The Ohio State Reformatory Guided Tour Review

I have been wanting to visit The Ohio State Reformatory for awhile and had just never got around to it. When I had a vacation that was cancelled last minute, I took the opportunity to visit some closer to home sites. I booked my tickets in advance on the website and deliberated on whether to do the self guided tour or a guided tour. What decided it for me, was that the self guided tour is included in the price of the guided tour. I would definitely sign up in advance for the guided tour as I noted that our tour was sold out when we checked in. Note the cute detail of the line dividers.

After getting our wristbands, we wandered just a bit through the self guided area before heading to our tour meeting place.

The tour we signed up for was called Beyond the Bars. We had a fabulous guide whose true enthusiasm for this historical site shone through. It was so interesting to learn that before the reformatory was there, it was a Civil War training site and how the Reformatory came to be built, the early guiding principles that formed the early success of the Reformatory’s mission and how history unfolded that led to the dark later years of the Reformatory’s history.

Throughout the tour, we also learned about some of the filming locations for the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Be on the lookout for a large room with a glass wall that overlooks the prison block. This room was in the Air Force One movie.

This tour was fantastic, but be prepared for the stairs. The tour is just a little less than 1 and 1/2 hours and can be workout with the amount of walking and staircases. Most of the tour will be affected by the temperature outside as it is impossible to air condition and heat such a massive space.

After our tour, I was hoping to spend a little time to do some of the self guided tour, but my son wasn’t quite up for it, so we left. We went to Kingwood Center Gardens which is only about an eight minute drive away before we did the drive home.

I was hoping I could tell you more about how the self guided tour compares to the guided tour, but I really cannot answer that question, as I only got to see a few of the displays that are part of the self guided tour. However, the guided tour takes you many places that the self guided tour does not go, and that makes an impact on understanding the history of the Reformatory and completely worth your time to do.