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Oct 29, 2021 · Updated: April 25, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2021. To Americans of the 1920s and ‘30s, he was the notorious gangster Scarface Al, Public Enemy No. 1. But when he arrived at Alcatraz in late ...
- Greg Daugherty
- 3 min
- Early Years as a Military Prison. In 1775, Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala (1745-97) mapped and named rugged Alcatraz Island, christening it La Isla de los Alcatraces, or Island of the Pelicans, due to its large population of sea birds.
- Doing Time as a Federal Prison: 1934-63. In 1933, the Army relinquished Alcatraz to the U.S. Justice Department, which wanted a federal prison that could house a criminal population too difficult or dangerous to be handled by other U.S. penitentiaries.
- Famous Inmates. Among those who did time at The Rock was the notorious Prohibition-era gangster Al “Scarface” Capone, who spent four-and-a-half years there during the 1930s.
- Escape Attempts from Alcatraz. Over the years, there were 14 known attempts to escape from Alcatraz, involving 36 inmates. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that of these would-be escapees, 23 were captured, six were shot and killed during their attempted getaways, two drowned and five went missing and were presumed drowned.
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- 4 min
- Capone’s Early Years in New York. Alphonse Capone (1899–1947) was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of recent Italian immigrants Gabriele and Teresina Capone.
- Capone Meets Johnny Torrio. Torrio was running a numbers and gambling operation near Capone’s home when Capone began running small errands for him. Although Torrio left Brooklyn for Chicago in 1909, the two remained close.
- Capone in Chicago. When Capone was 19, he married Mae Coughlin just weeks after the birth of their child, Albert Francis. His former boss and friend Johnny Torrio was the boy’s godfather.
- Capone’s Reputation. After an attempt on his life in 1925 by rival mobsters, Torrio decided to leave the business and return to Italy, turning over the entire operation to Capone.
- Aaron Randle
- 11 min
- The Hopi Nineteen. In 1894, when Alcatraz was still operating as a military prison, the U.S. government arrested 19 Hopi men for refusing to send their children to American assimilation boarding schools almost 1,000 miles away from their reservation in Oraibi, Arizona.
- Frank Lucas Bolt. Little has been documented about Alcatraz’s LGBTQ+ prisoners, but gay men did play a role in the infamous prison. In fact, it was a queer man, Frank Lucas Bolt, who served as the prison’s first official inmate.
- Al Capone. For notorious Chicago-based mobster Al Capone, doing hard time before Alcatraz was rarely that hard. During earlier stints in Atlanta and other prisons, Capone had recruited guards to work on his payroll and enjoyed special privileges—from home-cooked meals and cushy bedding to unlimited access to the warden.
- Robert Stroud, a.k.a. the 'Bird Man' of Alcatraz. By the time Robert Stroud was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942, he had already established himself as one of the most dangerous—and notorious—prisoners in America, with a rap sheet already decades long.
Oct 8, 2015 · Escape From Alcatraz: June 11, 1962. On a June night in 1962, three inmates of the federal prison on Alcatraz Island escaped from their cells and (presumably) into San Francisco Bay, never to be ...
- Sarah Pruitt
Mar 21, 2013 · The notorious gangster and mob boss was among the first prisoners to occupy the new Alcatraz federal prison in August 1934. Capone had bribed guards to receive preferential treatment while serving ...
Aug 8, 2012 · During its nearly 30 years of operation (from 1934 to 1963), the federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay housed some of America’s most notorious felons, including gangsters Al ...
