Tale of Two Cities: The Journey from OSR to ManCI
by John Futty. (Reprinted with permission from the Mansfield News Journal)
December 9, 1990
There was no mistaking Mansfield's excitement on November 4, 1886, when ceremonies marked the laying of the cornerstone for an intermediate state prison that would become know as the Ohio State Reformatory.
A headline in the Richland Shied & Banner proclaimed it as "Mansfield's Greatest Day."
The day's events served as the culmination of a long campaign by business and political leaders who wanted the prison built in Mansfield.
The campaign began shortly after the end of the Civil War, but it wasn't until 1884 that the state legislature approved the creation of a prison to serve as an intermediate step between the Boys Industrial School in Lancaster and the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. One year later, a board appointed by the governor selected Mansfield as the site
