Fans of 1994 movie can follow footsteps of prison characters during Ohio tour

The oak is a Hollywood star with glitz and glitter and its own film credit.

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 Road 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 the 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 90 miles along the trail, organizers 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 favorite.

As much as 95 percent 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 U.S. 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. That rock wall, added through Hollywood magic-making, is where Dufresne has left a surprise for Redding.

The oak tree at Malabar Farm is easy to find. If you turn right on leaving the park, the tree will be on your left about 200 yards from the park entrance on the north side of Pleasant Valley Road.

It looks like a Hollywood star.

The tree 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 on the south side of the road.

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 May 1. There are three tours and they start from 1 to 3:45 p.m. on a rotating basis every 15 minutes. The Sunday tours continue through September.

The Hollywood tour includes a peek at Dufresne's tunnel, which is two feet 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 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays through September.

Tickets for the Sunday and weekday tours are $8 for adults and $6 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. For information, call 419-522-2644 or check http://www.mrps.org or http://www.mansfieldtourism.com.

Other Mansfield sites in the movie include Central Park with its white gazebo; the Carrousel Antique Shop at 118 N. Main St. in the city's historical Carrousel District; and the Bissman Building at 193 N. Main St. (it was the Brewer Hotel in the film).

Stops in Ashland include Revivals Thrift Store at 345 Orange St. and the Huntington National Bank at 19 W. Main St.

In Upper Sandusky, the trail stops are the Wyandot County Courthouse at 109 S. Sandusky Ave. and the Stephan Lumber Co. at 228 S. Eighth St. (open by appointment with advance notice, 419-835-5163).

Two other sites in Malabar Farm State Park are stops on the Shawshank Trail: the so-called Big House and the Pugh Cabin.

The Big House has its own very real Hollywood connection. The 32-room farmhouse, the onetime home of Pulitzer Prize-winning author and conservationist Louis Bromfield (1896-1956), is where Hollywood stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married in 1945.

Bogart and Bromfield had become friends when Bromfield lived in New York City.

The farm, acquired by Bromfield in 1939, was the base for his innovative farming techniques in Pleasant Valley. The farm was named after India's Malabar coast, the setting for his novel The Rains Came.

The farm is the big attraction at the 917-acre state park between Mansfield and Loudonville. It was acquired by the state in 1972.

The park offers 12 miles of hiking trails but tours of the Big House and the barns with the farm animals are the most popular attractions. Tours lasting 40 minutes are offered year-round. The fee is $4 for adults, $3.60 for 55 and older and $2 for students 6 through 18.

The house is filled with antiques, art objects, 6,000 books and French furnishings. Everything looks like it did when Bromfield, his wife, Anne, and their three daughters lived there.

Wagon tours of the farm are also available. The tours are 45 minutes. The fee is $2 for everyone 16 and older.

Discounted tickets combining the house tour and wagon ride are $5 for adults and $3 for children 6 to 18.

Other features at the park include a working dairy barn, a petting farm, a farm discovery center, a sugar maple camp, a sawmill, a smokehouse, a chicken coop, flower gardens, an amphitheater, a playground and a roadside stand for pesticide-free produce.