Past Times
BREAK the rules and you go to prison, break the prison rules and you go to Alcatraz.
That was the stark message stretched across a board in the main block of the notorious maximum security prison in San Francisco Bay.
It housed some of the most dangerous criminals in America that had proved too much for other jails across the country.
There was everyone from Chicago gangster Al
Capone to racketeer George “Machine Gun”
Kelly and Robert
Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz.
Capone, known as Prisoner 85, arrived there in 1934 and ended up playing banjo in the prison band, the Rock Islanders.
The mob boss was one of the first intake of 100 inmates to be held in the maximum security prison which cost more than £5.5 million to build.
Machine Gun Kelly was arrested in 1933 and sentenced to life for kidnapping a wealthy Oklahoma oil man. He spent 17 years at Alcatraz before dying of a heart attack in 1954. Stroud was a convicted killer, who was facing the death sentence before he found himself at Alcatraz. He earned the nickname Birdman for his self-taught expertise and interest in ornithology and even wrote two books on the subject. He died in 1963 at the age of 72 having spent most of his life behind bars. Nicknamed “the Rock”, the island itself boasted the first lighthouse on the west coast. The prison was first built as a military fortress before the government took it over in 1934 to house the country’s worst criminals.
Alcatraz was designed to be escape-proof, sitting more than a mile from the shore in strong currents, but that did not stop inmates from trying. There were 14 escape attempts over the years by 36 prisoners. Most were recaptured, died or were never heard from again.
One of the most daring escapeattempts was in 1962 when brothers Clarence and John Anglin and fellow inmate Frank Lee Morris, who were all serving time for bank robbery, made their move.
Aided by inmate Allen West, they had spent six months chipping away at their cell walls to reach vents behind, using homemade drills made from a broken vacuum cleaner motor. They made papier mâché dummy heads of themselves using everything from toilet rolls and soap to real hair clippings from the barber shop to fool guards they were still in their beds.
One night the trio squeezed through a network of pipes and plumbing and up to the roof and then took to the water in a makeshift raft made from raincoats and inflated life vests. It is presumed they drowned, but their bodies were never found.
The incident inspired the 1979 movie Escape from Alcatraz, starring Clint Eastwood. He played Frank Morris and once said: “Morris was a reclusive type of guy. He had no education but, according to prison records, he had an IQ of 133. He could have been a success in life if he had channelled his pursuits a little differently.”
Alcatraz has also inspired other films and TV dramas, from Burt Lancaster’s performance in The Birdman of Alcatraz in 1962 to The Rock in 1996, starring Sir Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage.
In reality Robert Stroud was never allowed to keep birds at Alcatraz and died a year after the movie came out. It was nominated for four Oscars, but Stroud was never allowed to see the film.
Sean Connery had a cabin built on Alcatraz so he would not have to travel from the mainland every day when filming The Rock and the movie premiere was held in the prison recreation yard.
Archaeologists found hidden buildings and tunnels below Alcatraz prison a few years ago, using ground-penetrating radar and historical maps and photographs. They revealed buried rooms and ammunition magazines as well as tunnels.
Historians believe workers built over existing structures when the prison was built in the 20th century.
No more than 250 prisoners were ever held at Alcatraz, however, the high cost of maintaining the prison eventually led Attorney General Robert Kennedy to order its closure 60 years ago in March, 1963.
The final prisoners were transferred to other jails and Alcatraz is now one of San Francisco’s most popular tourists attractions, welcoming up to 5,000 visitors a day.
[Al]Capone... arrived in 1934 and ended up playing banjo in the prison band.
ALCATRAZ CLOSED THE CELL DOORS FOR