MANSFIELD — The Ohio State Reformatory is known as a historic prison, but it’s also home to some of the greatest movies ever made and, over the years, has become a popular haunted attraction.
The prison was opened in 1886 and is nearly 140 years old. The institution's goal was truly to “reform” and rehabilitate its inmates, who received three things during their time at OSR: religion, education and a trade. By the early 1960s, however, the state pulled its financial support from the Reform model and began converting OSR into a maximum-security facility. By the 1980s, the conditions had deteriorated to the point where the inmates sued the state of Ohio.
The lawsuit was successful, and construction began on a new modern facility nearby. The Reformatory was finally closed in 1990. It sat empty for several years until local activists rallied to purchase the building from the state $1 and committed to repairing and restoring this historic structure.
“It was a historic landmark that needed to be saved. So, since then, our entire mission has been preserving and restoring the beautifully architectural building we have,” said Program Director Ashleigh Ramey.
The Reformatory now serves as a museum, event space and haunted attraction during Halloween.
“We have the Ohio Corrections Museum, the Shawshank Museum and the North Central Ohio Industrial Museum. On top of those museums, we offer a daytime historic tour program, escape rooms and of course we offer the blood prison haunted house during spooky season,” said Ramey.
Six major motion pictures have been filmed at the Reformatory, including Tango and Cash, Harry and Walter go to New York, Judas and the Black Messiah, Air Force and Shawshank Redemption—which is still rated as the best movie of all time on IMDb.
“People get a lot of hope and inspiration from this movie. So, when they show up as fans of the movie, they pull down that main boulevard, they see the shot from the movie and they're just so excited to connect with the building,” said Ramey.
And now fans of the film Shawshank Redemption can spend a little time near the movie's prison set. Two houses adjacent to the Ohio State Reformatory are available to visitors through Airbnb. The Retro House and Hatlan house, which were once home to reformatory guards and their families, were turned into short-term rentals. One of the Airbnbs is inspired by the 1940s, and the second one takes you back to Shawshank Redemption. It includes themed rooms such as Andy’s Cell and Warden Norton’s Office.
“You can go inside and see stuff related to the movie, which was really interesting to me,” said visitor Michael Bedrill.
Bedrill drove up from Chicago and was excited to see there were several Shawshank sightseeing opportunities, like the 10-stop guided bus tour and the self-drive Shawshank trail.
Over 600 people have stayed in the two Airbnbs in 2025.
“There’s no hotels right next to us so we're able to offer convenient lodging to our guests and they receive a discount for $25 off up to 4 tickets, for any daytime historical tour,” said Ramey.
The prison draws over 150,000 people a year and Destination Mansfield says the reformatory generates around $20 million.
“We're blessed to have something like this in our backyard. You had this ancient prison, built in the 1800’s that nobody envisioned would do what it is doing for the local economy. And now over 100 and some years later, and it's serving the community in a way that's phenomenal and likely to stay that way for decades to come. And every year the infrastructure gets better, every year new event ideas come up, every year, Hollywood and production companies come to the reformatory," said President of Destination Mansfield Lee Tasseff.
The reformatory bought two additional homes in the same neighborhood and plans to also turn those into short-term rentals, bringing the total to four.
