Day 3: May 1, 2011 All Cells. No Phones.

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The main thing on my agenda for today wouldn't open until 12:30. I passed through downtown Mansfield first so I could leave town a bit more quickly later. This intersection, Park & Main, was the Lincoln Highway Control Station. This plaque is on the relocated concrete LH marker.

The tour season starts today but the first Ohio State Reformatory tour isn't until 1:00. From some angles, the place can look like a picturesque castle from the outside and you can grab a snack from the Cell Block Cafe while waiting to go inside.

The inside isn't nearly as picturesque. The first picture shows tour guide Allison in the guard room between the two cell blocks then there's a shot of the west block. The remaining photos are in the east block, the focus of our tour. Long walkways pass in front of the small and stark cells. The next to last picture was taken from outside the actual cell block where the flash makes the bars look like gold. We visited the library area then climbed a couple more flights of stairs to the one time chapel. A glimpse from the walkway leading to the chapel hints at just how high we were.

Allison mentioned some TV show or video that talks about this 'X' as something very sinister. It's simply the intersection of light beams but it does mark the center of the building and may be intentional. It is outside the actual prison in the office/residential portion. The warden and his family were the building's only residents except for a couple thousand men on the other side of th 'X'. Those men produced almost everything on site. This mantle, with the carved "O.S.R", is just one example of inmates' talents. Another is the incomplete wooden clarinet that is on display in the museum. Also on display is one of the door knobs with the state seal that once graced every door in the building outside of the actual prison. Even though the electric chair is a replica and it's inside a camera-unfriendly glass case, it seemed like something I should photograph. The friendly looking ghost on the window may be a reminder that the OSR does "haunted" tours at Halloween.

The Lincoln Highway crosses this bridge as it heads out of Mansfield. The words "Sherman Heineman Park" and the number "87" are on its side. 1887 is when the park opened and I'm guessing that's when the bridge was built. It was ready and waiting when the LH came along. I hope that south railing can be saved. It has a very scary lean.

Two original brick pillars stand in Crestline. One for the city's first LH Consul and another for the vice president and secretary. The Crawford monument is about two miles west of Crestline. It stands near where the colonel was burned at the stake by Indians in 1782. His horrible death was in retaliation for the even more horrible Gnadenhutten massacre which he actually had no part in. The plaque is readable here. The flags honor his service in the Revolutionary War.

The monument to John Hopley, Ohio's first LH Consul, is at the east edge of Bucyrus and is quickly followed by the stone pillar and the marker embedded in the railroad overpass. The mural is in the center of town just across from the relocated LH marker. That's the court house beyond the trees and marker.

At the east edge of Upper Sandusky, a nice two-sided marker stands by a bit of brick Lincoln Highway. It is and I did.

The new brick pillar that was dedicated after last year's OLHL meeting is looking good but the building that stood across the road isn't doing so well.

I also stopped at a Kewpee last year on the way home from the meeting but it was a newer restaurant. This tiny 1928 building is the one I really wanted to visit and was a lot more careful this year. I ate my dinner at the end booth and took the last picture looking back as I left. I took the picture from the booth during the few minutes when the place was completely empty but it was never all that busy. On the other hand, the cars at the drive through were almost constant. Note the doors for "LADIES" and "EMPLOYEES". That's not an employee's restroom but the door that leads behind the counter. I don't know if there is a restroom for people who aren't ladies.

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