The Most Haunted Places in Idaho
39 documented locations, ranked by depth of evidence. Updated September 2026.
What makes this ranking different
- Evidence-ranked. Ordered by how many independent published reports we found, how far back they go, and how well they hold up, not by how often a story is retold. A place with more recent accounts can rank below one with a longer record. See methodology.
- Family-rated. A family-suitability rating on every site, so you know before you go.
- Logistics-checked. Each entry says how you can visit, book, or stay, as far as we could confirm it; where we could not, the page says so.
Idaho has 39 documented haunted locations in the HauntBound index.
- Total documented
- 39
- Cemetery / Burial Ground
- 7
- Museum / Historical Site
- 6
- Outdoor / Natural Site
- 4
- Family-friendly
- 37
- Bookable
- 9
- Oldest documented site
- Pioneer Cemetery (Boot Hill) (1863)
- Most-reported phenomenon
- apparitions
- This October
- 11 experiences running this October
The upset
Idaho's most famous haunted site, Old Idaho State Penitentiary, ranks 6th on the evidence; the winner is Idanha Hotel in Boise. Old Idaho State Penitentiary · Idanha Hotel
Ranked
-
Boise's ornate 1901 Idanha Hotel hosted Theodore Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan and served as headquarters during Big Bill Haywood's 1907 murder trial before its upper floors became apartments in the 1970s. Renovation-era workers first reported unexplained activity, and lore since centers on a bellman said to have died in the building, blamed for the elevator moving on its own, along with a misty apparition and crying in the basement.
4 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1900-1970 · retold in 7 later publications
-
Originally an 1920 dormitory for Gooding College, this building became the Idaho State Tuberculosis Hospital in 1947, treating up to 150 patients until it closed in 1976; it now operates as the Gooding University Inn. Guests and staff report an apparition of a man in a white coat and whispers in the halls, activity that drew the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures crew to investigate in 2019.
4 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 2008-2012 · retold in 5 later publications
-
3. Hotel Yellowstone (Yellowstone Restaurant & 313 Whiskey Bar) Pocatello · Haunted Dining / Bar · Family Comfort: HighHauntBound identified eight distinct published accounts at this operating restaurant and bar, across three kinds of published source. One later publication retells those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions and disembodied voices.
8 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 2013-2021 · retold in 1 later publication
-
South-central Idaho's teacher college opened in 1893, closed in 1951, and sat empty for nearly four decades before the Mortensen family bought the campus at auction in 2007 and turned it into the seasonal Haunted Mansions of Albion. During those vacant years, locals and investigators reported the smell of baking bread in a long-closed kitchen, disembodied voices and footsteps in empty halls, and shadowy figures, activity a 2017 Ghost Adventures episode later investigated.
3 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1969-2017 · retold in 3 later publications
-
5. Fort Boise Military Cemetery (Cottonwood Cemetery) Boise · Cemetery / Burial Ground · Family Comfort: ModerateThis military cemetery, relocated to its Foothills site after 1906 floods destroyed the original wooden grave markers, holds an estimated 247 burials of soldiers, military dependents, and children who died at Fort Boise. Visitors report a woman's figure some say has also been seen at a nearby school, plus moving shadows and a persistent feeling of being watched.
3 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1970-2016 · retold in 5 later publications
-
Idaho's territorial prison opened in 1872 at the base of Table Rock and operated for 101 years, holding more than 13,000 inmates before riots forced its 1973 closure; it's now a museum. Visitors and staff report being watched and touched in the solitary confinement block known as Siberia, reports that have drawn film crews from Ghost Adventures and Destination Fear.
2 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 2000-2022 · retold in 9 later publications
-
HauntBound identified four distinct published accounts at this working hotel. One later publication retells those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions and disembodied voices.
4 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1999-2020 · retold in 1 later publication
- 8. Idaho State Hospital South Cemetery Blackfoot · Asylum / Hospital · Family Comfort: High Exterior viewing only
HauntBound identified six distinct published accounts at this former hospital site. One later publication retells those accounts. Reported phenomena include phantom sounds.
6 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 2017-2026 · retold in 1 later publication
-
Boise's 1927 Egyptian Revival movie palace, designed by Frederick Hummel amid the King Tut craze, still shows films, concerts, and opera under its lotus-pillar ceiling. Staff attribute recurring reports, cycling lights, doors opening on their own, disembodied laughter, and phantom touches near the stage, to Joe, a projectionist said to have died of a heart attack on the booth stairs in the 1950s; a cheerful female apparition is reported in the aisles.
2 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1950-2016 · retold in 4 later publications
-
HauntBound identified one distinct published account at this working hotel, across three kinds of published source. Two later publications retell those accounts. Reported phenomena include apparitions and cold spots.
1 original account · documented in 2007 · retold in 2 later publications
Superlatives
Most documented counts published accounts. The ranking also weighs how many decades those accounts span and how independent they are, so the place with the most accounts is not always the place ranked first.
8 distinct published accounts.
Methodology
For purposes of the HauntBound Index, "most haunted" means the location with the strongest documented record of reported haunting phenomena. We evaluate the quantity, independence, persistence, and documentary quality of published reports. We do not attempt to determine whether paranormal phenomena are real, and we never count a source that only establishes a building's history as evidence of haunting claims. Repetitive coverage is subject to diminishing returns, so a story retold many times does not outrank a story independently documented. Rankings never consider commercial relationships.
The 2026 Index reflects sources identified and classified as of September 15, 2026.
Corrected September 18, 2026: a source audit revised the documented-account counts for Hotel Yellowstone and the Roosevelt Inn; the ranking reflects the corrections.
Updated September 29, 2026: documented totals now exclude the private homes, operating hospitals and venues with nothing left to visit that were withdrawn on September 25 and 26. The ranked ten are unchanged.
This is a documentation ranking, not a visitation guide; sites not open to visitors are marked on their entries.