Alcatraz Island

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Alcatraz Island
IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape)
Alcatraz Island in 2005
Alcatraz Island in 2005
Location: San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
Nearest city: San Francisco, California
Coordinates: 37°49′35″N, 122°25′21″W
Area: 18.86 acres (0.0763 km²)
Established: 1972
Governing body: National Park Service

Alcatraz Island (some times referred to as The Rock) is a small island located in the middle of San Francisco Bay in California, United States that served as a lighthouse, then a military fortification, and then a federal prison for the area until 1969, when it became a national recreation area.

Today, the island is a historic site supervised by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is open to tours. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. It is listed as a National Historic Landmark. The United States Census Bureau defines the island as Block 1067, Block Group 1, Census Tract 179.02 of San Francisco County, California. There was no population on the island as of the 2000 census. [1]

It is home to the now abandoned prison, the oldest operating lighthouse on the West Coast of the United States, early military fortifications, and natural features such as rock pools, a seabird colony (mostly Western Gulls, cormorants, and egrets), and unique views of the coastline.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Natural History

The first European to discover the island was Juan de Ayala who named an island in the bay La Isla de los Alcatraces, which translates from Spanish to "Island of the Gannets". Some historians believe that the island today known as Yerba Buena was the original "alcatraces", and a later map maker moved the name to a previously unnamed island.

[edit] Lighthouse history

The discovery of gold in California in 1850 brought thousands of ships to San Francisco Bay, creating an urgent need for a navigational lighthouse. In response, Alcatraz lighthouse #1 was erected and lit in the summer of 1853. As the first lighthouse built on the Pacific Coast, this third-order lens fresnel lighthouse contained a California Cottage design with a short tower protruding from the center, similar to the Old Point Loma Lighthouse in San Diego, California and to the Point Pinos Lighthouse in Pacific Grove, California. In 1856, a fog bell was added to the lighthouse.[2]

After 56 years of use, Alcatraz lighthouse #1 was torn down in 1909 to make way for the construction of Alcatraz prison. Alcatraz lighthouse #2 was located next to the cellhouse and completed on December 1, 1909. Its 84-foot tower of concrete contained a smaller, fourth-order lens. In 1963, the fresnel lens of Alcatraz lighthouse #2 was replaced with an automated rotating beacon. The keepers were then discharged.[3]

[edit] Military history

Alcatraz Island, 1895.
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Alcatraz Island, 1895.

Alcatraz had a military installation established in 1850 which was later used as a military prison to incarcerate, amongst others, some Hopi Native American men.[4]

During the first World War it held conscientious objectors, including Philip Grosser who wrote a pamphlet entitled 'Uncle Sam's Devil's Island' about his experiences.[citation needed]

[edit] Prison (penological) History

The United States Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz was acquired by the United States Department of Justice on October 12, 1933, and the island became a federal prison in August 1934. During the 29 years it was in use, the jail held such notable criminals as Al Capone, Robert Franklin Stroud (the Birdman of Alcatraz) and Alvin Karpis, who served more time at Alcatraz than any other inmate. It also provided housing for the Bureau of Prison staff and their families. Today the family members who lived on the island can join the Alcatraz Alumni Association and participate in the annual reunion (that celebrates the opening of the prison) the second weekend of August. Most family members have favorite stories they share of their experiences growing up on The Rock.

[edit] Escape attempts

View of San Francisco from Alcatraz Island
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View of San Francisco from Alcatraz Island

During its twenty nine years of operation the penitentiary logged no officially successful escape. Thirty four prisoners were involved in fourteen attempts, two men trying twice; seven were shot and killed, two drowned, five were unaccounted for and the rest were recaptured. Two prisoners made it off the island but were returned, one in 1945 and one in 1962.

The most famous escape attempt involved Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, popularised in the motion picture Escape from Alcatraz. The three disappeared from their cells on 11 June 1962 in one of the most intricate escapes ever devised.

Behind the prisoners' cells in Cell Block B (where the escapers were interred) was an unguarded meter-wide utility corridor. The prisoners chiseled away the moisture-damaged concrete from around an air vent leading to this corridor, using tools such as a metal spoon soldered with silver from a dime and an electric drill improvised from a stolen vacuum cleaner motor. The noise was disguised by accordions played during music hour, and their progress was concealed by false walls which, in the dark recesses of the cells, fooled the guards.

The interior of a regular cell in the row known as Broadway.
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The interior of a regular cell in the row known as Broadway.

The escape route then led up through a fan vent; the fan and motor had been removed and replaced 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 had removed the rivets from the grille and substituted dummy rivets made of soap. The escapers also stole many raincoats to use as a raft for the trip to the mainland. Leaving papier-mâché dummies in their cells, the prisoners are estimated to have entered the bay at 10pm.

The official investigation by the FBI was aided by another prisoner, Allen West, who also was part of the escapers' group but was left behind. (West's false wall kept slipping so he held it into place with cement, which set; 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 (including plywood paddles and parts of the raincoat raft) were located on nearby Angel Island, and the official report into the escape says the prisoners drowned while trying to reach the mainland in the cold waters of San Francisco Bay.

The Rock, as viewed from San Francisco
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The Rock, as viewed from San Francisco

In 2003, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, the co-hosts of the television series MythBusters, sought to prove whether the escapers could have survived. Using similar materials to those used in 1962, they constructed an inflatable raft from 50 rubber raincoats and made plywood paddles. Hyneman and Savage selected a date when the tide direction and rate matched that of the escape attempt, and with another crew member, Will Abbot, standing in for the third prisoner, they were able to paddle with the outgoing tide to the Marin Headlands, near the North tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. The trip took 40 minutes and Hyneman and Savage agreed that the escape could have succeeded.

Also, tests using the US Army Corps of Engineers' scale model of San Francisco Bay indicated that paddles or other debris thrown into the water from the landing location would be carried by the returning tide to Angel Island. This proved that escape was possible with the resources available to the escapers and provided an explanation for the location of the escape debris found by the FBI.

Leading Alcatraz historian Frank Heaney has spoken to relatives of the Anglin brothers who claim to have received postcards from South America signed by the two, but Frank Morris was never heard from again. Despite these claims, the actual fate of the escapers remains unknown; a US $1,000,000 reward offered by the Alcatraz ferry operator Red & White Fleet Inc. in 1993 for the prisoners' recapture remains unclaimed.

[edit] Alcatraz as a national recreation area

Flowers on Alcatraz. In the background is the Warden's Home, destroyed by fire during the Indian occupation.
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Flowers on Alcatraz. In the background is the Warden's Home, destroyed by fire during the Indian occupation.

By decision of US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the penitentiary was closed for good on March 21, 1963. It was closed because it was far more expensive to operate than other prisons, and the bay was being polluted by the sewage from the approximately 250 inmates and 60 Bureau of Prisons families on the island. The United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, a new, traditional land-bound prison opened that same year to serve as a replacement for Alcatraz.

Brandt's Cormorant nesting on Alcatraz Island
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Brandt's Cormorant nesting on Alcatraz Island

In 1969, a group of American Indians from many different tribes, calling themselves Indians of All Tribes (many individual Indians voluntarily relocated to the Bay Area under the Federal Indian Reorganization Act of 1934),[citation needed] occupied the island, and proposed an education center, ecology center and cultural center. According to the occupants, the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty[1] between the US and the Sioux conceded all retired, abandoned or out-of-use federal land to the Native people from whom it was acquired. During the occupation, several buildings were damaged or destroyed, including the recreation hall, the Coast Guard quarter and the Warden's home. A number of other buildings (mostly apartments) were destroyed by the US Government after the occupation had ended. After 18 months of occupation, the government forced the occupiers off. But the end of the Termination policy and the new policy of self-determination were established in 1970, in part as a result as of the publicity and awareness created by the occupation. Graffiti from the period of American Indian occupation is still visible at many locations on the island [2].

In 1993, the National Park Service published a plan entitled Alcatraz Development Concept and Environmental Assessment. This plan, approved in 1980, doubled the amount of Alcatraz accessible to the public to enable visitors to enjoy its scenery and bird, marine, and animal life, such as the California slender salamander. [5]

Today American Indian groups, the International Indian Treaty Council, for example, hold ceremonies on the island. The most notable of these are on Columbus Day and Thanksgiving Day when they hold a "Sunrise Gathering".

[edit] Man made features

The parade grounds. Carved from the hillside during the late 19th century and covered with rubble since the government demolished guard housing in 1971, the area has become a habitat and breeding ground for black-crowned night herons, western gulls, slender salamanders and deer mice.

The Agave Path, a trail named for its dense growth of that amaryllis-family plant. Located atop a shoreline bulkhead on the south side, it provides a nesting habitat for night herons.

[edit] Natural features

[edit] Habitats

Cisterns. A bluff that, because of its moist crevices, is believed to be an important site for California slender salamanders.

Cliff tops at the island's north end. Containing a onetime manufacturing building and a plaza, the area is listed as important to nesting and roosting birds.

The powerhouse area. A steep embankment where native grassland and creeping wild rye support a habitat for deer mice.

Tide pools. A series of them, created by long-ago quarrying activities, contains still-unidentified invertebrate species and marine algae. They form one of the few tide-pool complexes in the Bay, according to the report.

Western cliffs and cliff tops. Rising to heights of nearly 100 feet, they provide nesting and roosting sites for sea birds including pigeon guillemots, cormorants, Herrmann's gulls and western gulls. Harbor seals can occasionally be seen on a small beach at the base.

[edit] Vegetation

Historic gardens. Planted by prison guards' families, they are now overgrown and have also become a bird nesting habitat.

[edit] Appearances in popular culture

A panorama of Alcatraz as viewed from San Francisco.
A panorama of Alcatraz as viewed from San Francisco.

A view of Alcatraz is often used in an establishing shot of films and television shows set in San Francisco. It plays a more-direct role in several movies, books, and video games:

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[edit] Movies, Radio, Television, Theater

[edit] Print media

  • Al Capone Does My Shirts, a novel about a boy and his autistic sister living on Alcatraz Island
  • In the DC Universe, there is a metahuman prison located on Alcatraz Island. The new Titans Tower is built across from it, both as an intimidation tool and as a way to provide instant metahuman support in the case of a breakout.

[edit] Computer and Video games

  • Midtown Madness 2 has San Francisco as a playable level, where Alcatraz Island is viewable in the distance, though it is not reachable (without cheats).
  • San Francisco Rush The Rock: Alcatraz Edition and San Francisco Rush 2049, both of which were developed by Atari Games, have an Alcatraz-themed course to race on.
  • Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 also has Alcatraz as a playable level.
  • Helping Al Capone escape from Alcatraz is a major plot point in the role-playing video game Shadow Hearts: From The New World.
  • The prison is also featured in the game, C&C Red Alert 2 Yuri's Revenge , which Yuri used the island for his psychic dominator superweapon.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Block 1067, Block Group 1, Census Tract 179.02, San Francisco County United States Census Bureau
  2. ^ Lighthouse history.
  3. ^ Lighthouse history.
  4. ^ "The most painful story of resistance to assimilation programs and compulsory school attendance laws involved the Hopis in Arizona, who surrendered a group of men to the military rather than voluntarily relinquish their children. The Hopi men served time in federal prison at Alcatraz". Child, Brenda J. (February 2000). Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. University of Nebraska Press, p. 13. ISBN 0-8032-6405-4.
  5. ^ Adams, Gerald D. (July 27, 1993) San Francisco Examiner. Alcatraz Proposal Highlights Wildlife Plan Would Open Up More of Rock. News section, pg. A1.
  • Dowswell, Paul (1994). Tales of Real Escape. London, England: Usborne Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7460-1669-7.

[edit] External links

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