E.V.A.: Taking a Ghost Tour at the Ohio State Reformatory |

The Mansfield Reformatory is located in Mansfield Ohio at 100 Reformatory Road. The Reformatory doors were opened to its first 150 young offenders in September 1896. After housing over 155,000 men in its lifetime, the doors to the prison closed December 31, 1990. The towering building is beautiful on the outside with at least 50 geese calling the front lawn and pond their home. They are eerily quiet for geese, moving quietly to their pond and back. We arrived around 7pm and waited with our tour guide, Scott and for the rest of the 16 people in our tour group. Scott informed us that the spirits had been pretty active lately and that he had heard voices that day when he was opening the doors and turning on lights in preparation for us.

Our first stop on the tour was the museum. An old electric chair was on display in one room along with shanks (crude knives) made by the former inmates, crucifixes used by the priests and pictures from when the Reformatory was still in operation. With so much time on their hands, the inmates made not only shanks, but also jewelry boxes and one working clarinet. The collection is amazing and showed some insight into minds of the inmates. The shanks are proof of the violence in their lives, but the handcrafted clarinet shows that at least musician was among them as well.

Our tour started at 8pm. Our guide took us through the chapel, the warden and chaplain quarters and the numerous rooms used in the filming of the movie The Shawshank Redemption; including the room used where Brooks hanged himself. The words “Brooks was here” and “Red was too” are emblazoned on the wood above in the room. The hands of Morgan Freeman once touched that wall, making it even more special.

The tour continued through the East Cell Blocks and the West Cell Blocks. The East Cell Block extends all the way to the ceiling with 6 levels of cells. Our guide told us to try to imagine how bad the smell was with thousands of inmates who only showered once a week. An inmate would start up at the very top of the cells and work their way down. Once they got to the 5^th level, if they were lucky, they would get transferred to the West Cell Block. The worst criminals stayed in the East Cell Block where in the summer it was 98 degrees in the cells and inmates threw whatever they could find to try to break the windows across from them. In the winter it was so cold their toilets froze and their fingers and toes regularly losing feeling. I cannot even imagine how bad the smell got in the summer. I am glad I will never know!

We ended our tour around 9pm. Several of us headed to the restroom and then the air conditioned break room where pop, coffee and water are available. Our pizza arrived while we were in the break room so we grabbed a bite before starting our adventure. We decided to start in the East Cell Block.

In the beginning, we felt nothing. We resorted to goofing off and got plenty of giggles taking silly pictures on the stairs and in some of the rooms. After about 2 hours, we had felt nothing and were starting to get a bit discouraged. We had traveled to the very top of the East Cell Block and were amazed at the sheer size of the area. We then traveled to the break room (getting lost several times in the maze of the building) and sat down for a bit to rehydrate and also get some caffeine. We checked in with several other hunters and found that the most active places seemed to be solitary confinement and the basement which was where we were headed next. First, two of us attempted to get back to the parking lot to get something out of our vehicle and managed to wander into places we had not been yet. I think it took us 20 minutes just to find our way to the cars!

Once our break was over, we headed to solitary confinement. We had found out earlier that solitary confinement was a misleading title. Sometimes 6-10 men were stuck in the same tiny cell. The lights were either on 24 hours a day or there were no lights at all. There were many suicides and many homicides. The feeling down in solitary was very dark and depressing and made us all nervous. It was definitely nothing like the energies we had felt upstairs in the West cell block. We constantly found ourselves looking over our shoulders at unseen followers and glancing into cells. There was one cell that set off a fellow hunter’s EMF detector. No other cells down there did and it was only the middle of the cell. We took photos but did not catch anything. Once we got to a certain area, we were very reluctant to enter. It seemed as if spirits were trying to get us to stay out. Of course we still went in! I noticed a mist float in front of me and disappear quickly. We started talking to the spirits and I turned my recorder on. I did not catch any otherworldly voices but did hear my group commenting on how hot and stifling the air seemed to be. We glanced behind us a lot and walked more quickly than we had all night to get out of the area. We all started to feel very tired after that so we headed to the break room. I really do not know how much time had passed in solitary, just as the prisoners would not have, but it seemed like we were down there for hours.

Once we got to the break room, 2 of us decided to go back to the West Cell Block. We each chose a cell, about 4 cells apart and turned off our flashlights. We were engulfed in a dark that cannot compare to the dark you feel when you are safe in your home at night. It was a dark full of shadows, dark feelings and fear. We tried not to be afraid as we sat in the cells. I felt a cold spot and a finger trace along my neck in an “I will slit your throat” way. I tried to calm down but about 10 seconds later, my friend and I both turned our flashlights on at the exact same time with no warning from each other and quickly left the cells. She had experienced her arms tingling and a sudden irrational fear that the cell door would close and trapping her inside. As we walked into the break room, I guess it was obvious that were freaked out. Others asked right away what had happened and we told our stories.

Mansfield is a place I would definitely visit again. Next time I will be equipped with a better digital recorder and I will keep it on the whole time we are hunting. The trip was definitely worth the $80 per person. I was amazed at how brave I was, I had never been on an actual ghost hunt and I detest haunted houses. I have now figured out the reason I hate haunted houses is not only because they are fake but the atmosphere is charged to make you much more jumpy. My advice to all is: when you go to Mansfield; if you go to Mansfield, is to go with a brave face on. There is a lot of walking but the old building still houses some of the inmates who have passed. It seems their sentence is not over and they still haunt the cells they were held in. The money spent on the hunt also helps keep the building preserved and like I said once before, so very worth it!