San Francisco

Alcatraz San Francisco

Alcatraz Island, one of San Francisco's best tourist attractions, was one of the world's most famous high security prisons. Located in the middle of San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz was used as a military stockade and later it became a maximum security prison. Today the Alcatraz prison is under supervision of the National Park Service and is an open tourist attraction with over one million Visitors per year.

Alcatraz History

The first European to discover the island was Spanish explorer Juan de Ayala in 1775. He gave this island the name "La Isla de los Alcatraces," which translates to "Island of the Pelicans." Besides these birds, the island was barren, had very little vegetation, and was surrounded by swift currents. Due to these features, and the freezing water surrounding this isolated island, the U.S. army began to realize this would be the ideal place for captives. In 1861 the first prisoners were kept here; Civil War prisoners. In 1878 the Spanish-American War increased these numbers to over 450, but the real increase came in 1906 when prisoners were transported here after the Great Quake.

Alcatraz Becomes a Federal Prison

The Alcatraz San Francisco became a federal prison in August, 1934. There were some world famous criminals in the prison such as Al Capone, Robert Franklin Stroud (called Birdman of Alcatraz), and Alvin Karpis, who has been in prison longer than any other inmate.

Escape from Alcatraz

During Alcatraz's 29 years of operation, it is still questionable if there were any successful escapes from the prison. Thirty-four prisoners were involved in fourteen attempts, two men trying twice; seven were shot and killed, two drowned, five unaccounted for, and the rest recaptured. Two prisoners that made it off the island were returned, the first one was in 1945 and the second one was in 1962. The island has been featured in numerous movies including The Rock and Escape from Alcatraz; which features the most famous escape by Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin who disappeared from their cells on June 11, 1962.

Behind the prisoners' cells in Cell Block B there ran a meter-wide utility corridor that was unguarded. The prisoners chiseled away the moisture-damaged concrete from around an air vent leading to the corridor. They used metal spoons soldered with silver and an electric drill made out of a stolen vacuum cleaner motor. The noise was disguised by the escaper's accordions played during music hour, and their progress hidden by false walls they painted to fool the guards.

The escape route then went up through a fan vent. The fan and motor had been removed and replaced only with a steel grille, leaving a shaft large enough for a prisoner to climb through. Stealing a carborundum cord from the prison workshop, the prisoners removed the rivets from the grille and disguised their progress with soap rivets. The escapees also stole many raincoats to use as a raft for the trip to the mainland. Leaving paper-mâché dummies in their cells, the prisoners are estimated to have entered the bay at 10pm that night.

The official investigation by the FBI was helped by another prisoner, Allen West, who was also a part of the escape, but was left behind. West's false wall kept slipping so he held it into place with cement. When the Anglin brothers accelerated the schedule, West desperately chipped away at the wall but by the time he did his companions were gone. Articles belonging to the prisoners, plywood paddles and parts of the raincoat raft, were located on nearby Angel Island near Alcatraz San Francisco. The official report was that the prisoners drowned during the escape from Alcatraz.

Mythbusters and Alcatraz San Francisco

In 2003, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, the co-hosts of the popular TV show MythBusters, tried to prove the successful escape attempt from Alcatraz San Francisco. They used very similar materials as the three convicts did. Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage constructed an inflatable raft from 50 rubber raincoats and made plywood paddles. They selected the day when the tide direction and rate was similar to that of the day of the escape attempt from Alcatraz San Francisco. With another crew member they were able to paddle with the outgoing tide to the Marin Headlands, near the North tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. It took them 40 minutes and both hosts agreed that the escape could have succeeded.

Historian Frank Heaney has spoken to relatives of the Anglin brothers. The relatives claim that they received postcards from South America signed by the two brothers, but Frank Morris was never heard from again. The prisoners were never found.

The Closing of Alcatraz

By the decision of U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the penitentiary was closed on March 21, 1963. The prison had to be closed down because of the high costs of the prison and the pollution from the prison sewage.