The OES visited the Ohio State Reformatory on August 15, 2002. On the site once occupied by Civil War Camp Mordecai Bartley, the Ohio State Reformatory (also known as the Mansfield Reformatory) was built between 1886 and 1910. Architect Levi T. Scofield designed the prison to resemble the old world castles in Germany. The prison was to be an intermediate prison between the Boys Industrial School in Lancaster and the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. It was to be used for first-time offenders, not hardened criminals.

The first 150 men were transferred to the Reformatory on September 17, 1896. The prison was not quite finished at that time. Those first inmates helped construct the sewer system and built the twenty-five foot tall wall that surrounded the entire fifteen acre complex. The prison was considered one of the best in the country at the time it was built, but by 1933, the prison had become overcrowded and the living conditions were degraded. Cells intended for one person bunked two, sometimes three. In 1978 a lawsuit was filed against the prison on behalf of the 2,200 inmates incarcerated there. After being tossed around in court for years, the OSR was pronounced unfit to serve as a prison. The Ohio State Reformatory officially closed its doors as a prison in 1990.

Even though the Reformatory was an intermediate prison, it had its fair share of death and violence. Two corrections officers were killed in the line of duty on prison grounds. On November 2, 1926, a paroled inmate returned to the prison and shot 72-year-old prison guard Urban Wilford in an unsuccessful escape attempt. The murderer, Philip Orleck, was arrested two months later and was executed in the Ohio Penitentiary electric chair a year later. A 48-year-old prison guard by the name of Frank Hanger was the second guard who was murdered. Hanger was beaten to death with an iron bar during an escape attempt by twelve prisoners on October 2, 1932. Two of the inmates, Merrill Chandler and Chester Probaski, were found guilty of the guard's murder and both were executed in the electric chair in 1935.

July 21, 1948 was a dark day in the Reformatory's history. Two former inmates, John West and Robert Daniels, kidnapped the prison's farm superintendent, his wife and his 20-year-old daughter from their home on the honor farm. The pair murdered the entire family in a cornfield off Fleming Falls Road. West and Daniels, known as the "mad-dogs" went on a two-week crime spree leaving six people dead. They were later found near Van Wert, where a shootout resulted in the death of West and Daniels' capture. Daniels later died in the electric chair. In November of 1950, the warden's wife was reaching into a closet, looking for her jewelry box. When she removed the box, her hidden pistol fell to the ground. The pistol discharged and fatally wounded her. The warden died of a heart attack while in his office a few years later. In the area known as "the hole," or solitary confinement, two men were once placed into the same cell. Only one of those men emerged alive. The other had been killed and stuffed under the bunk. A man hang himself in the hole and another set himself on fire. Many other prisoners died behind the large stone walls of the OSR, some from disease and others from violence. The prison's cemetery just beyond the former walls contains over 200 prisoners who perished while incarcerated.

The prison is said to be very haunted by the many inmates who served their time there, as well as the employees who worked there. The prison was even featured on the TV show "World's Scariest Places." The magnificent architecture of the Reformatory has been noticed by Hollywood a few times in the past. Filming for "Harry and Walter Go To New York" took place there in 1975 and in 1988, filming for "Tango and Cash" took place. The prison was still in operation in each of those movies. In 1993, the OSR's most well-known film was shot, the "Shawshank Redemption." It is interesting to note that Shawshank Redemption didn't use the cell blocks in the movie, all of those scenes were shot elsewhere. In 1996, filming for "Air Force One" took place. A false prison wall was built for Air Force One and many other props remained. The band "Godsmack" filmed their music video for "Awake" at the prison in 2000.

Soon after the filming of Shawshank, the state demolished all of the outbuildings and the prison wall. Being on valuable property, Ohio wanted to use the land to expand the new Mansfield Correctional Institute, located just beyond the old Reformatory. Luckily in 1995, the land was turned over to the preservation group that now controls the old prison. The OSR's six tier free-standing cell block still holds the world's record. Tours are available at the site. Check out the OSR Preservation Society's website by clicking here.