This story was originally published by the Ohio History Connection. It is being published here by a collaborative agreement.
COLUMBUS — The Ohio State Penitentiary, also known as the Ohio Penitentiary, operated from 1834-1984 in downtown Columbus.
It was known for its poor conditions and at its peak in the mid 1950s it housed more than 5,000 prisoners.
Some of its more famous inmates were General John H. Morgan, who famously escaped the prison during the Civil War, “Bugs” Moran, O. Henry, Chester Himes, and Sam Sheppard, whose story is said to have inspired the movie “The Fugitive.”
Until 1963 when death penalty was halted in the State of Ohio, it was a site of executions.
In 1930 the prison experienced the deadliest prison fire in United States history as it killed 322 inmates and injured 150.
For some time after the Ohio Penitentiary closed in 1984, the building was used as a training site by the Ohio National Guard and for Halloween festivities as “The Haunted Prison.”
It also served as the setting for the 1985 TV movie “Love on the Run.”
The building was eventually sold by the state to the city of Columbus in 1995 and demolished in 1998.
A teenage memory! 1955 (relatively certain) my friend Martha Jane Decker drove two of us to the movies downtown, the Grand Theatre one of three we occasionally attended from
our North End Beechwold homes. So why was this particularly memorable?
Well, we parked along the street on the lower side of the State ‘Pen’ and walked to The Grand. The picture, opening to scary teasers, was b&w film “The Bad Seed”. Absolutely psychologically terrifying, we three teens, ourselves terrified after viewing film, huddled together in the dark heading home, passing alongside the block-long high grey concrete bricked wall (as remembered) and nervously imagining a break-out at that particular hour! Reaching the car, we quickly slid in, shaking, and made our terrified fast escape! The combination of nighttime, a movie of evil, and the imposing penitentiary presence ….. plus heightened imaginations, created a perfect experience noir!
As noted!