The Mansfield Reformatory (OSR) is located at 100 Reformatory Road, Mansfield, OH. It's about 1 hour 11 minutes from Columbus, OH, 1 hour and 20 minutes from Cleveland, OH and 2 hours 41 minutes from Pittsburgh, PA. It served first as a reformatory, and then as a men's prison, closing in 1990. The architecture is what drew me to this place initially, but the more research I did, the more intrigued I became. The outside may not look familiar, but the inside you have probably seen before and never even realized it. This building has been used for movies such as Air Force One, and most famously, Shawshank Redemption, as well as music videos by Lil Wayne and Godsmack. It's also been featured on numerous ghost hunting shows.

When I arrived there were men dressed up in period inmate outfits, playing baseball in the field, complete with authentic bats and balls from the early 1900's. At the time of writing there are three different guided tours offered, East Cell Block, West Cell Block, and Hollywood. I did two out of the three and I would suggest doing the same, if you want to get the historical tour as well as the Hollywood tour. Each tour lasts about an hour and a half, so get there early and wear comfortable shoes because there is a lot of walking and climbing stairs. This unfortunately means the tour isn't ADA friendly, however there is a tour of the ground floor available which includes several things worth seeing.

Shawshank Redemption was filmed here:

At one point in any tour you take, you come to a dimly lit hallway with a big 'X' on the floor made by light coming in through 4 different windows. At first, you may think it's an illusion of some sort, but it's not. The architect Levi T. Scofield designed it this way. Can you guess why? Because it marks the exact center of the entire building. Pretty clever huh? If any of you watched the Fox TV show Prison Break, you may also find this bit of information intriguing since the main character of that show was named Michael Scofield and he was the architect of the prison on the show.

Once you're done with the tour, check out the gift shop. They had some amusing tee-shirt slogans! This prison is worth the drive in my opinion, even if you aren't a fan of Shawshank Redemption.

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