HAUNTED PLACES / OHIO

OHIO STATE REFORMATORY,
MANSFIELD.

The Ohio State Reformatory was a prison from 1896 to 1990 and is now a museum with daytime tours and overnight ghost hunts. Here is its history, what people report inside, and how to run a session there.

The history

Ohio began building its Intermediate Penitentiary outside Mansfield in 1886, for first-time offenders between the boys' school at Lancaster and the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. Levi T. Scofield of Cleveland drew the plans in a Gothic and Romanesque mix; the society that runs the site says he meant the building itself to work on the men inside it, uplifting and intimidating at once. Renamed the Ohio State Reformatory in 1891, it took its first 150 prisoners by train from Columbus on September 15, 1896, and construction went on around them until 1910.

The regime was religion, education and a trade, on a typical sentence of 18 months. The East Cell Block, all steel and six tiers high, is listed by Guinness World Records as the world's largest free-standing cell block. By the early 1960s, by the society's account, the state had dropped the reform model and ran the building as a maximum security prison, with the population peaking around 3,500 men in a building intended for 1,900.

People died here. Two guards were killed during escape attempts: Urban Wilford, shot at the west gate in 1926, and Frank Hanger, struck with an iron bar in October 1932. Arthur Lewis Glattke, warden from 1935 to 1959, lost his wife Helen in November 1950 when a handgun fell from a closet shelf in their quarters and discharged; she died days later. Glattke himself died in 1959 after a heart attack in his office. The prison cemetery holds more than 200 inmates who died inside.

In 1978 inmates filed a class action over overcrowding and conditions, and the federal consent decree that settled it closed the reformatory in December 1990. The state took down the wall and outbuildings and built the Mansfield Correctional Institution on part of the grounds; the main building was awaiting demolition when The Shawshank Redemption was shot here in 1993, for release in 1994. Local people formed the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society in 1995 and later bought the building for a nominal sum. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 1983, it now draws more than 120,000 visitors a year, houses the Ohio Corrections Museum, with the electric chair used for 315 executions at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, and in 2024 began raising funds to restore the water-damaged West Cell Block.

What people report

The accounts staff repeat most often belong to the Glattkes. Kathy Feketik, the site's paranormal program manager, told Ideastream Public Media in October 2025 that she has smelled roses on the second floor of the administration wing near Helen Glattke's old bedroom, which staff connect to her rose water. Guides and visitors describe cherry pipe tobacco on the grounds and associate it with the warden.

Staff say 266 men moved from the Ohio Penitentiary after the fire there in 1930 were held in the unventilated West Attic, and that their signatures are still on the walls; guests on night hunts report a smell of smoke there. In the room with the electric chair, participants who sit in the dark for fifteen minutes describe it shifting or vibrating, voices and small lights, according to the same staff.

The society's own hunts send guests, lights out, into the East Cell Block, the chapel, the West Attic, solitary confinement and the administration wing, where returning visitors describe footsteps on the tiers, cell doors sounding with no one near, cold spots and shadows. None of it has been checked; it is what people say they met in a very large, very dark building.

Accounts of hauntings here are folklore and entertainment, not verified events.

On television

The reformatory was filmed for Ghost Hunters in its second season, in a 2005 episode that paired it with the Lizzie Borden house in Fall River, Massachusetts; for Ghost Adventures in its third season, in the episode titled Ohio State Reformatory, first aired on November 20, 2009; and for BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural in its fourth season, in The Phantom Prisoners of Ohio State Penitentiary, released on May 11, 2018. The BuzzFeed episode is online: Watch the BuzzFeed Unsolved episode on the BuzzFeed Unsolved Network's official channel.

Visiting and running your own session

The reformatory is open for daytime tours most of the year: self-guided or guided, on themes from the building's history to its film locations. Days and hours change with the season, and from the end of August to mid-November a haunted house attraction takes over parts of the route, so check the venue's site before you go. One guided tour climbs 439 stairs, and the society asks for sturdy shoes and clothes for the weather, since much of the building is unheated and drafty.

Ghost hunting and its equipment are not allowed on daytime tours; the society runs evening programs instead. Ghost Walks (ages 13 and up, with an adult) are guided tours of the reported areas, not investigations. Mini Ghost Hunts on select Fridays and Public Ghost Hunts on select Saturdays (ages 18 and up, photo ID and a signed waiver) leave guests in the building with the lights out until two or three in the morning; private groups can book a night of their own. The society publishes no rule against phones or recording at these events, and a flashlight is required.

More than 200 men who died here lie in the cemetery; the Glattkes and two guards died inside the walls. Keep that in mind in the cells and the warden's quarters: quiet voices, nothing climbed on, nothing taken. For a session, a cell on an upper tier of the East Cell Block or a pew in the chapel is still and far from the break room and other groups' gear. Set the phone down and leave it alone.

Try a session there

Spooky Box runs a spirit box-style session on an Android phone; the reformatory's quiet ranges suit it. The phone's sensors decide the moment, chance decides the word, and each word shows the reason it came up. Record the session as audio or video and replay it afterwards from any word.

Sources

Ohio State Reformatory, Wikipedia: dates, deaths, closure and the films.
Our Story, Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society: the official history, tours and programs.
Ghost stories of the Shawshank Redemption prison live on in Mansfield, Ideastream Public Media via WYSO: the staff accounts, October 2025.
National Register of Historic Places record 83002039: the 1983 listing.

Questions

Is the Ohio State Reformatory really haunted?

No one can say. Staff, guides and visitors report smells, sounds and feelings in the administration wing, the West Attic, the chapel and the cell blocks. Those accounts are reports and folklore, passed on by the people who had them, not verified events. What is certain is the history: 94 years as a prison, and the deaths inside it.

Can you stay overnight at the Ohio State Reformatory?

Not to sleep, but the society's Public Ghost Hunts run from evening until about 3 a.m. on select Saturdays, and Mini Ghost Hunts on select Fridays until about 2 a.m. Both are for ages 18 and up with photo ID and a signed waiver, and they sell out months ahead. Private groups can book a night of their own.

Is the Ohio State Reformatory open to the public?

Yes. The Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society runs it as a museum, with self-guided and guided daytime tours most of the year. Days and hours change with the season and the autumn haunted house alters the route, so check mrps.org before you visit.

Spooky Box is paranormal entertainment. It uses device sensor activity and a word engine to create atmospheric sessions. Generated words and sensor readings do not establish the presence of spirits or verified communication.

OHIO STATE REFORMATORY,MANSFIELD.