Behold the
Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, which housed prisoners from 1896 through 1990. Click on any photo to enlarge.
 |
| Mansfield Reformatory |
 |
| Mansfield Reformatory |
The first thing you notice is the care Levi Scofield, who also designed the
Cuyahoga County Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, put into designing a place for society's most undesirable cast aways. The ornate exterior of the building, however, does not prepare you for what lay deep inside.
I was first met with the offices and formal meeting areas, which are opulent and echo another time. Easy enough.
 |
| Mansfield Reformatory |
 |
| Mansfield Reformatory |
The strangest things about the prison are subtle. This corridor leads to the cell blocks and other prison facilities. And while you can barely make it out in the photo, the happenstance of light through four windows in adjacent rooms forms a perfect X on the floor in front of this door.
 |
| The "X," Mansfield Reformatory |
Everyone is quick to note that the Reformatory's massive all-steel East Cell Block, with its six tiers, is the largest free-standing such structure in the world.
Words, words, words.
You have to see this thing and walk within it to understand the implications of incarceration.
 |
| East Cell Block, Mansfield Reformatory |
Things really went south for me after I stepped out of that stairway and began walking along one of the exterior corridors of the East Block.
The next photo does not convey the length of that walkway, which truly made my jaw drop. As I moved along it, my stomach tightened into a ball and the vague feeling of panic bloomed. Imagine the sounds and smells inside this place when it was packed solid with male human flesh, the sex and emanations.
Everything here is naked. The only thing that might have remained private within these five-by-seven-foot cages is the truth behind the twisted crimes that put men inside them.
 |
| Exterior corridor, East Cell Block, Mansfield Reformatory |
I could barely bring myself to walk into the cells. It felt like stepping through some terrible plenum. Each time I tried, I gagged against bile welling in the back of my throat and had to step out immediately. That is not an exaggeration; my physical reaction was that strong and I was completely surprised by it. The cells in solitary confinement overwhelmed me so much, I couldn't even bring myself to take photos.
 |
| Inmate cell, East Block, Mansfield Reformatory |
Again, these next photos do not begin to capture the power of this massive human cage.
 |
| East Cell Block, Mansfield Reformatory |
 |
| East Cell Block, Mansfield Reformatory |
The guard tower is situated on the uppermost level between the East and West Cell Blocks. How strange and polite it is, with its orderly marble floor and Romanesque pillars.
 |
| Guard tower, Mansfield Reformatory |
The West Block feels completely different from the East Block, probably due to the way the cement portions of the structure make the cells look more like dwellings than cages. On one of the touch screen info vids available throughout the prison, a former inmate talked about the endless clamoring and yelling within the East Block. Unable to sleep there, he requested a transfer to the West Block, which was all but silent.
The absence of noise drove him crazy. He opted to go back to the East Block.
 |
| West Cell Block, Mansfield Reformatory |
Last pic, a pan of the chapel:
 |
| Inmate Chapel, Mansfield Reformatory |
While a few errant pews are obvious enough, what you cannot see is the odd draft you pass through at the entrance of this room. There were several such mysterious drafts throughout the prison. They were the strangest thing, coming from impossible dark corners. They would carress my face and gently lift my hair into flying tendrils.
Call it a whisper,
we are human beings.
* * *
