Shawshank Prison - Ohio State Reformatory - Mansfield, Oh

So this is my first blog post and road trip on Lucky Boy Reviews. I will have to get better at this because I planned on Blogging every night but I have been bouncing around from Cincinnati, Mansfield, and Cleveland with one night stays. I have finally settled in Detroit and have a few days so I can spend some time rehashing my trip. 

This is the first time I have been to the midwest and had a general idea of what to expect but tried to leave my prejudgments behind and embrace what I was about to see with an open mind. What I can tell you so far is Cincinnati may be the most underrated city I have ever visited. My friend from college grew up there and he is the one who initiated my idea for this road trip. I met him for a 3 day music festival and he showed me around the city. Cincinnati is beautiful: rolling green lush hills, beautiful historic buildings, breweries, ethnic food and though there are some sketchy parts there is a feeling of vibrancy. There is money coming into Cincinnati and I have a feeling we will be hearing a lot more about all the potential there in the next few years. If you are looking to move- check it out. You won't be disappointed. 

The point of my trip is to visit iconic film locations and historic theaters. I really started my trip the day I left Cincinnati for Mansfield, Oh. The only reason to go to Mansfield is for the Shawshank prison. It is out in the middle of nowhere. I drove 3 and half hours once I left Cincinnati and I took the most direct route there and the trip was anything but thrilling. There was some farmland and a lot of typical scenery. Honestly I could have been traveling anywhere. I didn’t really get a sense of the midwest. 

As I came into Mansfield I was ready to be out the car and do some exploring. The downtown is quant and nice. Not to dissimilar from any small town through out America. There are a few small historic buildings, a couple diners, churches and meandering towns folk who seemed to be in no rush to get anywhere. Needless to say I went to bed early and wanted to start my day exploring the Ohio State Reformatory. 

I woke up early and did my morning routine and could hardly sit still. Shawshank has been a movie that developed me. I wrote my review for it on my All-Time Favorites List and that is truly my deepest sentiments for this movie (You can read it here). I could not wait to see where the magic was created, what now lay with in the walls of an old worn out prison. Doors opened at 10 am and I planned to be the first to arrive. 

The prison is located just outside the downtown of Mansfield, no more than a 5 min drive. As I took the left off the main road I could see it off in the distance- dark, dirty stone building towering in the surrounding grassland. It didn’t look like any magic was created there. It looked like some awful things happened there. I then proceeded to drive down a long driveway, maybe two hundred yards long and with every movement towards this giant structure it began to hit me, this is prison. It hadn't really hit me. This wasn't a movie set. This wasn't Hollywood. This a place where bad men were locked up and there is a reason it is out in the middle of nowhere. My fascination for the prison began to take another form rapidly. What is the actual history of this building? Who was imprisoned here? What happened behind the fortress walls?

I parked my car and noticed I was not the only car in the parking lot. There were at least 15 and it was 9:55 on a rainy morning... on a Tuesday ... in Mansfield, Oh. There were already people waiting outside the prison entrance. I was not expecting this. How many people travel to this place to see The Shawshank Prison? I walked up and noticed the type of people waiting in line. I was the youngest by about 10 years and I am 34 years old. This is not a place you bring kids. They have never seen Shawshank and they have no desire to see a prison. This is place for retired couples traveling the country in their RVs seeing what the state of Ohio has to offer. Apparently there are a lot of retirees traveling the country. 

I walked up and joined the group, everyone was extremely nice and very talkative. Once they heard I visit film locations across the country they were all very interested to find out my favorite spots. I began to tell them about Bodega Bay (where Hitchcock filmed The Birds), The Two Windmills Cafe in the neighborhood of Montmartre in Paris (where Amelie was filmed), Katz’s Deli in New York (where the famous orgasim scene was filmed for When Harry Met Sally) and The Athenian Inn in Seattle’s Pike’s Place Market (Where Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner had lunch). 

Just then the doors opened and we were let in the prison. The first thing you see when you walk in is a beautifully tiled floor with some oak ticket booths on the left. It was nice, clean and well maintained. I got my ticket for $12 for the self guided tour that comes with a wand you punch digits into that tell place to your ear like a telephone and a automated guide gives you facts at each designated location. If you are looking for a guided tour it is $17. Seeing as how I was toward the end of a big group of people I blew by the first few rooms so I could get away from the crowd, take pictures and videos with no one in them, that I could share with all of you. 

As  I walked through the prison it ranged from beautifully kept, pristine warden’s and guard’s quarters as well as offices and such to rotted hallways, a chapel in despair and once I hit the actual prison cells they looked like a nightmare. I won’t go into to much detail about what I saw in there in case you all do make your way out to Ohio, what I can leave you with is... its worth it. The information at each stop along the way was really engaging and I found the history to be fascination. The rise and fall of this prison is pretty unbelievable. The place is huge and there is a lot of ground to cover. You could easily spend 2 to 3 hours just wandering around. It is heavily targeted towards the Shawshank movie. There are cut outs of characters and guards in nearly every room. There are props from the movie and original set pics. It really did my love for the movie justice. I got a sense of what it was like to be there during filming. 

The crazy thing to me is the deterioration of the prison. The cell blocks looked like a nightmare with rusted bars, paint chipping off every covered surface and there are three stories of cells. The area was massive with walkways going down at least 200 yards. It really gave me a sense of how loud this place could be if the prisoners got crazy. There were two men to a cell and they could not have been more than 5 feet wide by 6 feet high, with hundreds of cells. These were caged animals and if they got loud the sound must have been deafening. 

I was at the prison for about 2 hours and then exited. On the way out there is a gift shop with... crap. This place seriously sold junk. It had the Shawshank name on it but there was nothing I was even tempted to buy that wouldn’t end up in my garbage in a week. All their memorabilia was really cheap quality and just not worth stopping in to check out. There is a little cafe next to the gift shop that is just as sad. The girl behind the counter looked like she was in prison and was waiting for her shift to be up so she could bust out. You don’t come to the Ohio State Reformatory for the food. So I pushed out the door and headed to my car. I was on my way to Cleveland. Check in tomorrow to see what I discover there.