Old Penitentiary Gets a Reprieve : Idaho Institution Converted to Museum of Prison History

Eyeing the huge hook hanging from the ceiling, the dangling rope, noose and trap door at the gallows in the Old Idaho penitentiary, former warden Orvil E. Stiles recalls the state’s last execution:

“I was here with Raymond Snowden 30 years ago on the last day of his life. Snowden murdered a woman in a Garden City bar. He prayed alone with me. Then he was led into this room. He was the calmest man in the execution chamber, far calmer than I was.”

Stiles, 73, spent nine years as chaplain at the Idaho penitentiary. He was chaplain at the time of Snowden’s execution and later became warden. He was both warden and a Baptist minister at the same time.

The old penitentiary on the west end of Idaho’s capital city was home for more than 13,000 prisoners (215 of them women) from 1872 to 1974 when a new penitentiary was opened.

The plan was to demolish the complex of sandstone buildings when the penitentiary was vacated. But the Idaho State Historical Society was granted permission to preserve the historic prison as a permanent exhibit of the changing nature of penitentiary philosophy and practices during the past century.

When the last prisoners walked out, the Historical Society walked in--opening the prison seven days a week for public visitation. Guided tours are conducted through cell blocks, death row, the gallows, laundry, women’s prison, cannery, license plate factory, shirt and shoe factories, dining hall and other buildings by former guards and wardens and occasionally even former inmates.

Sentenced to ‘Siberia’

An area referred to as the “hole” or “Siberia,” where prisoners in isolation ate and slept, consisted of 12 cells, each 3 1/2 feet wide and 6 feet long with one small hole for ventilation.

“When we were on duty in the vicinity of Siberia we could hear prisoners in the hall screaming and yelling their heads off,” said former guard Jim Howland, 68. “It was an awful place to be confined.”

Stiles vividly remembers his first day as warden, Sept. 15, 1967: “I gathered all the prisoners together and announced that no one would be confined any longer in Siberia. I told the prisoners if a dog had been put in one of those cells, the humane society would have you jailed. I got a standing ovation.”

In recent years, Stiles has been chaplain at the Idaho State Veterans Home. He frequently conducts tours through the old penitentiary because he believes it is important for people to see what life was like behind prison walls.

Every year about 7,000 Idaho elementary and high school students make field trips to the old penitentiary. Teacher Dick Newton, 46, has been taking his fourth-grade classes through the penitentiary ever since it was first opened to the public.

“Touring the penitentiary fits in beautifully with the history class,” he said. “The kids start their tour laughing and joking. But by the time they’ve finished their mood is quite the reverse. They see what it’s like to lose their freedom for whatever mistake society thinks they made. It makes a lasting impression. It makes the young people think.”

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Old Idaho Penitentiary was built by prisoners using sandstone blocks quarried in the hills above the penitentiary.

The Moorish-style dining hall was designed, constructed and supervised in 1898 by inmate George Hamilton. The prison administration was so proud of his efforts, he was granted an early release providing he leave Idaho and never return. Hamilton committed suicide the day after he was released.

Various exhibits in the penitentiary tell the story of riots, escapes (there were more than 500 and 90 of the prisoners were never recaptured), attempted escapes and the 10 executions that occurred here. There are also photos and information about many of the better-known inmates.

Lyda Southard, an inmate from 1921 to 1941, was called Idaho’s “Lady Bluebeard.” She was convicted of poisoning her fourth husband by boiling arsenic flypaper and pouring the water from it into his food. (Her three previous husbands died from similar symptoms.) Southard escaped for 13 months and, during that time, married a fifth time. The mother of her husband also died of arsenic flypaper poisoning.

Harry Orchard, who assassinated a former Idaho governor, served longer than any other inmate. He was imprisoned for 46 years until his death in 1954. He was 88. Orchard is buried in the penitentiary cemetery with 74 other inmates whose bodies were never claimed by relatives or friends.

In the penitentiary archives are oral histories from guards, prisoners, wardens and staff. Idaho State Electricity and Transportation Museums are located in two of the old stone buildings, and the 19th-Century Bishops’ House, for years official residence of Episcopal bishops in Boise, has been moved from its downtown site to the penitentiary compound.

Ironically, on the grounds where men and women were once held prisoner to protect the public, parties, weddings and celebrations now take place--in the Bishops’ house.