DD Ohio Penitentiary YOUTUBE.mp4 >>> We're coming along to North Bank Park.

One of the more recent parks in the city.

This is an interesting part of town.

There's been a lot of development here.

Residential development, commercial development and a major Columbus landmark was replaced in all of this process, and that's the Ohio Penitentiary.

A lot of people, I think, just wouldn't realize that it was here because it's full of new housing, tall rise buildings.

And we're going to have an interesting visit with somebody who knows a whole lot about the Ohio Penitentiary.

Hello, David.

How are you?

>>> Jeff, you're good.

Yeah.

>>> Yeah.

Thank you for coming out today.

So tell me where we are.

>>> Well, we're in practically in the center of downtown Columbus on the riverfront, where there's been a lot of history that we don't think a lot of people know about, due to the fact that many of the historic monuments and buildings are no longer here.

>>> Well, that's right.

Because of the buildings here at the North Bank Park or new because it's really a fairly new park.

>>> Yes.

>>> And across the way, on the other side of Spring and Long streets here, you've got wonderful new residential buildings.

But there's a bigger story across the street, too, because that was the site of the Ohio Penitentiary.

>>> It was.

But the story actually started downriver as far as the Miranova condominiums, where the Cultural Arts Center now stands.

The first prison was a three-story structure, including the basement.

And it had 13 cells.

And nine of them were light cells, which mean they had windows and four were dark, which meant they were the dungeon.

>>> Oh My.

>>> And that was built to hold 60 people.

And those 13 cells.

>>> Sounds a little crowded.

>>> I imagine it was.

Crowding is something that prisoners have gotten accustomed to over the years.

>>> Yeah.

>>> And that's been the downfall of many prisons in the building.

>>> Well, the Ohio Penitentiary then was a replacement of this earlier structure.

>>> It was.

>>> How big was the site where they built the pen?

>>> It was roughly 20 acres.

>>> Okay.

So for comparison, people might know the capital square in downtown Columbus is 10 acres.

>>> Yes.

>>> Double that.

And that's how much land.

They had a pen.

>>> But actually it was still compressed because it was a large prison built for 1,500 people, inmates, and it sometimes got as high as 5,000.

>>> My goodness.

When did construction start?

>>> About 1834.

>>> Okay.

So it was very early.

>>> Yes.

The governor, 10 years earlier, wanted to build a new prison.

And that's how long it takes to get something like that through the legislature and get the funding for it.

But they built it.

Used prison labor, of course.

And and they continued to build it almost through its entire lifetime.

>>> Well, of course, none of that remains.

What was the pen site now is a big part of the Arena District, a complete redevelopment of that area and very successful one.

And I understand, though, that there may be some pieces of the pen remaining that we can have a look at.

>>> There are some pieces and we can definitely take a look.

>>> I would guess you know where they are.

>>> This way.

>>> Lead the way.

[ Acoustic Guitar ].

>>> What a great space for the fountain going all day.

I bet a lot of kids play on this fountain.

>>> I think so.

>>> And these are stones from the pen.

>>> These are stones from the pen.

I don't know how they got them, who put them there.

But you'll find stones like this around the city in different places.

>>> Well, I can tell looking at this, this is what's known as Columbus Limestone.

>>> It is.

You can see the fossils.

>>> The vein that comes down the Scioto Valley.

The state house is built of the same stone.

And if you look closely, you see all kinds of fossils.

And I think this is something like 400 million years old.

It's really, really old.

>>> It's interesting that they were building the penitentiary and the state house with the same.

>>> Yeah, they were.

>>> Overlap some write penitentiary got done first because I guess there was a more urgent need for that.

>>> Well that's really good information.

A lot of things I didn't know about the Ohio pen, but I really I'd love to see more.

Could we get over to the site?

>>> Well, I'm glad you asked.

We're at the corner of Spring and Neil and the prison was right over there.

>>> Let's go.

[ Acoustic Guitar }.

>>> Okay, so we're at the corner of spring and Neil.

>>> Correct.

>>> And behind us is not the Ohio pen.

>>> Not the Ohio pen, not even a good facsimile of it.

>>> But a very nice.

>>> Very nice building.

>>> Good reuse of the land.

>>> Yeah.

>>> It's largely the center of the Arena District.

And by any measure, that's been a real plus for Columbus.

>>> Yeah.

And, you know, be grateful for what we do have.

>>> Yes.

>>> And there are some scattered pieces.

We have many photographs and some video.

>>> That's good.

Well, and a lot of people pass through the pen.

Who are some of the more famous ones?

>>> Well, one of the earliest ones was John Hunt Morgan, who was a general Confederate Army.

I led a raid in 1863 through southern Indiana and Ohio.

Southern Ohio had 2,500 cavalrymen with him.

>>> That's a lot of horses.

>>> And so basically undertook this raid against a direct order, because.

>>> I did know that.

>>> He tried to stage psychological warfare and that was what he was interested in.

So he didn't really do all that much damage and he ended up being captured.

They rounded up a whole bunch of guys, man.

Some of them were brought to Ohio.

Some were brought to Pennsylvania, some to Chicago.

And in prison, Morgan and his officers were put in the Ohio penitentiary, which was viewed as a slight because he wasn't a criminal.

He was a soldier.

>>> Well, and O. Henry the writer.

>>> O. Henry the writer was Sydney  Porter,, William Sydney Porter.

>>> What did he do to get himself in the.

>>> Well?

He got convicted of embezzling, was sentenced to the Ohio penitentiary.

He was really humiliated by that.

And no one really thinks that he was guilty of committing a crime.

They think he was a bad bookkeeper while he was here.

You know, he became a writer and started writing short stories and became one of the most renowned short story writer.

>>> So that's that's when his writing began, was, well, he was in the pen.

>>> And, you know, the O supposedly stands for Ohio in O Henry.

Later on during the 1930s fire you had Chester B. Himes was here who was African-American from Cleveland, Ohio kind of ran with a rough crowd and ended up in prison.

And he became a writer, too, based upon, you know, emulating O Henry.

And he wrote a novel about the Ohio Penitentiary Fire autobiographical novel.

And he got out.

He became famous for writing about two Harlem detectives, and they were based upon two Columbus black detectives.

And he followed their exploits in the newspapers and fictionalize them.

>>> It's almost an upside to what was happening in the Ohio pen.

>>> Yeah, it's and there were other people who came through Sam Shepard, Doctor Sam Shepard.

>>> Oh.

>>> And he was convicted of killing his wife up in the Cleveland area.

And he because he was a doctor, he actually became involved as a medical practitioner in the penitentiary.

He was exonerated because the court decided that he didn't have a fair trial because the publicity at the time was so prejudicial they didn't feel that they could get a jury.

>>> So what's this about a vampire?

>>> It's one of my favorite stories.

Years before anybody ever heard Dracula, we had an inmate named James Brown.

In 1867, he was a Portuguese sailor sailing out of Massachusetts, and the captain discovered two of his crewmates dead.

And he supposedly claimed that he caught James drinking their blood.

So.

>>> Yikes.

>>> He was tried for this but not tried as being a vampire.

In fact, that didn't even come up in the testimony, just that he was found and they thought they had the evidence that he had killed these two guys.

So he was sentenced to prison.

And, you know, there's stories of him drinking, killing rats and breaking the blood and all that kind of stuff.

And he his behavior was so bizarre that he ended up being sent to Washington, D.C., the Saint Elizabeth Asylum, and that's where he spent the rest of his days.

>>> Well, these are really great stories.

I'd love to see and hear more.

>>> Well, let's go this way and see what we can find.

>>> All right.

[ Acoustic Guitar ] >>> Why don't we just stop here?

>>> Okay.

>>> Show you something else.

>>> And that would be.

>>> This is a good place to imagine how deep the prison was.

What we had in the back there in the back corner.

You had railroad sidings coming in here?

>>> Oh sure.

>>> The inmates would unload coal back when they had foundaries and things.

They'd load stuff up to ship it out.

So there was a lot of activity going on back there.

>>> I think a lot of state House furniture was actually made at the Ohio pen if I recall correctly.

>>> Yeah.

Inmates did everything that can't be overemphasized.

Once you start working in the prison, inmates were preparing your food.

They were doing your typing.

They were cleaning up your office.

You know, they were helping out in the clinic.

>>> The inmates may not have loved having to do this work, but it's better than sitting around because sitting around you begin to stew.

And that can lead to trouble.

>>> That leads to trouble.

And there was some trouble.

>>> Yeah, it was some trouble.

We go back to 1930.

We had the prison fire with 322 inmates die.

That was due to inmates trying to stage a fire in order to escape.

And that fire was so hot, the cell doors just, you know, were welded shut off.

And where we're standing here, there's an overpass for a railroad behind us.

And that is where when the riot was taking place, they went down to Ohio State, got Army ROTC cadets, brought them here, armed them, and had them stand on the railroad tracks with their guns, trained at the walls to keep inmates from leaving.

>>> Now, that was a riot.

Separate from the fire was a different time.

>>> No, that that's what led to the the riot.

Why?

It was because the warden did everything wrong he could possibly do.

And he went outside and told the National Guard and the Columbus Fire Department and stay away.

The inmate fire department could handle this fire.

There's nothing now.

We.

Nothing we can't control.

It was a disaster.

>>> Why?

We've seen so much so far.

But I believe there's still a little more you to see.

>>> There is one that people don't usually recognize as such >>> That's.

That's my kind of experience.

>>> This way.

>>> Let's go.

[ Acoustic Guitar ].

>>> This is not limestone and this is sandstone, and they survive surprisingly well because sandstone can kind of melt away over time.

And they would have been where?

>>> They were up on the very top of the facade.

>>> Okay.

>>> And they were kind of accents.

>>> Right?

Right.

Those things must weigh close to half a ton to what they could move around in the days before electric power when it when horses and steam power was all you had to build things.

It's just amazing.

Well, there's more, isn't there?

We can move on.

>>> Let's go on.

>>> Thank you.

>>> Let's stop here.

This is stoned.

What's actually in the streets surrounding the Ohio penitentiary >>> Stone paving.

>>> How it was paved with that time.

>>> Durable, but not the smoothest.

>>> Not the smoothest.

But it lasted for a long time.

>>> Well, here we are at the north edge of what was the pen property.

There was the wall surrounded the whole thing.

Of course we don't have it anymore.

When did it close?

>>> Well, you could trace it to 1968.

Okay.

They had a riot in 1968 that was different than any riot that they'd ever had before.

And it's because it was a reaction to what was going on countrywide.

You had riots in over 150 cities following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

The inmates weren't immune to that.

In fact, the whole penitentiary inmates were bubbling over with excitement about what was going on outside of them.

And so they ended up taking hostages.

They were threatening to burn them alive unless their demands were met and wound up.

Harold Cardwell was there the warden at the time, they ended up blowing a hole in the roof and in the wall wall of the building, cellblocks simultaneously.

And five inmates were killed.

But that was really the beginning of the end of the Ohio penitentiary.

And Governor Rhodes said it's time to build a new and a penitentiary.

And in 1972, they built Lucasville.

>>> Lucasville.

>>> In 74.

That was the end.

Pretty much the end of the Ohio penitentiary.

And I know because I was there at the time.

This is my.

>>> I was going to say, how come you know so much about Ohio pen?

Because you were there.

>>> Yeah, I was there.

Yes.

I was working the psychology department at the time.

>>> A very serious young man.

>>> All of our files were singed from the 1968 riot.

So we pull out an inmate file that be burned around the edges.

>>> That's just remarkable.

Well, thank you so much.

I've learned.

Thank you tons.

Really appreciate the tour.

And I can't I can't thank you enough.