Frank J. Naiberg photograph

This photograph from the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus is of Frank J. Naiberg, a 45-year-old itinerant truck driver from Lorain, Ohio. His formal attire suggests that the photograph was taken during his trial or sentencing. Naiberg was convicted of murdering Mrs. Mary Wallace, also of Lorain. The caption at the bottom reads "No. 249, Frank J. Naiberg of Lorain County, Legally Electrocuted February 9, 1946, for the Murder of Mrs. Mary Wallace." Naiberg was electrocuted on the same night as Ralph Brown. 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