Shawshank State Prison

This is the Ohio State Reformatory, a historic prison that was used as the filming location for the Shawshank State Penitentiary.

It is located at 100 Reformatory Road in Mansfield, Ohio.

While several movies have been shot at the location, it was made famous by the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption. The film tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a banker who is sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife and her lover.

Andy befriends a fellow prisoner and contraband smuggler named Ellis "Red" Redding. He uses his financial expertise to assist the corrupt Warden Samuel Norton with a money-laundering scheme.

In 1965, an inmate named Tommy Williams reveals that another prisoner confessed to the murders for which Andy was convicted. When Andy brings this information to Norton, he refuses to help, as he fears that it might jeopardize his laundering operation. Instead, he has Tommy killed and places Andy in solitary confinement.

Andy later escapes the prison through a tunnel he has been digging for 19 years. He brings the warden's ledger with him and withdraws over $370,000 of the laundered funds. He then mails the ledger to a newspaper and the state prosecutor's office, which leads to the arrest of Captain Hadley and Warden Norton's suicide.

Red is eventually paroled and follows a message that Andy hid in a hayfield in Buxton.

He uses the money Andy left for him to travel to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, where the two friends are reunited on a beach.

Ohio State Reformatory

Ohio State Reformatory was built between 1886 and 1910. It was designed by architect Levi T. Scofield, who used a mix of Victorian Gothic, Richardsonian Romanesque, and Queen Anne styles. The castle-like exterior was intended to be an uplifting structure that would encourage inmates to be "reborn back into their spiritual lives."

Originally named the "Intermediate Penitentiary," its goal was to rehabilitate young, first-time offenders. The institution focused on reformation through religion, education, and learning a trade. It inducted its first 150 inmates on September 15th, 1896.

The reform model was successful for decades. However, by the early 1960s, the state had converted the facility into a maximum-security prison. Conditions deteriorated, leading to a prisoners' class-action suit in the 1980s that cited overcrowding and inhumane conditions.

Later, a federal court ordered the facility to be closed.

It officially shut its doors in December 1990.

The building sat empty for several years and was planned for demolition. In 1995, the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society was formed. The group purchased the building from the state for one dollar and committed to restoring the historic structure.

Filming

Principal photography for The Shawshank Redemption took place at the prison in 1993. The production used the building for most of the movie's scenes, including the warden's office and large panning shots. A room in the reformatory was also used for the hotel room where the character Brooks Hatlen stayed after his release.

Because the original prison cells were too small for a film crew, the internal cellblock scenes were not shot inside the reformatory. Instead, they were filmed on a purpose-built set in a nearby closed Westinghouse factory.

The prison also featured in other films, including Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), Tango & Cash (1989), Air Force One (1997), and Judas and the Black Messiah (2021).