Haunted Hotels in Idaho: 4 Places to Stay with a Ghost Story
A former tuberculosis hospital, Idaho’s oldest saloon, a restored 1917 Main Street hotel and a railroad-era B&B: these are the haunted places in Idaho where you can still spend the night.
Idaho’s haunted places include old mining camps, prisons and frontier hotels. We have checked every hotel on our old list against current sources and kept only those still taking guests, with the stories owners, staff and investigators actually tell. Several have closed or changed since our last update, so this list is shorter but more reliable; see the notes at the bottom.
$$$ · Over $300Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 301 University Ave, Gooding, ID 83330
Where to look The halls of the old dormitory and the rooms facing the cemetery
Reported ghosts Former tuberculosis patients, and a small child's voice recorded by investigators
Booking the haunted room The west wing rents as a whole through vacation rental sites, so you get the haunted halls to yourselves.
This brick building was part of Gooding College, a Methodist school that ran until 1938, and from 1947 to 1976 it housed the Idaho State Tuberculosis Hospital. Only the old men’s dormitory survives. Parts of it were turned into rooms and meeting spaces, first as The Get Inn and, after 2012, as the University Inn.
Western Idaho Paranormal rented the whole building and told KIVI in 2021 that they recorded several voices, the clearest a small child. The building now rents through vacation rental sites, with the west wing taken as a whole.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book the whole west wing with a group; the 2021 listing was about $729 a night, with the east wing available for an extra fee.
$ · Under $150Haunted room bookableHotel embraces its ghosts
Address 6248 W Maine St, Spirit Lake, ID 83869
Where to look Room 2 and the second-floor hallway
Reported ghosts "Big Girl", also called Mama Jo, who walks the second floor and plays tricks
Booking the haunted room Book Room 2 by number on the saloon's own booking page.
The White Horse in the aptly named town of Spirit Lake, in Idaho’s panhandle, stands in a National Register historic district and is billed as the oldest operating saloon in Idaho. The original dark wood floors, staircase and bars survive, and the bars between the saloon and hotel are said to come from the old town jail.
Its ghost is known as the Big Girl. Manager Dolli Massender told the Coeur d’Alene Press she strolls the second-floor hallway and plays tricks, and she has been seen from the street in the window of Room 2. Dean Massender calls her Mama Jo, after a woman who ran a business down the street.
Haunted Rooms tip: Book Room 2 and eat in the saloon downstairs. Rooms are up stairs only, and weekends can be loud.
Where to look The museum floor, the hallways and the old bar area
Reported ghosts A man said to have been killed in the bar, and light anomalies on the museum floor
Built from 1917 to 1919 for brothers William and Theodore Enders, the Enders is a three-story brick hotel on Main Street and is on the National Register. It sat nearly empty for years, until Terah Jones took it on in 2022; by 2024 it was a fully operating hotel again, with 19 suites, five shared-bath rooms, a coffee shop and a local museum.
Visitors to the museum have long described feeling uneasy and seeing strange lights, and a male figure is reported in the halls and old bar, said to be a man killed there.
Haunted Rooms tip: Stay in one of the restored suites and visit the museum in the building during its summer season.
Reported ghosts A man in period clothes, said to be angry that his name was misspelled on his headstone
This frame-and-brick hotel on Main Street was built around 1907 by early settler William B. Kelly and is on the National Register as Kelly’s Hotel, the town’s first hotel. It housed railroad workers and travelers off the Oregon Short Line and later became apartments. Today it runs as a small bed and breakfast with rooms named for people from the town’s past.
Local legend tells of a man in period dress who appears in guests’ rooms at night, said to be upset that his name was spelled wrong on his headstone in a nearby cemetery. It is a short drive from the Gooding University Inn, so you can pair the two.
Haunted Rooms tip: Call ahead to confirm the B&B is taking guests; it is small and was listed for sale in 2021.
The famous Bates Motel on Sherman Avenue, with its stories of Rooms 1 and 3, closed around 2015. It reopened in 2024 as The Flats in Coeur d’Alene, a vacation rental that does not trade on the old ghost stories. For a haunted stay in north Idaho, the White Horse in Spirit Lake is about 30 minutes away. Read the full guide.
The Idaho Hotel in the Silver City ghost town is still run by owners who told KIVI in 2022 about a large man in a tuxedo, children, and “Screaming Alice” on the third-floor stairs. The 1924 Helgeson Place Hotel in Orofino still takes guests, with stories of a woman seen outside at night and banging inside. We will add both in full once we can confirm current details.
Removed from this guide: the Cedar Inn in Pierce (we could not find any current source that it still takes guests), the Clover Club Hotel in Nezperce (the old hotel now runs as a bar), the Bates Motel (now a vacation rental, see above) and the separate University Inn entry, which was the same building as the Gooding University Inn.
Stayed in one of these hotels? Tell us what happened
We collect first-hand accounts from guests and add the best ones to our guides, with your first name and the date of your stay. We read every story before it’s published.
The Gooding University Inn, the former Idaho State Tuberculosis Hospital, has the strongest reputation, with investigators reporting voices including a small child.
Can you stay at the old Gooding tuberculosis hospital?
Yes. The west wing rents as a whole through vacation rental sites.
Is the White Horse in Spirit Lake haunted?
Staff say a spirit called the Big Girl walks the second floor and has been seen in the window of Room 2.
Is the Bates Motel in Coeur d'Alene still open?
No. It closed as a motel around 2015 and reopened in 2024 as a vacation rental called The Flats.
Are there ghost hunts near Idaho?
Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts across the border in Montana, including the Old Ravalli County Courthouse in Hamilton and the Old St. James Hospital in Butte.
Sources and how we research
Every hotel in this guide is checked against the hotel’s own website, historic register listings and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as the hotels, guests and local historians tell them; we note where a story can’t be confirmed. Read how we rate haunted hotels.
New guides, haunted hotel picks and ghost hunt dates near you. No spam, unsubscribe any time.
About the authors
The Haunted Rooms Team runs public ghost hunts and overnight investigations at historic venues across the United States. We research every hotel in our guides using hotel histories, local archives, news coverage and the accounts of guests and staff, and we review each guide regularly so you are not booking a hotel that has closed or changed its name. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
Booking links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects which hotels we include or how we score them.
