November Musings

Here it is November and I am very glad to have survived the crazy season. Ask anyone who works in haunted houses, plans ghost hunts, has a job at a costume store or works at anything spooky and they will tell you this; we are glad its over!

October came to a close and with it some semblance of "quiet" arrived here at the haunted office. The last ghos thunt of the season is this Saturday November 16th and it will find me hosting a Death by Dessert Ghosthunt at the historic Ohio State Reformatory. I am very excited to be back on site there as it has been a couple of months since I have visited there. What an amazing place and what great staff and volunteers!

The Ohio State Reformatory

photo by Sherri Brake

Many love the buildings architecture and find themselves drawn to the old reformatory in Mansfield for one reason or another. Me? I was hooked the first time I saw it! In my book "The Haunted History of the Ohio State Reformatory" I said it best in the foreword when I wrote "It was a rainy afternoon back in 1999 when I first laid eyes on it. I peered through the chain-link fence like a sugar-deprived kid in a candy store. There it stood, massive and monstrous, as if plucked from the very hills of Transylvania. I felt as if I had stepped onto the movie set of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as I glanced at the building. Giant stone walls, foreboding doors and massive turrets returned my stare. I had heard stories of this fortress, and now I was finally seeing it, albeit from a distance. I did not go inside the building, as it was closed that day, but I knew that one day I would be back and would venture inside its winding hallways. The building I fell in love with that day was the historic Ohio State Reformatory."

 I continued on  "One year later I returned, and did so with camera in hand, partaking of a normal daytime tour of the building. The tour guide on that day gave tidbits of history, gruesome stories of past prisoners and Hollywood movie trivia of films shot on site. It was an informative tour, and being the history lover that I am, I ate up every detail and factoid that I could. Little did I know that in a couple of years, I would be back and would be leading hundreds of ghost hunters on investigations throughout this castle-like building?

   What draws people to visit the Ohio State Reformatory? It’s a compilation of various things, but it basically boils down to three: the grand architecture, the history and the ghost stories. I asked various tour guides what originally drew them to the reformatory to volunteer. One volunteer guide told me that the building picked her…she did not pick the building. That pretty much sums it up!"

Even though the busy season has passed and many of us ghost hunters have packed up the EMF meters and put away our cameras, we at Haunted Heartland Tours continue to study, research and plan for events and investigations in 2014. I have to say that we have some new offerings in 2014 and I am excited to announce them at our website www.HauntedHistory.net at the end of December.

Stay tuned........