The Old Idaho Penitentiary

One kitten lived inside this prison for sixteen years and is the only inmate buried within the walls.

An inmate found Dennis in the prison barn in 1952. Incarcerated men were not allowed pets, but the guards let him keep the cat anyway, and Dennis roamed the yard and made friends across both sides of the arrangement. He died in his sleep in 1968. The inmates held a funeral for him and gave him a headstone.

The Old Idaho Penitentiary ran as a working prison from 1872 to 1973, east of Boise. The first building, the Territorial Prison, went up in 1870, when the Territory of Idaho was seven years old and statehood was two decades away. It grew from a single cell house into a complex of distinctive buildings behind a sandstone wall 17 feet high. The stone came from the ridges nearby and was quarried by the convicts themselves, who also worked on the later construction.

The site sits less than two miles southeast of downtown Boise near Table Rock, on Warm Springs Avenue at about 2,770 feet, and it is run by the Idaho State Historical Society as a state historic site.

If you are bringing a group, the Historical Society takes field trip requests through its own form and sets the terms clearly: allow at least an hour, dress for an outdoor experience, wear practical walking shoes, and note that guided tours are only available for students aged 10 and up, with self-guided visits for younger children.

A prison of 101 years accumulates a great deal of hard history, and the site does not hide it. But if you only remember one thing about the place, it will probably be the cat.