The Ohio State Reformatory

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My husband and I like taking our son places and making memories. We usually stay within two hours of home (we have gone up to 4 hours but have to leave earlier in the morning, which we don't like) so we can make sure we get there in back in plenty of time. We don't stay overnight because we have cats, and we don't want to pay for a hotel. We rarely spend money except for on a diner or somewhere cheap to eat, and we will on occasion pay to get into a museum or something as long as the price isn't outrageous. One of our favorite trips is one we decided to spend money on, because it was something we all have wanted to do for a long time. There is a prison here in Ohio that is said to be haunted. I am not a ghost hunter; I have always believed you shouldn't mess with the things you don't know about, but a lot of haunted places also have a lot of history, and if you know me, I love history, I love old architecture, I love learning about serial killers, and I love a good story. The Ohio State Reformatory, located in Mansfield, Ohio, has everything I find fascinating. The prison is no longer in operation, but you can tour the building. The Shawshank Redemption was filmed there, and part of the museum is set up from when they were filming. The prison is huge, and there is a lot to see. You can pay to have a guided tour, or you can pay less and explore it on your own, which is what we did. We did say one day we'd like to go back and pay for the guided tour. A lot of scary and interesting things happened while the prison was in operation. There is a cell where someone set themselves on fire and died, that's the short version of the story, but they have a plaque outside of the cell explaining exactly what happened there. The prison was built between 1886 and 1910 and was in operation until 1990. It was definitely not the kind of prison you would see today. If you stand on the ground floor and look up you can see all of the cells. It was actually kind of scary walking on the higher floors by the cells, because you can see everything so well. I told my husband if I had to go to prison there, I'd be asking for a cell on the ground floor; I'd wake up every morning and freak out seeing how high up I am every morning. Ironically, solitary confinement rooms looked better than the normal cell rooms. The prison had a chapel and a library. The chapel was kind of creepy; I couldn't explain it. It just had an eerie feeling about it. The prison doesn't have heating or cooling, so the best time to go is in the spring or fall. We wore our coats the entire time we were in the prison and managed to stay comfortable. There is a new open prison across the way from the closed prison, which is where they moved prisoners once it was built. If you have never been to The Ohio State Reformatory, I highly recommend it if you are into all things crime and history, or if you just really liked the movie The Shawshank Redemption. I won't go into all of the details about the prison, but it was super interesting. We finished out our day by eating at the Buckeye Diner Express, which is about 15 minutes away in Bellville, Ohio, and the restaurant is in a train car. The Photo is the outside of the Ohio State Reformatory that my husband took. I have a lot more pictures I could always post later, like the photos of the cells and the chapel.