, only 28 were from natural causes · Most wooden markers lost to repeated fires; ~200 markers survive · Sectioned by fraternal and ethnic community (Masons, Odd Fellows, Catholic, Chinese) · Maintained by the Idaho City Historical Foundation
Idaho City sprang up in 1862 and 1863 after gold was found in the Boise Basin, and for a few years it was among the largest settlements in the Pacific Northwest. The Pioneer Cemetery was set aside in early 1863 to bury the town's dead, on a timbered hillside a short drive from the business district. It is the burial ground most often referred to locally as Boot Hill.
Estimates of the number of people interred range from about 2,000 to as many as 3,000, including hundreds of unknown or unmarked graves. Because the great majority of the original markers were made of wood, repeated fires over the cemetery's history destroyed most of them. Approximately 200 markers still stand today, many of them stone monuments or wrought-iron family enclosures that the Idaho City Historical Foundation has worked to repair, restore, and maintain.
The cemetery was organized into sections reflecting the town's mix of people: the Masons, the Odd Fellows, Catholics, and a Chinese section all held distinct ground. No Chinese markers remain visible, because the Chinese community practiced repatriation, exhuming remains years after burial and returning the bones to China.
The statistic most often repeated about the site is that of its first 200 recorded deaths, only 28 were from natural causes. The Idaho City Historical Foundation and several travel and history accounts cite the figure as a measure of how dangerous the gold-rush town was, where mining accidents, exposure, disease, and gunfire all took a toll on a young and largely male population.
Sources
The cemetery's reputation as a haunted place grows directly out of its history. With an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 graves, the large majority unmarked, and a first-200 death record in which only 28 deaths were natural, the ground holds a great many people who died young and suddenly during the gold-rush years.
Local haunting accounts, including travel and Idaho ghost-listing write-ups, describe visitors who report a persistent feeling of being watched while walking the hillside, occasional reports of figures glimpsed among the trees that are not there when looked at directly, and cold spots near the older wrought-iron family plots. The cemetery's isolation, the dense timber, and the knowledge that most of the dead lie in unmarked ground all feed the stories.
None of these reports is supported by physical evidence, and the people buried here, many of them anonymous now that their wooden markers are gone, are treated with the respect owed to any pioneer burial ground. HauntBound presents the cemetery as a documented historic site whose dark statistics are a matter of record and whose paranormal lore is compiled visitor testimony.
Walk the timbered hillside among roughly 200 surviving markers and the wrought-iron family plots that remain. The Idaho City Historical Foundation has repaired and restored many of the standing stones; the Masonic, Odd Fellows, Catholic, and Chinese sections are still discernible.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Boise, ID
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Forest Park, IL
Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, grew from two adjacent cemeteries — German Waldheim (established 1873) and Forest Home (1876) — which merged in February 1969. The 220-acre site was chosen as a non-denominational burial ground, a policy that made it the only Chicago-area cemetery willing to accept the bodies of the Haymarket defendants in 1887.
Boise, ID
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