Haunted happenings at The Milmor
With Halloween nearing, more and more haunted houses are popping up. At the old Milmor Hotel in Blackfoot, you can get a haunted experience at place that some claim is truly possessed.
“My actors think they’ve heard things, I can’t corroborate that, but down in the boiler room, it’s been there since 1916, people think they can hear people in the corners,” Sharon Hoge, president of the Blackfoot Community Players, explained.
The group has hosted the Haunting of The Milmor Hotel for the past three years. Hoge says people that used to work in the building, including a former building manager, warned the group about the building’s haunted nature before they set up shop.
“That was a selling point for us,” she said.
The haunting and the building’s proximity to the Nuart Theater, where the players host most of their performances, made the spot an obvious destination. Unlike your average haunted house, The Milmor is massive.
“This building runs almost three-quarters of a block long and deep,” Hoge said. “So it’s a much bigger building than people realize it is.”
With more space comes more frights than you’d imagine. On an average night, between 30 and 40 actors are scattered throughout the building waiting to make your heart rate spike.
“You work your way down through three full floors of things that we put together, or maybe you’ll run into something we didn’t do.”
Scary as that may sound, there’s a chance for things to get even creepier with a new experience that lets you take a tour after hours.
“There’ll be no lights, no actors, nothing to stop you,” Hoge explained. “We’ll give you a glow stick, we’ll also give you a glow necklace — when you just can’t take it anymore and you need to find a way out, you can pop your necklace and we’ll come take you out.”
It’s no small task putting the display together.
“We start planning as soon as it’s over.”
And with each new year comes new thrills. Hoge says big things are still ahead.
If you have what it takes to take the after-hours tour, you can head in at midnight on Friday and Saturday for $20. Tickets are available at the Nuart.
The normal haunting runs every day through Oct. 31, except Sundays, and costs $10.
