MANSFIELD — The Ohio State Reformatory, 100 Reformatory Rd. plans to move and expand its museum store to make room for more merchandise.
The store will remain in the East side of the building, making a short move across the hallway, where event and social media coordinator Dan Smith says it will have room to grow.
In fact, it will have “rooms” to grow.
Once moved, the museum store will take up three rooms that will divide merchandise into three sections: Hollywood, historic and paranormal. The project should be completed by the end of summer.
OSR has big plans for the current museum store space, but is not ready to announce them yet.
“But it will be an exciting new addition to OSR that we can’t wait to show you,” Smith said. “Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for that.”
Currently, the restoration crew is finishing another multi-room area to add to the tour route. Previously used as storage space for an outside business, the rooms will be used to display artifacts and stage furniture.
One of the rooms is now stripped to its bricks.
“We took the plaster off the walls to show the guts of the building,” restoration leader William Sample said.
People can see a gutter located inside the wall and how a “pocket door” works. Unlike a regular door that swings open and close, a pocket door slides along a track into a wall.
Where the door is inside the wall, there are a few odd colored bricks. Though it was clear they were added at a different time than the others, Sample didn’t know why until someone told him.
“That was so they could adjust these tracks back inside the walls,” Sample said.
Connected to this room is a smaller one with an exhibit featuring an electric chair used at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus.
Another room offers a view of the cornerstone, which included a time capsule that has been opened.
For Sample, the biggest challenge was restoring the floors.
“We had to learn how they did it to restore it properly,” he said.
