1934
Federal Prisoners Land on Alcatraz
A group of federal prisoners classified as “most dangerous”
arrives at Alcatraz Island, a 22-acre rocky outcrop situated 1.5 miles offshore
in San Francisco Bay. The convicts–the first civilian prisoners to be housed in
the new high-security penitentiary–joined a few dozen military prisoners left
over from the island’s days as a U.S. military prison.
Alcatraz was an uninhabited seabird haven when it was explored
by Spanish Lieutenant Juan Manuel de Ayala in 1775. He named it Isla de los
Alcatraces, or “Island of the Pelicans.” Fortified by the Spanish, Alcatraz
was sold to the United States in 1849. In 1854, it had the distinction of
housing the first lighthouse on the coast of California. Beginning in 1859, a
U.S. Army detachment was garrisoned there, and from 1868 Alcatraz was used to
house military criminals. In addition to recalcitrant U.S. soldiers, prisoners
included rebellious Indian scouts, American soldiers fighting in the
Philippines who had deserted to the Filipino cause, and Chinese civilians who
resisted the U.S. Army during the Boxer Rebellion. In 1907, Alcatraz was
designated the Pacific Branch of the United States Military Prison.
In 1934, Alcatraz was fortified into a high-security federal
penitentiary designed to hold the most dangerous prisoners in the U.S. penal
system, especially those with a penchant for escape attempts. The first
shipment of civilian prisoners arrived on August 11, 1934. Later that month,
more shiploads arrived, featuring, among other convicts, infamous mobster Al
Capone. In September, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, another luminary of organized
crime, landed on Alcatraz.
In the 1940s, a famous Alcatraz prisoner was Richard Stroud, the
“Birdman of Alcatraz.” A convicted murderer, Stroud wrote an important study on
birds while being held in solitary confinement in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas.
Regarded as extremely dangerous because of his 1916 murder of a guard at
Leavenworth, he was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942. Stroud was not allowed to
continue his avian research at Alcatraz.
Although some three dozen attempted, no prisoner was known to
have successfully escaped “The Rock.” However, the bodies of several escapees
believed drowned in the treacherous waters of San Francisco Bay were never
found. The story of the 1962 escape of three of these men, Frank Morris and
brothers John and Clarence Anglin, inspired the 1979 film Escape from
Alcatraz. Another prisoner, John Giles, caught a boat ride to the shore in
1945 dressed in an army uniform he had stolen piece by piece, but he was
questioned by a suspicious officer after disembarking and sent back to
Alcatraz. Only one man, John Paul Scott, was recorded to have reached the
mainland by swimming, but he came ashore exhausted and hypothermic at the foot
of the Golden Gate Bridge. Police found him lying unconscious and in a state of
shock.
In 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered
Alcatraz closed, citing the high expense of its maintenance. In its 29-year
run, Alcatraz housed more than 1,500 convicts. In March 1964 a group of Sioux
Indians briefly occupied the island, citing an 1868 treaty with the Sioux
allowing Indians to claim any “unoccupied government land.” In November 1969, a
group of nearly 100 Indian students and activists began a more prolonged
occupation of the island, remaining there until they were forced off by federal
marshals in June 1971.
In 1972, Alcatraz was opened to the public as part of the newly
created Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is maintained by the
National Park Service. More than one million tourists visit Alcatraz Island and
the former prison annually.