Prisons Just Keep On Giving To America's Towns

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Prisons Just Keep On Giving To America's Towns

Mansfield, OH, has launched a $1.5 million community fund-raising drive to turn its prison into a tourist attraction. The 100-year-old Mansfield Reformatory was closed in 1990 and houses the world's largest free-standing steel cellblock. The Shawshank Redemption was filmed there, but Hollywood can make only so many prison movies, and Mansfield apparently needs cash now.

Mansfield is also home to another attraction only a few blocks away -- the superlative Living Bible Museum. And to conjure a complete civic image, remember this is the same town where in 1959 and 1963 witnesses reported a luminous, green-eyed, seven-foot-tall seemingly armless humanoid came out of Charles Mill Lake and left behind "tracks that resembled the footgear worn by divers." [07/07/2001]

Ohio State Reformatory

Address:: Mansfield, OH
Directions:: North of town. I-71 exit 176 onto US 30 west. After about three miles, exit north onto Hwy 545/Olivesburg Rd. The Reformatory is just over the hill on the left hand side, on a side street named Reformatory Rd.
Hours:: T-F in the summer; Sundays 1-4 as well in spring and fall. (Call to verify)
Phone:: 419-522-2644

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