I Spent the Night in Nampa’s Haunted Longbranch Station

I love Halloween. I love haunted houses. I love creepy old buildings, scary movies and a really good ghost story. There’s just one little problem, I don’t really believe in ghosts.

That’s not to say they don’t exist. I’m completely open to somebody, or something, proving me wrong. But about 23 years ago, I actually had the chance to put one of the Treasure Valley’s longtime ghost stories to the test.

I spent the night inside Nampa’s Longbranch Station and I brought a bunch of listeners with me.

The Very Real History Behind Nampa's Longbranch Station

Before we get to the ghosts, the Longbranch Station really does sit on a piece of Nampa history.

On July 3, 1909, a massive fire ripped through downtown Nampa. According to the City of Nampa, the entire block between 12th and 13th avenues and Front and First streets was destroyed and the reported cause sounds almost too perfect for an old Western story. A firecracker exploded inside a wooden cigar store.

Contemporary newspaper accounts describe flames tearing through businesses including hotels, restaurants, rooming houses, a bar, a poolroom and numerous stores. Boise even sent a fire engine by special train to help keep the fire from spreading farther through Nampa.

The building we know today as Longbranch Station at 16 12th Avenue South dates to around 1910, right after that devastating fire.

Decades later, the property went through another transformation. Nampa’s Historic Preservation Plan says Longbranch Incorporated remodeled a saloon, bowling alley and Gene’s Lounge to create Longbranch Station, completing the project in 1984.

That’s the history we can document, then there’s the other history.

The Nampa, Idaho Ghost Stories

For years, stories have circulated about strange things happening inside Longbranch Station.

When we did our event more than 20 years ago, we heard stories about women’s voices being heard when nobody was there. There were stories about elevators opening and closing on their own and even seemingly changing floors without anyone operating them.

There was also a story that the building had once been associated with a brothel. That one is a great example of where history and ghost lore can get tangled together.

I’ve gone back looking for documentation of the brothel story, and I haven’t found enough historical evidence to present it as fact. We know there were bars, hotels and rooming houses in this part of downtown Nampa before the 1909 fire, but that doesn’t prove this particular building was a brothel.

The paranormal reputation of Longbranch Station, however, has been around long enough to attract actual ghost hunters. Big River Paranormal lists an investigation of the Longbranch Saloon in Nampa on October 28, 2006.

But I didn’t need a paranormal investigation team, I had radio listeners.

We Put a Camera Inside Nampa's Longbranch Station and Let People Watch

This was more than two decades ago, when I was doing country radio here in the Treasure Valley and for a couple of weeks leading up to Halloween, we set up a camera inside Longbranch Station and streamed it online.

Remember, this was the early days of internet video. Having a camera continuously streaming from inside a supposedly haunted building was pretty cool stuff back then.

And people watched. Then the reports started coming in of people telling us they’d seen shadows, movement and things on the camera they couldn’t explain.

After hearing that for a couple of weeks, there was really only one reasonable thing for a morning radio guy to do. Invite a bunch of listeners to spend the night there with me, so that’s exactly what we did.

Spending the Night Upstairs in the Longbranch

We spent the night on the unfinished upper floor of Longbranch Station.

At the time, it was basically one big unfinished space. Open beams. Dark corners. Plenty of places where your imagination could convince you that you just saw something move. Especially in the middle of the night.

We listened, watched, waited, and… Nothing. At least nothing I could honestly tell you was paranormal.

We had a great time. We scared ourselves a few times. There were noises and those moments when somebody would suddenly say, “Did you hear that?”

But did I see a ghost? No.

Did I hear a mysterious woman’s voice? No.

Did I witness anything that night that made me believe Longbranch Station was haunted?

Nope.

Then There’s the Basement and Tunnels Under Nampa

Okay, the basement was different. There’s a sunken lower level in Longbranch Station, something that’s still noted in descriptions of the building today. But back when we were there, there was another area downstairs that was blocked off and, of course, that was one of the places we’d been told was particularly haunted.

I went down there and I’ll give the ghost stories this much, it was creepy... really creepy. I remember the feeling. The chills. That unmistakable sensation that makes the little hairs on your arms stand up.

Was it paranormal? I can’t tell you that.

Maybe it was because I was standing in an old, dark basement after spending hours talking about ghosts. Our brains are pretty darn good at filling in the blanks when we already know we’re supposed to be scared.

But I can also tell you I wasn’t volunteering to sit down there alone in the dark for the rest of the night. I’m skeptical, not stupid.

More Than 20 Years Later, I’m Still Waiting

And that’s where I still stand on ghosts today.

I LOVE this stuff... Halloween, exploring old buildings and I love hearing the stories that have been passed down for generations, especially when there’s some genuine Idaho history behind them.

And I’m completely open to the possibility that there’s something out there we don’t understand, but I need proof. That night inside Longbranch Station, I didn’t get it.

Other people believe they’ve experienced things there. Paranormal investigators have gone looking. Stories about voices, elevators and unexplained activity have followed the building for years.

Maybe there’s something to them and maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for every one of them. I spent an entire night trying to find out.

More than 20 years later, I’m still waiting for my ghost and this Halloween season, I’m going looking again. Not necessarily by spending the night this time.

Longbranch Station is just the first stop as we explore some of Idaho’s most famous supposedly haunted places. We’ll look at the real history, dig into the legends and try to separate what we can actually prove from what makes a really great ghost story.

Who knows? Maybe one of them will finally prove me wrong.