ALBION, Idaho — Halloween means spooky season, and for 14 years the Albion Normal School becomes something like a haunted theme park, with four big buildings serving as haunted houses for thrill-seeking visitors.
- Haunted Mansions of Albion is open Thursday through Saturday, with doors open at 7 p.m.
- It is encouraged to get tickets online in advance
- While the grounds are converted into a Halloween attraction for visitors, many people insist that the location is truly haunted.
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(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
Established in 1893, the school closed in 1951, and there's been a lot of stories shared over the years.
I asked one of the attraction's guides how haunted he thought the place was.
"It' ... it's extremely haunted," Thomas McCoy told me. "My brother saw a ghost, and my friend Lexi saw the devil."
The Haunted Mansions of Albion has been a Halloween attraction since 2008 — hundreds of characters populate the grounds with four buildings set up as haunted houses for guests to explore.
"It's fun to just see people freak out when you walk around the corner," Aleah Codner said.
I asked Codner why the old school was so haunted.
"I don't know," she said.
Some of the buildings, rumor has it, are genuinely haunted
"I don't like it in there," Brelle Godfrey said, describing one of the buildings at the Albion Normal School where actors provide scares for visitors. "I don't go in there anymore because I ... there's ... I absolutely hate it."
Godfrey was one of a dozen or so members from Burley's Bell Canto Choir who made the trip to play a role, scaring guests.
"Even just being in the buildings too long, your mind starts to mess with you," Godfrey said. "That can just worsen what's already there, if you believe in that stuff. Or if there's something already there."
"It's a good hour, hour and a half, if you're going to get donuts, and you're going to get a hamburger, and going to enjoy the evening," said Choir Director Dusty Fisher. "Could be about three hours. It's a fun night, well worth the cost."
Fisher's choir members help out at the haunted mansions, and the organization pays them back with support for performances throughout the year.
"If you're talking about your psychological viewpoint, you might leave a little more dark than when you got here," Fisher said.
Guests of all ages come from far and wide, year after year — including Kelsey and Madeline, from Pocatello.
"This is a lot of fun, so scary," Kelsey said.
As with the other people I talked to, I asked the duo how the school became so haunted.
"I've heard that in the past when they still had people going to school here, there were people who passed away and they assumed that they still haunt this location."
Regardless of genuine hauntings, the Halloween attractions have drawn them back another year.
"Because it's fun," they said. " It's so fun."
