Search results
Given this high security and the island's location in the cold waters and strong currents of San Francisco Bay, prison operators believed Alcatraz to be escape-proof and America's most secure prison. The three-story cellhouse included the four main cell blocks – A-block through D-block – the warden's office, visitation room, the library ...
- 312
- August 11, 1934; 89 years ago
- March 21, 1963; 60 years ago
- 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.
Cell block in Alcatraz, a former prison on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, California. Alcatraz, originally envisioned as a naval defense fortification, was designated a residence for military offenders in 1861, and it housed a diverse collection of prisoners in its early years.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
View of the interior of the Alcatraz Island prison in 1986, looking south from the third level guard station with cell block B on the left and cell block C on the right. Library of Congress...
Records indicate that Clarence Carnes, Sam Shockley and Miran Thompson were all imprisoned in A-Block (separated by multiple cell lengths) following the 1946 Riots and while standing trial for the deaths of two Alcatraz Guards from the 1946 Escape Attempt.
Many prisoners actually considered the living conditions (for instance, always one man to a cell) at Alcatraz to be better than other Federal prisons, and several inmates actually requested a transfer to Alcatraz.
Feb 2, 2022 · One inmate per cell rule meant people actually asked to be imprisoned at Alcatraz. Alcatraz had 336 cells measuring 5 feet by 9 feet, each with a cot, a basin, and a toilet. According to Jim Quillen, an inmate from 1942, the toilet had no seat and the washbasin had only a cold water tap.