Criminal history: Touring historic American prisons
Reflecting the underside of society, prisons aren’t generally a pleasant topic of conversation. Many question whether the nation’s nearly 5,000 penitentiaries do more harm than good in reducing crime. Nonetheless, prisons have been with us throughout our history, serving at best to protect society from its miscreant minority.
Prisons are a source of great intrigue — no doubt with the exception of those who’ve spent time behind bars. It is fascinating for us on the outside to imagine what life would be like if stripped of our dignity and basic freedoms.
Folsom Prison, Folsom Folsom is best known in popular culture for a concert performed at the prison in 1968 by Johnny Cash whose chart-topping album “At Folsom Prison” was recorded live at the event. In reality, the longer history of this granite-walled maximum-security lockup, located just northeast of Sacramento, is a grim one. Dating back to 1880, California’s second oldest prison has recorded 93 executions, countless escapes and numerous bloody riots. Charles Manson, Hell’s Angel leader Sonny Barger and Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver have ranked among its notable inmates. Visitors can peruse the prison museum, housed in historic House No. 8, where a fascinating range of exhibits is displayed, including a mock cell, confiscated weapons, prisoner-made handicrafts and a roomful of Cash memorabilia.
More information: 916-9852561, www.folsomprisonmuseum.org
Alcatraz, San Francisco Known as “The Rock,” owing to its location on a barren 22-acre island in San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz arguably is America’s most famous prison. Established as a U.S. Army fortress in 1850, it became a military prison in the 1860s and eventually served as a federal maximum-security prison from 1934 to 1963. It housed a rogues’ gallery of criminals over the years, including Al “Scarface” Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Alvin “Creepy” Karpis (the FBI’s first “Public Enemy”) and Alaskan murderer Robert “Birdman” Stroud. “The Rock” has been featured in nearly a dozen movies, including the 1962 blockbuster “Birdman of Alcatraz” starring Burt Lancaster as Stroud. Now operated as a unit of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Alcatraz welcomes visitors daily via a ferry from San Francisco’s Pier 33.
More information: 415-5614900, www.nps.gov/alca
Old Idaho Penitentiary, Boise, Idaho
One of the largest and most authentically preserved of America’s historic prisons, the Old Idaho Pen is an impressive ensemble of 30 buildings and special exhibitions now designated as a National Historic District. During its 101 years of operation (18721973), the distinctive Romanesque-style sandstone complex received more than 13,000 inmates. Among them, according to one of the early wardens, were “rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, dimwits, vipers, con men, Indian Agents and Mexican bandits ...” Today’s visitors can relive the Old Pen’s exciting past of daring escapes, scandals and executions on a tour that takes in the solitary confinement unit, cell blocks and the gallows.
More information: 208-3342844,
Yuma Territorial Prison, Yuma, Ariz. On July 1, 1876, the first seven inmates entered the Territorial Prison at Yuma and were locked into the new cells they had built themselves. Thus began the legend of the old stone and adobe lockup where a total of 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, lived within the walls during the prison’s 33 years of operation. Among the inmates were some of the Southwest’s most hardened criminals — a motley bunch of gunslingers, stagecoach robbers and even a few Mexican revolutionaries. Today’s visitors can enter the prison’s cells, climb the old guard tower, explore the prison cemetery, take a mug shot in the museum and load up on prison gear at the gift shop.
More information: 928-7834771, www.yumaprison.org