OSR 30th Anniversary Documentary Video

The Ohio State Reformatory posted this short documentary in March 2025 to mark 30 years of the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society, the nonprofit that runs the former prison. Founding members recall the mid-1980s, when Ohio announced a replacement prison and planned to demolish the old building, and how local people persuaded the state to let them try to preserve it.

Interviewees describe the arrival of location scouts from Castle Rock for The Shawshank Redemption – the director, one recalls, called the building the biggest character in the film – and how the filming helped save it from demolition, though water was still pouring in once the crew had left. Staff, volunteers and civic leaders talk about the shift from scraping by to funding real restoration, the events and programs that pay for it, and the visitors the reformatory brings to Mansfield’s hotels and restaurants.

The film never mentions ghosts, but they are part of the business it describes: the preservation society runs ghost walks and overnight paranormal programs, and markets the prison as one of America’s most haunted places. Those events help pay for the restoration this documentary celebrates.

Keep that commercial link in mind when you hear claims about the reformatory’s ghosts. The real history the film touches on – a prison that held inmates from 1896 to 1990, more than 200 of whom are buried in its cemetery – is what those stories draw on.