Today’s journey takes us to the Ohio State Reformatory. What?, you may ask. Well, it was the set for the movie “ The Shawshank Redemption”, one of Dan’s favorites. In the movie, Shawshank prison was in Maine, not Ohio. It follows the the life of Andy Dufresene, convicted of killing his wife and her lover. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth the watch. Many of the scene locations are identified on the self guided tour we took.
Historically, the prison was built between 1895 and 1910, as a halfway house with the goal of educating and training inmates to allow them to get jobs once freed. It worked and was well known for its success. That all changed in the early 70s when a fire destroyed the max security prison in Columbus. They sent over 1000 inmates to OSR, nearly doubling its population, which was already pushing 90% capacity. 7x9 foot cells that housed 2 inmates, now held 4 and they were very, bad guys.
The reform programs ceased. Violence and crime escalated until the prison was finally closed in 1990. There are two replacement prisons, on or near this property. Richland, a minimum security prison with the “reformable” inmates like those that used to be at OSR and Mansfield Correctional a max security facilty for the really bad guys. Some were transferred from OSR when it closed. To make way for these, much of the original Reformatory was torn down. It is easy to see Richland out the back windows of OSR.
So who was Brooks? He ran the library in the movie. His engraving was in a hotel room he lived in. Oh, there is no longer a license plate shop or any other out buildings. So we couldn’t enjoy a cold “Bohemian” on the roof.
The “patina” and the place’s popularity with Hollywood reminds us of the old train depot and Packard Plant in Detroit. They have done some minimum restoration, but do not plan to go much further. Mostly just to accomodate laws for public access.
A pretty interesting day.
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