Anthony Treat photograph

This photograph from the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus is of 58-year-old Anthony Treat of Hamilton County. His formal attire suggests that the photograph was taken during his trial or sentencing. Treat confessed to murdering 10-year-old Helen Sellers on Christmas Day in Cincinnati, Ohio. The caption at the bottom reads: "No. 236, Anthony Treat of Hamilton County, Legally Electrocuted June 30th, 1943, for the Murder of Helen Sellers." In 1885 the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, became the location for all executions, which previously took place in the various county seats. In 1896 the Ohio General Assembly mandated that electrocution replace hanging as the form of capital punishment. The Ohio Penitentiary regularly offered tours as well as souvenir photographs and postcards of the building and prisoners on death row. A total of 315 prisoners, both men and women, were executed in the electric chair known as “Old Sparky” between 1897 and 1963