Alcatraz Island

...height of the season visit Alcatraz Island off the coast of San Francisco to visit the notorious prison that has been closed for over 45 years. Hundreds of others get turned away as they don't have tickets.

LOCATION
The small island which includes the prison is located one & a half miles off the coast of San Francisco on the west coast of America in the Pacific Ocean.

HISTORY
Although the prison is very ...
...settlers. The native Americans considered Alcatraz as a place of evil spirits.

In the early 1850s it was considered an ideal place to use as a fortress, one that would guard the harbour in San Francisco. At the time the small town had a population of 300 people & then they struck gold. Population increased to 20.000 & the harbour area became very busy indeed.

The first lighthouse on the Pacific coast was installed at ... more

Make a list up of the all the things you want to do on your next foreign holiday & it will likely to include a bit of sunbathing, swimming in the hotel pool, bit of sightseeing, eating & drinking the local food & wine, a bit of shopping & maybe some adventures. However I doubt if it would include visiting a prison, unless if you been arrested for something.

Yet up to 4900 people a day in the height of the season visit Alcatraz Island off the coast of San Francisco to visit the notorious prison that has been closed for over 45 years. Hundreds of others get turned away as they don't have tickets.

LOCATION
The small island which includes the prison is located one & a half miles off the coast of San Francisco on the west coast of America in the Pacific Ocean.

HISTORY
Although the prison is very famous for holding some of the most notorious inmates in America between 1934-1963 its history goes back further than that.
The island has 22 acres of windswept sandstone & no fresh water so it didn't appeal much to the early Spanish, European & Mexican settlers. The native Americans considered Alcatraz as a place of evil spirits.

In the early 1850s it was considered an ideal place to use as a fortress, one that would guard the harbour in San Francisco. At the time the small town had a population of 300 people & then they struck gold. Population increased to 20.000 & the harbour area became very busy indeed.

The first lighthouse on the Pacific coast was installed at Alcatraz in 1854 & the island became an official fortress fitted with 111 smooth bore cannons & ammunition magazines carved into the rock. Over 400 soldiers were stationed there but the garrison at the island only fired once, that was during the civil war (1861-1865) at an unidentified ship.
It became a military prison during this time housing military deserters & murderers, including many native Indians. It got over crowded during the Spanish-American war of 1898 & a new cell house was built. In 1907 Alcatraz was decommissioned as a fortification.

A new cell house was completed in 1912; this three storey building made from reinforced concrete is still the most prominent structure on the island to this day. By 1933 the cost of using it as a military disciplinary barracks was becoming too much & it was decided to close it down.

Around this time J. Edgar Hoover, a young director of the FBI had other ideas. In 1920s America, prohibition was a great problem which created well financed, well organised & well armed gangsters. The depression of the 1930s made the situation even worse & Hoover decided there was a need for a 'super prison'. Hoover & his team had a lot of success catching these notorious gangsters & locking them up but they created so many problems even when in prison.

His record was impressive he caught the Ma Baker gang, Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow (Bonnie & Clyde) & John Dillenger.
Alcatraz was chosen as the super prison for America's hardest & most notorious prisoners & it officially opened in 1934.
The man who would run it was James Johnston, a mild mannered 60 year old ex lawyer; his first task was to replace the normal key opening doors made from soft strap iron with tool proof, case hardened steel with a new locking system.

There were 336 individual cells on three levels split by a 300ft long corridor. Block 'B' & 'C' were used for most inmates, the corridor in between was nicknamed Broadway. Block 'D' was reserved for solitary confinement. These cells had solid doors & no lighting inside. You could spend up to 19 days in one of these 'hell holes' with no luxuries what so ever. I don't know what block 'A' was used for but it looked just like the rest of the cells in 'B' & 'C'.

Johnston fitted elevated gun galleries at each end of the cell house & wardens would shoot if necessary. They also fitted metal detectors which convicts passed under several times a day.
At this time most American prisons had one warden per 10 prisoners, but Johnston insisted on one warden per three prisoners.
Each day he insisted on 12 official counts of the prisoners, sometimes that number exceeded 50 times a day.
The place housed many notorious convicts, the most famous being Al Capone who had been jailed for 10 years for tax evasion in another prison. There he would enjoy the odd cigar & silk underwear & still managed his rackets but once he was transferred to Alcatraz all that stopped.
The prison also housed George 'Machine Gun' Kelly, Alvin 'Creepy' Karpis, Floyd Hamilton & Robert Stroud the 'Birdman of Alcatraz'. (They sound a right bunch to spend the day with!!)

The prison boasted that no one could escape from it, however there were 14 attempts; some managed to escape but it is believed that no one managed to get across the shark infested waters to the mainland. Incidentally the sharks are not man eaters, sand sharks are the most common but the sewage from San Francisco would be the bigger problem!
Each individual attempt to escape the prison makes fascinating stories. Along with these attempts there were eight murders, five suicides, no executions but many convicts went insane.
The cell house was never filled to capacity, the average number of prisoners was around 260 with 336 cells available, the highest number of inmates was at one point was 302. There were no female staff or inmates at any time.

By the early 1960s the cost of looking after these prisoners was becoming very expensive, up to $40.000 per man per year & the then president John F. Kennedy decided it had to shut down & in 1963 it official closed with the prisoners being transferred to other American mainland prisons.

Whilst it was open the prison wardens & their family lived on the island on their own accommodation, life was quite pleasant for them apparently, although the warden's job was very hard & many didn't stick it out for very long.
In 1970 a bad fire destroyed many of the accommodation quarters including the warden's house; it was the only time in history when the lighthouse stopped working.

Between 1963 & 1972 there were three successful attempts by Native Indians to take control of the island, in one case they stayed 19 months but after the third attempt they were cleared out never returned.
It was in 1973 that the local authorities decided to open the place to the public & they expected it to be popular for about two years, no one foresaw how popular it would become.

PRISON REGIME
If your unfortunate enough to end up in Alcatraz between 1934-1963 life would be much harder there than most other American prisons.
When you arrived the first task was to have you strip searched, you would then be transferred to your cell naked. Once in your cell you would be given the standard prison clothing & the rule book of the place.
Rule 5 stated "You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter & medical attention, anything else you get is a privilege".
The cells measured 5' wide, 7' high & 9' deep, that is actually less than a dog enjoys in a dog pound! The cell comprised of a bed with a thin mattress, the bed base was made from thin strips of metal so it wouldn't be the most comfortable. In your cell you had a small hand basin, toilet & a small metal fold down table & fold down seat.
You were not permitted to put posters on the wall (they relaxed the rules in the 1950s) & I wouldn't imagine the toilet paper was luxury soft!
The cells were painted a rather dull green & lying in your cell day after day you would get to know every imperfection of the walls & ceiling.

The prison doors were not solid metal but hardened steel bar gates so there was no privacy when you got undressed or visited the toilet. The wardens would lock a number of doors/gates at the same time. A photo of a replica key which I got as a souvenir is pictured.
The sound of the gates/doors locking was like an explosive crack of thunder, an intimidating noise. The head of the bed was next to the door/gate so wardens could see the prisoners very easily when walking by.

In the first three months of arriving there you would receive no visitors, there after you were allowed one visitor a month provided you earned it with good behaviour. You couldn't touch your visitors as you only saw them through a thick glass panel & spoke to them via a phone link with a warden present. Visitors had to go through the metal detectors, a very undignified experience.
When Al Capone's mother arrived one day to see her son she triggered off the device with her corset straps & was forced to be strip searched. Needless to say she never returned.

Prisoners were not allowed TV or radio; newspapers & magazines were censored, any current events were removed from them. In fact their lives with the outside world was totally cut off. Any letters they sent or received were vetted by the prison authorities.
Although there was a library in the prison the inmates were not allowed in it, a list of books would be delivered to your cell & you could choose up to three books. The books were old & not that interesting, should you deface a book then you would be punished.

Each morning you would be wakened at 6.30am with a loud blast of an alarm, you had twenty minutes to dress, make your bed, clean your teeth & stand in front of your cell to be counted.
From there you would march to the dining room for breakfast, there was plenty of food with a varied menu but you only had twenty minutes to eat breakfast. When the whistle blew you stood up & all the used cutlery was counted, you then passed through a metal detector as you left the dining room. The same applied at lunch time & early evening. At 5.30 you went back to your cell & would be locked up for 13 hours, lights went out at 9.30pm.

When you got a shower there was no privacy, there were no individual showers but just a hall where everybody showered together. A rather dismal looking place close to the cell blocks.
One of the rules of the prison was you were not allowed to speak to another cellmate in the shower, dining room or in the corridors. Two cellmates weren't allowed to stand together at the coffee urn in the dining room & the only conversation that was allowed was once a day in the recreation yard. California maybe a warm sunny place but the bay in San Francisco becomes very misty & cold summer & winter. If the mist got too bad in the recreation yard then prisoners were not allowed out. This happened quite frequently.

If you broke the rules & spoke, you spent five days in the treatment unit, anything more serious meant time spent in Block D. If a lot of inmates got out of hand, wardens were allowed to hose them down with freezing water.

The solitary confinement cells in block D had no luxuries, a hole in the ground for toilet duties & nothing else, just total darkness for the whole period you were in there. Meals would be served in your cell but you ate them in the dark.

Prisoners did work such as making gloves & washing laundry & other similar exciting duties, they would receive a small pittance for their efforts.

THE TOUR
If you want to visit Alcatraz I would advise you to book in advance, hundreds are sent away daily for not pre booking.
I booked online through Blue & Gold Fleet for less than $15.00 per person. The price includes the short ferry trip to the island from Pier 41 at Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, & your entrance fee. The journey doesn't take very long & on a nice day you get a lovely view of a San Francisco bay & the Golden Gate bridge. You also get a lovely view of the prison although I doubt if that mattered much to any inmate that was transferred there.

You arrive at the dockside on the south edge of the island (6 o'clock position); there is more to the island than just the prison. The first thing you see is the old accommodation block for the workers, it overlooks the bay.

The island has been left pretty much the way it was left in 1963 apart form the damage done by the big fire in 1970 which gutted many of the houses. You walk up a steep hill to the main prison entrance passing what looks like old offices filled with artefacts & a video room. The rooms are cold & all painted that awful green colour.

The parade ground sits at the extreme edge of the island (9 o'clock position) with the light house close by.
As you enter the cell blocks at the same end you can join an organised tour run by some of the old prisoners. I arrived in the middle of one of these tours so I decided to go it alone like many others.
Most of the cells are now empty but they do look tiny & bare to say the least. As you walk past you can just imagine the atmosphere in the place & the task the wardens must have had controlling the inmates.
The lighting is quite dull, there isn't much natural light coming in so the place looks pretty depressing. Having never been in a modern prison I do not know how it compares.

I wander onto Broadway, between blocks C & D & then onto the solitary confinement block & an ex-con invites me into one of the cells. Apart from a hole in the ground in the middle of the cell about 4" wide for toilet duties there is nothing in here. As he closes the door it is complete darkness, bad enough for the 30 seconds the door is closed, two weeks of this & I reckon your behaviour would change!

No one appears to know which cell Al Capone occupied when he was here. Although he did spend just over four years in Alcatraz some of it was spent in the hospital isolation unit with a view over the Golden Gate bridge.
The prisoners swapped cells on a regular basis so it would be hard to track down who stayed in which cell after a while.

The dining area has no seats or tables left, just an empty room & serving area. It is dull & dreary in here too, not a place you would want to eat.
The shower block has lost all its fittings so it too looks like a large empty hall room, no individual blocks here, no privacy, nothing. It too is a pretty depressing place in the same awful green colour with very little natural light.
As you wander into the recreation yard which would be about half the size of a normal football pitch it would have been a relief from the cell blocks but still a depressing place to be, particularly on a cold damp day.

You can stop & ask questions to the ex-cons who are in attendance in the cell block & if they have time they will recall some horrific stories.
After 30 minutes wondering around this cell block it is a relief to get outside, this particular day the sun was shing brightly yet you would hardly notice it when inside.
Part of the island is fenced off to visitors due to the area being preserved for wildlife which includes deer mouse, Californian slender salamander & black oyster catchers.

The lighthouse still operates although it is not the original & the water tank is still present as the island had no fresh water supply. There is a gift shop selling replica keys, mugs, videos & books.
Despite being a hot sunny day when I was there, its only when you leave that you realise what a cold & unforgiving place this must have been in its day.
If your are lucky enough to visit San Francisco take a half day to see the prison, its quite an experience, just remember to book ahead. 

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