Alcatraz: Rigid and Unusual Punishment
by Michael Esslinger
Alcatraz. The name alone said it all. It was meant to send a shudder down the
spines of the nation’s most incorrigible criminals, and it did from the day it
opened in 1934. It stripped Al Capone of his power. It tamed "Machine
Gun" Kelly into a model of decorum. It took the birds away from the Birdman
of Alcatraz.
Alcatraz was the end of the line. It was the U.S. government’s version of
the "final solution" to combating the lawlessness that Prohibition
spewed throughout the Roaring 20s and into the teeth of the Great Depression.
The government needed a prison as tough and harsh as the high-profile criminals
it was finally running to ground. In Alcatraz, with its damp coldness, austere
isolation, rigid discipline and code of silence, it got what it wanted. By the
time the government shut down the prison in 1963, "the Rock" had
indisputably done its job.
Today, Alcatraz is one of the biggest tourist magnets and famous landmarks of
San Francisco. The island's mystique, created primarily by books and motion
pictures, lures over a million visitors a year from around the world to see first-hand
where the U.S. government broke some of its most notorious criminals. They
journey into a dim piece of Americana. Many go away to remember for the rest of
their lives the hair-raising chill they felt upon being locked up, for just a
few seconds, in an isolation cell. The clichéd expression "if these walls
could talk" is taken to a deeper level when probing the rigid silence of
Alcatraz.
Alcatraz History
Alcatraz Island got its name in 1775 when Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de
Ayala charted the San Francisco Bay. He named the small, 13-acre, uninhabited island with
its swift currents, minimal vegetation, and barren ground for its pelicans,
calling it La Isla de los Alcatraces.
Seventy-two years later in 1847, the U.S. Army took notice of the Rock and
its strategic value as a military fortress. Topographical engineers began
conducting geological surveys and by 1853 U.S. Army Engineers started
constructing a military fortress along with the Pacific Coast's first operating
lighthouse.
The discovery of gold along the American River and California in 1848 brought
shiploads of miners from around the world into California. As word spread around
the globe of abundant wealth in California, the U.S. government would evoke
security measures to protect its land and mineral resources from seizure by
other countries. Located just inside the mouth of San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz
would become the United States’ symbol of military power in the West.
After several years of laborious construction and several armament
expansions, Alcatraz was converted to a military fortress. It featured
long-range iron cannons and four massive 36,000-pound, 15 inch Rodman guns
capable of sinking mammoth hostile ships three miles away. Alcatraz's guns could
fire 6,949 pounds of iron shot in one barrage. Though the fortress fired only
one 400-pound canon round at an unidentified ship and missed, it served its
purpose as a mighty deterrent to foreign invaders.
With the advance of military weaponry, Alcatraz’s function as a fortress
soon faded. By 1861 it began to find its true calling when the government began
to hold Civil War prisoners there. In 1898, the Spanish-American War took the
prisoner population from a mere 26 to over 450. In 1906 following the
catastrophic San Francisco earthquake, hundreds of civilian prisoners were
transferred to the island for confinement. By 1912, a large cell house was
constructed on the island's central crest and by the late 1920s, the three-story
structure was near capacity.
Alcatraz was the Army's first long-term prison. By exposing the inmates to a
combination of harsh confinement and ironhanded discipline, it quickly developed
a reputation as a tough detention facility. The prisoners were broken into three
classes based on their conduct and crime. Prisoners in the third class were not
permitted reading materials from the library, visits or letters from relatives,
or to talk to each other. If they violated these rules they faced being put on
hard-labor work details, having to wear a 12-pound ball and ankle chain, and/or
solitary lockdowns with a bread and water diet.
The average age for an inmate soldier was 24 years. Most served short-term
sentence for offenses such as desertion or a lesser crime. Longer sentences were
imposed for crimes of insubordination, assault, larceny and murder.
One interesting element of the military order was that prisoners’ cells
were used only for sleeping unless they were in lockdown status. All prisoners
were prohibited from visiting their cells during the day. Inmates with first or
second-class rankings were allowed to go anywhere about the prison grounds
except to the guards’ quarters on the upper levels.
Despite stringent rules and harsh standards for thuggish crimes, Alcatraz
primarily functioned as a minimum-security prison. The types of work assignments
given to inmates varied, depending on the prisoners, their class, and how
responsible they were. Many prisoners worked as both general servants, cooking,
cleaning, and attending to household chores for island families. In many cases
select prisoners were entrusted to care for children who lived on the island.
The Island was also home to several Chinese families who were employed as
servants and made up the largest civilian population.
San Franciscans grew to dislike having an Army prison as a sterile focal
point seated in the middle of beautiful San Francisco Bay. The Army brought in
soil from nearby Angel Island, trained several prisoners as gardeners and
planted several varieties of flowers and foliage. The California Spring and Wild
Flower Association made contributions of top-grade seeding ranging from rose
bushes to lilies. The prisoners enjoyed tending their gardens; landscape work
assignments were among the most sought-after job assignments.
Over the decades, the prison's routine became increasingly relaxed and
recreational activities more prevalent. In the late 1920s, prisoners built a
baseball field and were allowed to wear their own baseball uniforms. On Friday
nights the Army hosted "Alcatraz Fights," featuring boxing matches
between inmates selected from the Disciplinary Barracks. These fights were
popular and often drew several visitors from the mainland who had finagled an
invitation.
In 1934, because of the expensive operating costs in the midst of the Great
Depression, the military decided to close the prison and shift ownership to the
Department of Justice.
The Alcatraz Solution
Prohibition spawned a nationwide crime surge during the ‘20s and early ‘30s,
ushering in an unprecedented gangster era. Al Capone wielded more power, both
raw and political, than any gangster before him. As the Great Depression took
hold in the early 1930s, U.S. newspapers were full of the exploits of sharply
dressed public enemies who flouted the law and got away with it. Faced with
machine-gun toting gangsters, law enforcement agencies would often cower before
better-armed gangs in shoot-outs and public slayings.
A public cry swept the nation to take back America's heartland. Alcatraz
would play a major role in the federal government’s overdue response. If Al
Capone was the nation’s symbol of lawlessness, then Alcatraz would be the
nation’s symbol for punishing the lawless. In this respect, Capone and
Alcatraz were perfect foils in a tragedy: iconic symbols drawn together on an
unavoidable collision course. Thanks to Capone’s celebrity, the birth of a
unique detention facility was cast. It was nicknamed Uncle Sam’s Devil’s
Island.
As a federal prison, Alcatraz would serve the dual purpose of incarcerating
the nation’s most notorious criminals in a harsh, disciplined environment, and
act as a visible warning to this new brand of criminal that the federal
government meant business.
Sanford Bates, the head of the Federal Prisons, and Atty. Gen. Homer Cummings
led the Alcatraz project and kept a hand in the design concepts that were finely
detailed. One of the nations foremost security experts, Robert Burge, was
commissioned to help design a prison that was escape-proof as well as
forbidding. The original cellblock built in 1909 would undergo extensive
upgrades and renovations.
In April of 1934 work began to give the military prison a new face and new
identity. The soft squared bars were replaced with modernized tool-proof bars.
Electricity was routed into each cell and all utility tunnels were cemented to
remove an inmate’s ability to enter or hide. Tool-proof iron window coverings
would shield all areas that could be accessed by inmates. Special elevated gun
galleries would transverse the cellblock perimeters, allowing guards to carry
weapons secured behind, out-of-reach, iron-rod barriers. These galleries would
allow the guards to oversee all inmate activities.
Special tear-gas canisters were installed in the ceiling of the dining hall
and could be remotely activated from both the gun gallery and the outside
observation points. Guard towers were strategically positioned. A new technology
allowed electromagnetic metal detectors to be utilized, positioned outside the
dining hall and on prison industries access paths. The cell house contained a
total of nearly 600 cells, with no one cell adjoined to any perimeter wall. If
an inmate were able to channel his way through the cell wall, he would still
need to find a way to escape from the cell house itself. The inmates would only
be assigned to B, C, & D blocks since the primary prison population would
not exceed over 300 inmates.
Alcatraz’s "Golden Rule Warden"
The Bureau of Prisons chose James A. Johnston, a disciplinarian with a
humanistic approach to reform, as Alcatraz's warden. Johnston came to the
position with a broad-based background of business, and 12-years experience in
the California Department of Corrections. In 1913 Johnston had been appointed
warden of San Quentin Prison. He also had served a brief appointment at Folsom
Prison. Johnston had become notable for the programs he implemented for prisoner
reform. He didn't believe in chain gangs but in having inmates report to a job
where they were respected and rewarded for their efforts.
Nicknamed the "Golden Rule Warden" at San Quentin, Johnston was
praised in newspapers for the California highways that were graded by San
Quentin prisoners in his road camps. Although inmates were not compensated, they
were rewarded with sentence reductions. Johnston also established several
educational programs at San Quentin that proved successful with a good number of
inmates. Despite his humane approach to reform, he also carried a reputation as
a strict disciplinarian. His rules of conduct were among the most rigid in the
correctional system and harsh punishments were delivered to defiant inmates.
During his tenure at "Q" Johnston had overseen the executions by
hanging of several inmates.
At Alcatraz, Johnston was allowed to hand pick his correctional officers from
the federal prison system. Johnson and Sanford Bates created a vision of guiding
principles that the prison would operate under: No prisoner would be directly
sentenced to Alcatraz from the courts. Wardens from the various penitentiaries
were polled and permitted to send their most incorrigible inmates to the
"Rock." They sent inmates with histories of unmanageable behavior and
escape attempts, but they also sent their high public profiles inmates who were
receiving privileges because of status and notoriety.
Inmates who sought an attorney to represent them while incarcerated at
Alcatraz would have to do so by direct request to the U.S. attorney general. All
privileges to inmates would be limited and no inmate, regardless of his public
stature, would be allotted special privileges.
Inmates would have to earn visitation rights, but no visitation would be
allowed for the first three months. The warden must approve all visits, but only
one visit a month per inmate. Inmates would be given restricted access to the
prison library, but no newspapers, radios, or other non-approved reading
materials would be allowed. Mail was a privilege and all letters, both in-coming
and out-going, were to be screened and typewritten after being censored. Work
was a privilege and not a right. Consideration for work assignments would be
based on an inmate's conduct record.
Each prisoner would be assigned his own cell and only the basic minimum life
necessities would be allotted such as food, water, clothing, medical and dental
care. The inmate's contact with the outside world was cut off. Convicted spy
Morton Sobell later stated that the rules at Alcatraz were so stringent that
inmates were never allowed to explore the cell house. They would be marched from
location to location always in a unified manner. The routine was unyielding, day
after day, year after year. As quickly as a right could be earned for good
behavior, it could be taken away for the slightest infraction.
Alcatraz Opens in 1934
When Alcatraz opened under Warden Johnson in August 1934 there were 32
prisoners from the Army still serving out their sentences. They were joined by
11 prisoners from McNeil Island in Washington State, 53 from the Federal
Penitentiary in Atlanta, and 102 from the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth,
Kan. Al Capone, Doc Barker (who was the last surviving son from the famous Ma
Barker Gang), George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Robert "Birdman of
Alcatraz" Stroud, and Floyd Hamilton (a gang member and driver for Bonnie
& Clyde), and Alvin "Creepy" Karpis were among the first federal
prisoners sent.
Inmates who arrived at Alcatraz were driven in a small transfer van to the
top of the hill. They were processed in the basement area and provided all of
their basic amenities and a brief shower. When Al Capone arrived on the island,
he made quick attempts to flaunt the power he had enjoyed at the federal pen in
Atlanta. Capone had taken advantage of many of the leniencies provided in the
other prison. In fact, he constantly solicited guards to work for him,
belittling their low wages and attempting to get their help in running his
rackets from prison. Capone, however, was unlike many of the other inmates. Most
of the other inmates came to Alcatraz with long criminal records, as veterans of
the penal system. Capone on the other hand, had spent only a short time in
prison before being transferred to Alcatraz. In the Atlanta pen, Capone was able
to arrange unlimited visits by family and friends, and was even believed to have
booze smuggled into his cell along with special uncensored reading materials.
Warden Johnston had a custom of meeting the new "fish" when they
first arrived at Alcatraz and usually participated in their brief orientation.
Johnston wrote in a memoir that he had little trouble recognizing Capone while
he stood in the lineup. Capone was grinning, and making quiet, smug comments
from the side of his mouth to other inmates. When it was his turn to approach
Warden Johnston, it appeared that he wanted to show off to other inmates by
asking questions on their behalf in a leader-type role. Johnston quickly
provided him his prison AZ number, and made him get back in line with the other
convicts. During Capone's time on Alcatraz, he made several futile attempts to
con Johnston into allowing him special privileges.
Capone eventually resigned himself to Johnston’s regime. "It looks
like Alcatraz has got me licked," Johnston quotes Capone telling him.
Capone spent four-and-a-half years on Alcatraz and held a variety of jobs. He
got into a fight with another inmate in the recreation yard and was placed in
isolation for eight days. While Capone was working in the prison basement, an
inmate who was standing in line waiting for a haircut, exchanged words with him
and then stabbed him with a pair of shears. Capone was admitted to the prison
hospital and released a few days later with a minor wound. Capone eventually
became symptomatic from syphilis, a disease he had evidently been carrying for
years. In 1938 he was transferred to Terminal Island Prison in Southern
California to serve the remainder of his sentence.
George "Machine Gun" Kelly was also in the first group of inmates
to arrive in August of 1934. He worked in the industries, lived on the second
tier of B Block, and quietly served 17 years on the Rock before being
transferred back to Leavenworth in 1951.
Throughout its history, Alcatraz continued to be a magnet to many famous
gangsters. Most followed the stringent routines with little or no defiance; in
the process their influence on the outside was voided.
Alcatraz’s Unrelenting Regimen
The inmates’ day followed an unrelenting, methodical routine. Awakened at
6:30 a.m., they had 25 minutes to tidy their cells and stand to be counted. At
6:55, individual tiers would be opened and the inmates would march in a single
file to the mess hall. Breakfast lasted 20 minutes. The inmates were then
marched out to line up for their work assignments.
The main corridor was called the "Broadway." The cells there were
considered the least desirable because the bottom tier was inherently colder
against the long slick run of cement. They were also the least private because
guards, inmates, and other personnel frequented this corridor. The newer inmates
were generally assigned to the second tier of B Block in a quarantine status for
the first three months of their imprisonment.
While other prisons carried guard/prisoner ratios exceeding one guard to
every 12 inmates, at Alcatraz it was one guard for every three prisoners. With
the gun galleries at each end of the cell blocks and the frequency of counts (12
per day), the guards were able to keep incredibly close tabs on each inmate. A
new innovation, electronically controlled gates, also enhanced the prison's
ability to confine the rogues of American society. Because of the small number
of total inmates on Alcatraz, each guard generally knew each inmate by name.
In the early years of Alcatraz, Johnston employed a silence policy that many
inmates considered the most unbearable of punishments. There were reports that
several inmates were going insane on Alcatraz because of the severe order of
silence. One inmate, a former gangster and bank robber named Rufe Persful, took
a hatchet while working in one of the shops and chopped off his fingers on one
of his hands. This event was later inaccurately depicted in the movie staring
Clint Eastwood, Escape From Alcatraz, that chronicled the 1962-escape
attempt of Frank Lee Morris and the Anglin Brothers. The silence policy was
later relaxed but was one of few policy changes that occurred over the prison's
history.
The media hype surrounding Alcatraz, created primarily from a lack of
available information released by prison officials, deemed Alcatraz to be
"Devil's Island." Because inmates were not directly paroled from
Alcatraz, the media had a difficult time finding men who had lived on the
inside. When the press would talk with former inmates, they usually told
horrific stories about the brutalities they experienced while incarcerated
there. Most depictions were flawed, but these stories of horrid beatings, rigid
disciplinary measures, and extreme isolation fueled the media's interest.
In 1941, Henry Young went on trial for the murder of fellow inmate Rufus
McCain, his accomplice in a failed escape. Young's attorney's inaccurately
claimed that Young had been the subject of continual beatings by guards and had
undergone extensive periods of being left in extreme isolation. Young's story
was again inaccurately depicted in the movie staring Kevin Bacon and Christen
Slater, titled Murder in the First. The movie claimed Young was a teenage
orphan who was sentenced to Alcatraz for stealing $5 from a grocery store in
order to feed his starving sister, and that he "never harmed or attempted
to harm anyone" before entering Alcatraz.
The true story is that he was a bank robber who had taken and brutalized a
hostage and committed murder in 1933 – some three years before being
incarcerated at Alcatraz. At Alcatraz, Young was a difficult inmate who
challenged and provoked fights with several other inmates, including Joe Crezter,
who was considered a violence risk, and who later murdered two Alcatraz guards
during an escape attempt. Young and his eventual murder victim, McCain, had both
spent nearly 22 months in solitary confinement for a failed escape that ended in
the shooting death of public enemy Doc Barker.
After Young and McCain returned to the normal prison population, McCain was
assigned to the tailoring shop and Young to the Furniture Shop located directly
upstairs. On Dec. 3, 1940, Young waited until just after the 10 a.m. count to
run downstairs and plunge a knife into McCain. McCain fell quickly into shock
and died five hours later. Young refused to disclose his motive for the murder.
During Young’s trial his attorneys made the claim that because Young had
been held in strict isolation for three years that he could not be held
responsible for his violent action.
Warden Johnston was brought in under subpoena to testify on prison conditions
and policies. In addition, several inmates were subpoenaed to testify on the
environment of Alcatraz and many recounted the "rumors" they had heard
of inmates being locked in dungeons and severely beaten by guards. They also
testified that they knew of many inmates who "went crazy" because of
such treatment. The jury sympathized with Young, convicting him of manslaughter,
which resulted in only a few years being added to his sentence. Young continued
to be a difficult inmate following his trial and was transferred to the Medical
Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Mo. After serving out his federal
sentence in 1954, he was sent to Washington State Penitentiary and released on
parole in 1972 after nearly 40 years in prison. He finally jumped parole; it is
unknown whether he is still alive.
After Young's trial, D Block, better known as the Treatment Unit, was
refurbished. D Block was comprised of 42 cells with varying degrees of
penalization. For the most serious offenders of prison rules and regs, inmates
could be confined to the Strip Cell. The cell was by all accounts, the most
severe punishment the prison could dish out. It assured complete depravation of
all peripheral senses.
The Hole
The single "Strip Cell," or otherwise known as the
"Oriental," was a dark steel encased cell with no toilet or sink, just
a small hole in the floor for human excrement. A guard even controlled the hole’s
flushing lever. Inmates were placed in the cell without clothing and given
restricted diets. The cell had a standard set of bars with an expanded opening
to pass food, and a solid steel outer door that remained closed, leaving the
inmate in a totally pitch-black, cold environment. A sleeping mattress was
allowed during the night, but removed at dawn. Inmates were usually only subject
to this degree of punishment for 1-2 days.
The "hole" was a similar type of cell and made up the remaining
five, dual-door cells on the bottom tier. These cells contained a sink and a
toilet along with a low wattage light bulb. Inmates could spend up to 19 days in
this level of isolation. The mattresses were taken away during the day, leaving
the inmate in a state of constant boredom and severe isolation. On the solid
steel outer door, guards would sometimes open the small cover to allow in light
for inmates who were behaving peacefully.
The remaining 36 segregation cells were similar to the cells in general
population. Inmates held in segregation were allowed only one visit to the
recreation yard per week, and two showers. Meals were served in the cells.
Reading was the inmates’ primary mode of diversion. From these cells the
inmates caught a glimpse of San Francisco, a view they considered another form
of torture. The sounds and sites of freedom were so near, yet so far.
The Birdman of Alcatraz
Other than Capone, Alcatraz’s most publicized inmate was a 52 year-old
Robert Stroud (a.k.a. the Birdman of Alcatraz AZ#594). Stroud was one of the few
inmates placed directly into Alcatraz's Segregation Unit when he was transferred
there from the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., bypassing the standard
quarantine process. Stroud spent 17 years on Alcatraz and was never introduced
into the general population. Like Capone, Stroud had enjoyed many privileges not
allotted to fellow inmates at his preceding residence.
In 1909, the then 18 year-old Stroud shot and killed execution style a
bartender who apparently had failed to pay his girlfriend Kitty O'Brian (for
whom Stroud was pimping), the $10-price for her services as a prostitute. For
this killing, Stroud was convicted in 1911 of manslaughter and sent to McNeil
Island, a federal penitentiary in Washington State. Stroud served hard time at
McNeil, but was considered a difficult prisoner to manage. In November of 1911,
Stroud stabbed a hospital orderly whom he thought had reported him to the
administration for attempting to procure narcotics. The hospital orderly
survived the attack, but Stroud was given an additional six-month sentence and a
transfer to Leavenworth.
Stroud, now 22, became a disciplinary problem for the Leavenworth
administration. He was written up for miscellaneous violations and had spent
time in isolation for procuring items such as hacksaw blades, chisels, and other
contraband. In March of 1916, in front of over 1,000 inmates in the mess hall,
Stroud stabbed Andrew Turner, a young guard, with a crudely fashioned steel
shank. Turner, stunned and nearly paralyzed, slumped to the ground unconscious.
Fellow guards carried him away. He was pronounced dead only minutes later.
Although the details are sketchy, Stroud was apparently distraught after finding
out his kid brother had attempted to visit him, but had been turned away because
he had come on a day not designated for visitation.
Stroud was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by
hanging. He was ordered to wait out his death sentence in solitary confinement.
His mother desperately pleaded for his life and finally, in 1920, President
Woodrow Wilson commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment without parole.
As a result of Stroud's unpredictable and fatally violent outbursts, Warden T.W.
Morgan directed that Stroud live out his sentence in the segregation unit.
Over the duration of Stroud's 30 years of imprisonment at Leavenworth, he
developed a keen interest in birds after finding a small-injured sparrow in the
recreation yard. Stroud was initially allowed to breed and maintain a lab inside
two adjoining segregation cells because it was felt that this would serve as a
productive use of his time. As a result of this privilege, Stroud authored two
books on Canaries and their diseases, having raised nearly 300 birds within his
cells. Although it is widely debated whether his remedies were ever actually
effective, many supporters believed that he was able to make scientific
observations that would later benefit research on numerous bird species.
Stroud had built a very lucrative bird business from his cells in solitary.
He had capitalized on his own perceived importance to the bird lover's
community. Instead of being appreciative of the extended privileges, he became
more demanding of the administration. His cells were foul smelling and grossly
unsanitary. Stroud himself could be seen sitting in the midst of his birds with
excrement on his shirt and cigarette butts and ashes covering the floor. He
would have several bird carcasses, on which he would perform autopsies, strewn
on his worktables, and cages stacked from floor to ceiling. Cell searches were
nearly impossible and it was said that many of the guards had great animosity
towards Stroud.
Stroud had become an administrative nightmare. The volumes of mail he
received and the special requests he made burdened the staff on a daily basis.
Censoring his mail, filling his orders for bird feed, reading materials, and
other necessary research items could have justified a full-time personal
assistant. He was extended special privileges that were unheard of in the prison
system. Leavenworth was severely overcrowded, yet Stroud was able to maintain
residence using two cells. For years the local administration had lobbied to
have Stroud transferred to a prison were he could be more closely monitored and
his activities better supervised. Stroud's birds and research at one time had
publicity value, but as the years passed his writing and research demands had
become a bitter nuisance to the administration.
In early December of 1942 the prison administration got its wish: Stroud was
to be transferred to Alcatraz. After Stroud vacated his cell in preparation for
transfer, prison officials discovered that equipment he had requested was
actually being used to construct a still for an alcoholic brew. It soon became
clear that his bird research also help conceal several other illegitimate
activities, one of which was a crudely fashioned knife that was hidden in a
hollowed cavity of his work desk.
Stroud would spend the next 17 years of his life on Alcatraz (six years in
segregation in "D Block," and 11 years in the prison hospital) and his
identity would forever become synonymous with the name Alcatraz. Contrary to
popular legend, the Birdman of Alcatraz was never permitted to keep any birds
while on Alcatraz, enduring the deepest lock-down of his imprisonment in the
hospital ward. While at Alcatraz, however, he wrote his most famous book on bird
disease, which led to Thomas Gaddis writing a book about Stroud called The
Birdman of Alcatraz.
In 1959, he was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal prisoners in
Springfield, Mo., where, on Nov. 21, 1963, he was found dead from natural causes
by then convicted spy and close friend Morton Sobell.
Escape Attempts
During the 29 years of the prison's operation there were 14 known escape
attempts, in which 34 different inmates risked their lives to flee the Rock.
Almost all of the men were either killed or recaptured. Of the 14 attempts, two
were especially significant to the island's history. In 1946, an inmate named
Bernard Coy, was able to fashion a makeshift bar spreader and climb up to one of
the gun galleries and use the spreader to gain entry. Coy overpowered an
unsuspecting guard, took the guard’s weapon and dropped firearms to several
waiting convicts. Led by Coy and fellow inmate Paul Cretzer, the inmates had
planned to "blast out" with firearms, but were unable to locate the
key that would provide access to the prison’s recreation yard. The desperate
convicts took several guards hostage, and waged a violent war against Alcatraz.
Thousands of spectators watched from San Francisco shores while the Marines
rushed the island, barraging the cell house with mortars and grenades. Inmates
inside the cell house took refuge behind water soaked mattresses and lay
helpless while bullets riddled their surroundings. With all hope for escaping
extinct, convicts Coy, Cretzer, Marvin Hubbard, Sam Shockley, Miran Thompson and
Clarence Carnes decided to fight it out.
Johnston was unable to get a full assessment on the number of inmates
involved and believed that there was a potential for the threatened safety of
San Francisco. With the entire prison under siege, Johnston called for aid from
the Navy, Coast Guard, and the Marines. Cretzer, now desperate, and realizing
that the hostages (all prison correctional officers) would probably credit him
with plotting and executing his second escape attempt, pointed his pistol into
the crowded cell of officers and opened fire.
The fighting lasted two full days, and finally with no place to hide from the
ceaseless gunfire, Cretzer, Coy, and Hubbard retreated to a utility corridor for
shelter. The rest of the accomplices returned to their cells in hope that they
would not be identified as being direct participants in the break attempt. In
the violent aftermath, Cretzer, Coy, and Hubbard were killed in the corridor
from bullet wounds and shrapnel. One officer, William Miller, died from his
injuries. A second officer, Harold Stites, was shot and killed during an attempt
to regain control of the cell house. Thompson and Shockley were later executed
together in the gas chamber at San Quentin for their role in the murder of
Officer Miller, and Carnes received an additional 99-year sentence.
The most famed escape attempt was that of Frank Lee Morris and brothers
Clarence and John Anglin. In 1962, a fellow inmate named Allen West, helped the
trio devise a clever plan to construct a raft, inflatable life vests and human
dummies to fool guards during the routine counts. Over the course of several
months, the inmates fabricated the dummies and used special tools stolen from
various prison work sites to chip away at the vent.
The vent was a 10x6-inch metal, thatch-patterned opening located at the rear
of each cell. Their ingenuity came from their ability to create methodically
replicated grills that hid the chipped away cement and the lifelike decoys that
would deceive guards during closely visualized counts. The quality of the faked
grills and dummies were remarkable. The inmates had utilized paint kits and a
soap and concrete powder to create the lifelike heads with human hair that had
been collected from the barbershop. The preparations took over six months of
fabricating.
On the night of June 11th, 1962, immediately following the 9:30 head count,
Morris and the Anglins scaled the utility shafts to the roof. West, whom the FBI
believed had possibly been the mastermind, spent the majority of his time
building the decoys, and wasn't able to make as much progress widening the
concrete vent opening in his cell. Once they reached the roof, they climbed
through a ventilator duct where they had spread apart the thick metal bars, and
made their way to the edge of the roof. After descending utility pipes on the
cell house’s cement wall, all three scaled a 15-foot fence and made it to the
island shore where they inflated their rafts and life vests. All three ventured
out into the freezing Bay and were never seen again. During the morning count a
guard probed his club through one of the inmate's cells; the dummy head rolled
off the bed and fell to the floor.
Did they escape? The story was dramatized in several books and the famous
motion picture staring Clint Eastwood and Fred Ward, Escape from Alcatraz.
The FBI actively pursued the case for several years but never came across any
effectual leads.
The End of Alcatraz
One of the greatest ironies of Alcatraz was that the frigid and treacherous
waters of San Francisco Bay, which had proved to be the ultimate deterrent of
escape for nearly three decades, contributed to the downfall of America's
super-prison. After the escape of Morris and the Anglins, the prison fell under
intense scrutiny due to the deteriorating structural condition and the
diminishing security measures resulting from budget cuts. The corrosive effects
of the saltwater, along with the exorbitant cost of running the prison (Cost at
USP Alcatraz was $10.10 per day compared to $3 at USP Atlanta, plus the
estimated $5 million needed to restore the prison, provided U.S. Atty. Gen.
Robert Kennedy grounds for closure.
The Indian Occupation
On March 21, 1963, USP Alcatraz closed after 29 years of operation. Over the
next few years, various interest groups advanced ideas on how best to use the
island. One proposed a West Coast version of the Statue of Liberty, another a
shopping center/hotel complex. The island remained essentially abandoned until
1969 when a large group of American Indians descended on Alcatraz and claimed
the island as Indian Property.
The Indians articulated great plans, hoping to start an educational Native
American Cultural Center. Numerous celebrities as well as the Hell’s Angels
lent their support. The Indian occupation had both media and the government's
attention. Federal officials met with the Indians, often sitting crossed-legged
on blankets inside the old prison dining hall, discussing the social needs of
the Indians. As the occupation became a cause celebre, the volume of visitors to
Alcatraz became overwhelming. The island started to become a haven for homeless
and those less fortunate. The Indian leadership soon faced the same problems
that the prison administration once faced: no natural resources. All food and
water had to be ferried over on a boat. This was an expensive and exhausting
process.
Despite special prohibitions declared by the Native Americans, drugs and
alcohol were routinely smuggled onto Alcatraz. What there was of social
organization soon fell apart, causing the Indians to resort to drastic measures
to survive. In an attempt to raise money to buy food, they allegedly began
stripping copper wiring and copper tubing from the island buildings for sale as
scrap metal. The worst tragedy was when Yvonne Oakes, daughter of one of the key
Indian activists, fell to her death from a third-story building balcony. The
Oakes family left the island in grave despair and never returned.
In the late evening of June 1, 1970, an accidentally started fire raged
throughout the compound, damaging several of the main buildings, and burning
down the warden's home, the lighthouse keeper's residence, the Officers Club,
and badly burning the historic lighthouse built in 1854.
Federal officials blamed the Indians for the fire while the activists blamed
governmental saboteurs. The media, which had been largely sympathetic toward the
Indians, turned against them and began to run stories of alleged beatings and
assaults. Support for the Indians fell drastically. The original organizers had
all abandoned the island, and the remainder fought among themselves with clear
evidence of a loss of solidarity and society.
On June 11, 1971, 20 federal marshals along with the Coast Guard descended on
the island and removed the remaining residents. All were taken to Treasure
Island under protective custody. The evacuation marked the official end at
Alcatraz. In 1972, Congress created the Golden Gate National Recreation Area,
and Alcatraz Island was included as part of the new National Park Service unit.
The island opened to the public in the fall of 1973 and has become one of the
most popular Park Service sites, with more than one- million visitors from
around the world visiting the island each year.
Today Alcatraz is considered an ecological preserve, home to one of the
largest western gull colonies on the Northern California Coast. The thrill of
being on Alcatraz comes both from an awareness of its historical significance as
well as the prison's portrayal through Hollywood and motion pictures. Over the
years, many of the former inmates returned to the island amidst the tourists,
still trying to come to terms with their imprisonment on Alcatraz, trying to
understand why people choose to visit a place that for them is such a monument
of anguish.
For more information about Alcatraz, go to Michael Esslinger’s web site:
www.AlcatrazHistory.com.
