Ohio State Reformatory

General Information

The OES visited the Ohio State Reformatory on August 15, 2002. Once the site of Camp Mordecai Bartley, a Civil War camp, the Ohio State Reformatory (also known as the Mansfield Reformatory) was built between 1886 - 1910. Architect Levi T. Scofield designed the prison to look like the Old World castles in Germany. The prison was built as 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 OSR on September 17, 1896. The prison had not been finished at that time. Those first inmates worked on the sewer system and built the twenty-five foot tall wall that surrounded the entire 15 acre complex. The prison was considered one of the best in the country at that time, but by 1933, it was overcrowded and the living conditions were degraded. Cells designed 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 a few years, OSR was pronounced unfit to serve as a prison. The Ohio State Reformatory officially closed it's doors as a prison in 1990. Even though OSR was an intermediate prison, it had it's fair share of death and violence. Two corrections officers were killed in the line of duty at the prison. 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 died 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 murdered. He was beaten to death with an iron bar during an escape attempt by twelve prisoners on October 2, 1932. Two 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 history for the OSR. 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. They murdered the family in a cornfield off Fleming Falls Road. The two murderers, known as the "mad-dogs" went on a two-week crime spree leaving six people dead. They were later found near Van Wert and a shootout resulted in West dead and Daniels captured. Daniels later died in the electric char. In November of 1950, the warden's wife was reaching in a closet for her jewelry box. When she got the box down, her hidden pistol fell to the ground, fatally wounding her. A few years later, the Warden died of a heart attack in his office. In the area known as "the hole", or solitary confinement, two men were once put into one cell. Only one of those men emerged alive. The other had been killed and stuffed under the bunk. One man hang himself in the hole and another set himself on fire. Other prisoners died behind the large stone walls of OSR, some from disease and others from violence. The cemetery just beyond the former walls contain over 200 prisoners who died there. 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 awesome architecture of the Mansfield 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" was held. In both of these instances, the prison was still in operation. In 1993, the OSR's best known film was shot, the "Shawshank Redemption". Interesting to note that the movie 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 on the former prison's grounds. The "fake" wall they built and many other props from the movies remain. The band "Godsmack" filmed their music video for "Awake" at the prison in 2000. Soon after the filming of Shawshank, the state tore down 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 OSR. Luckily, in 1995 the land was turned over to the preservation group that now controls the former prison. The prison's six tier free-standing cell block still holds the world's record. Tours are available at the site. Check out OSR Preservation Society's website by clicking here.

Location Information: Active Society [Tours Available]

The reformatory is located at 100 Reformatory Road in Mansfield, Richland County.

Photographs: Exterior