Last surviving building of the WWII Farragut Naval Training Station
Athol, ID
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
State park day-use fee; museum admission free during open season
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved walkway around historic building, gravel and grass park grounds
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1942 · World War II Naval Training · National Register of Historic Places · Last Surviving Farragut Structure · German POW Program
The Brig at Farragut State Park is the last surviving structure of the Farragut Naval Training Station, a major United States Navy boot-camp facility that operated from 1942 to 1946 on the southern tip of Lake Pend Oreille. The base trained nearly 300,000 sailors during World War II, including thousands who deployed to the Pacific theater. The site also housed German prisoners of war later in the conflict.
The Brig was built in 1942 as the base detention center, with barred windows, gates, and cells used to confine sailors charged with minor offenses. It is the only original building from the 776 structures that once made up the training station, the rest of which were demolished after deactivation in 1946. The Brig is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
After the base closed, the building served for decades as a state parks maintenance building before being converted into the Museum at the Brig. The museum is operated by Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Museum of North Idaho. Exhibits cover boot-camp life, healthcare, the prisoner-of-war program, and the broader story of Farragut and the Pacific war.
Sources
When the Brig served as a state parks maintenance building between Farragut's deactivation and the museum's opening, multiple long-serving employees independently described a recurring figure: a balding man who appeared in or near the cell area, possibly wearing some form of uniform that staff identified as resembling prisoner clothing. The accounts predate the museum conversion and were collected from employees with no overlapping shifts.
Other staff described large objects relocated overnight and small items found in unexpected places within the cells. Community-submitted accounts also reference a homicide and at least one suicide attributed to the station's wartime years, though no period newspaper account corroborating those specific events was located during research; given the size of the training population, deaths at Farragut would not have been unusual.
Tour the only original building remaining from the WWII Farragut Naval Training Station, which trained nearly 300,000 sailors. The Brig was built in 1942 as the base detention center; the cells, bars, and gates remain. Exhibits cover boot camp life, naval operations, healthcare, and the German prisoner-of-war program at Farragut.
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