The tree stands in the middle of a farmer's field outside Malabar Farm State Park in north-central Ohio. The oak off Pleasant Valley Rd is a tourist attraction and a stop on Ohio's little-known Shawshank Trail.
The drive-it-yourself Hollywood tour around Mansfield in Richland County celebrates 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.
The Shawshank Trail, with 12 stops in three counties, has its own website, brochure, map and special offers for visitors. If you start in Mansfield, hit all the local stops and then drive to Upper Sandusky, you'll cover about 150km along the trail, organisers report.
The Shawshank Redemption, based on a Stephen King short story, earned an Academy Award nomination for Freeman. It had modest box-office success, but has become a cult favourite.
As much as 95% of the film was shot in Mansfield, including the now-closed Ohio State Reformatory. Other scenes were shot in Ashland, Butler and Upper Sandusky in Ohio, plus the US Virgin Islands and Portland, Maine.
When "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman) is released from prison, he follows instructions left him by Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) to find a box hidden beneath a tree. Yes, that's the Malabar Farm oak, although the cinematic setting is in New England.
The oak looks like a Hollywood star. It is on private property and visitors are asked not to trespass. You can view the tree in the middle of a grassy field from a turnoff.
The biggest location from The Shawshank Redemption is the old Ohio State Reformatory on Mansfield's north side.
Construction of the prison began in 1886. It opened in 1896 and housed about 154,000 prisoners over 94 years. It closed in 1990. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the reformatory boasts the world's largest free-standing steel cell block.
The Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society offers Sunday afternoon tours. The 2011 season began on May 1.
There are three tours and they start from 1pm to 3.45pm on a rotating basis every 15 minutes. The Sunday tours continue through to September.
The Hollywood tour includes a peek at Dufresne's tunnel, which is 60cm in diameter. The "sewage" Dufresne crawled through in the film was concocted from chocolate syrup, sawdust and water. You can also see the warden's office and the carving on the ceiling that reads "Brooks was here. So was Red."
In addition, you can take a self-guided prison tour from 11am to 4pm weekdays through September.
Tickets for the Sunday and weekday tours are $US8 for adults and $US6 for children 7 to 17.
All 15 ghost hunts and eight ghost walks in the old prison are sold out for 2011. The 2012 schedule will be released in October.
If you go:
For more information go to:
• www.shawshanktrail.com
• www.mrps.org
• www.mansfieldtourism.com
Offers at the Ohio State Reformatory include a Shawshank sandwich, a prison bundt cake, chocolate candy bars, prison break sodas and ice cream sundaes.
