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Most
people know that Alcatraz was once a world-famous
federal penitentiary, but the island’s
history before and after the penitentiary
era is less well known. For example, few
realize that it was also the site of the
first American lighthouse on the West Coast
and that the island served as a huge harbor
defense fort during the Civil War. |
After the fort became obsolete, the U.S. Army
turned the island into a grim military prison.
Following the closing of the penitentiary, Alcatraz
became the site of an American Indian protest
movement that would change modern American history.
Pre-1769 The
first people to visit Alcatraz Island were native
peoples who arrived between 10,000 and 20,000
years ago. By the time the first Spanish explorers
arrived in 1769, more than 10,000 indigenous
people lived around San Francisco Bay.
Military Fortress
On August 5, 1775, Spanish
Lt. Juan Manuel de Ayala sailed his ship into
San Francisco Bay and spent several weeks charting
the harbor. During his surveys he described
a rocky, barren island and named it "La
Isla de Los Alcatraces" (Island of the
Sea Birds). Historians debate which island Ayala
actually sited, but the name eventually was
given to the 22-acre rock today called Alcatraz.
California became a possession of United States
on February 2, 1848 in a treaty with Mexico
that ended the Mexican War. A week earlier,
on January 24, 1848, gold had been discovered
in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
By 1850 the Gold Rush was at its height, and
California was admitted as the thirtieth state
in the Union. Alcatraz and several other bay
islands were reserved "for public purposes"
by presidential order on November 6, 1850.
The U.S. Army, realizing San Francisco Bay was
vulnerable to enemy attack, fortified the harbor
entrance with strategic batteries including
a fort on Alcatraz Island. The fort was completed
in December 1859. During the American Civil
War (1861–1865) Alcatraz became the largest
American fort west of the Mississippi River.
Hundreds of ships headed for San Francisco during
the Gold Rush wrecked along the dangerous California
coastline The first lighthouse on the West Coast
of the United States was built on Alcatraz to
guide ships safely into San Francisco Bay. The
light went into service on June 1, 1854.
The army began sending soldier-convicts to the
Alcatraz fort in early 1860. Over the next forty
years, the island gradually became obsolete
as a fortification and more important as a prison.
The U.S. Army removed the fort’s guns
and in 1907 formally designated Alcatraz as
a military prison.
Federal Penitentiary
The Army transferred Alcatraz to the civilian
Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in 1934. The BOP quickly
converted the aging military prison in to a
maximum-security, state-of-the-art civilian
penitentiary. Alcatraz would shortly become
the most famous federal prison in United States
history.
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Alcatraz
was designed to serve as America’s
first maximum-security, minimum-privilege
penitentiary, what is today referred to
as a “super max” institution.
From 1934 to 1963, Alcatraz housed some
of America’s most notorious offenders,
escape artists, gang leaders and general
trouble makers. They were held under the
most secure |
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and
regimented conditions, in the
virtually escape-proof environment
on a rocky island in the middle
of San Francisco Bay. To the men
sent there, Alcatraz was the end
of the line.
The last convicts were removed
from the island on March 21, 1963.
When the island closed, it was
replaced by a new maximum-security
federal prison in Marion, Illinois.
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Indian Occupation
American Indians of many
tribes returned to the
island in November 1969.
Alcatraz had been dormant
for six years since the
Bureau of Prisons closed
the penitentiary. No one
had come forward with
a feasible plan for reusing
Alcatraz, so American
Indian activists seized
the island shortly before
Thanksgiving and claimed
it as Indian Land. This
was an internationally-publicized
political protest to focus
attention on the plight
of American Indians.
Indian unity was a key
focus of the Indian movement,
and there were plans to
establish an American
Indian cultural center
on Alcatraz. For eighteen
months, American Indians
and their families lived
on the island. However,
public interest in the
occupation waned, and
order among those living
on the island began to
deteriorate. Federal marshals
removed the remaining
occupiers from the island
in June 1971.
The Alcatraz Occupation
is now recognized a milestone
in American Indian history.
Many Indian people now
consider the seizure of
Alcatraz to have been
a new beginning, a reawakening
of American Indian culture,
traditions, identity and
spirituality.
Each year, Indians of
all tribes return to Alcatraz
Island on Columbus Day
and Thanksgiving Day to
hold a Sunrise Ceremony
for Indigenous Peoples
and to commemorate The
Occupation.
National Park
Golden Gate National
Recreation Area, a unit
of the National Park
Service, was established
by Congress in 1972
as part of a trend to
make national park resources
more accessible to urban
populations and bring
"parks to the people."
Alcatraz Island was
included within the
boundaries of the new
urban recreation area
because of its unique
natural resources and
human histories.
The National Park Service
opened Alcatraz to the
public for the first
time in October 1973.
Today, Alcatraz is being
preserved for the enjoyment
and understanding of
future generations.
Former prison buildings
are being conserved
and seismically upgraded,
and additional areas
of the island are opened
to the public as safety
hazards are removed.
Seabirds are returning
to the island in ever-greater
numbers, and naturalists
carefully follow the
number of eggs laid
during the 8-month long
nesting season.
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For information on visiting Alcatraz, please visit
the General
Information and Tickets page.
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 While Alcatraz
functioned as a federal penitentiary, a total of thirty-six prisoners
were involved in escape attempts.
 Alcatraz was once the strongest fortress
in the West.
"Escape
from Alcatraz" was the movie debut of San Francisco resident
Danny Glover.
The grafitti
on the building walls is federally protected.
The deer mice on Alcatraz are a different color from deer mice everywhere
else.
Built in 1854, the first lighthouse on the west coast was on Alcatraz
. The current lighthouse, built in 1909, is still in use.
From 1969 to 1971 Alcatraz was occupied by a group of Native Americans
called “Indians of All Tribes”, who succeeded in improving
the US Government's policies towards indigenous people.
Al Capone arrived on the island on August 22, 1934 along with 52
other convicts from Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Georgia. He spent
just under four and a half years there and had several jobs, including
sweeping the cellhouse and working in the laundry.
There are 336 "main line" cells and 42 "solitary
confinement" cells in the Alcatraz cellhouse. The prison was
never filled to capacity, however, and the average population was
about 260 men. The highest occupancy was 302 convicts.
Robert Stroud, the so-called "Birdman of Alcatraz" actually
carried out all of his bird breeding activities and avian research
while at the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Prison authorities
actually sent him to Alcatraz to seperate him from his birds and
get him out of the public’s attention. |
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