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The first European to discover the island was Juan de Ayala who named it La Isla de los Alcatraces, which translates to "Island of the Gannets." Alcatraz is the singular of Alcatraces. De Ayala probably confused the Pelicans he observed with Gannets, a related bird common in Europe. In the United States the generally accepted translation of alcatraz has become Pelican.
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. As well, it is the starting point of the annual Escape from Alcatraz triathlon.
Alcatraz was a military installation established in 1850, later used as a military prison including incarceration of some Hopi Native American men. The United States Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz were acquired by the United States Department of Justice on October 12, 1933. 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 that occupied the island and called it home 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
By decision of U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the penitentiary was closed for good on March 21, 1963. The prison 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.
In 1969, a group of American Indians from many different tribes, calling themselves United Indians of All Tribes (many were relocated to the Bay Area under the Federal Indian Reorganization Act of 1934), occupied the island, and proposed an education center, ecology center, and cultural center. According to the occupants, in a Sioux treaty the government conceded that all retired, abandoned, or out-of-use federal land must be returned to the Native people from whom it was acquired. During the occupation, several buildings were damaged or destroyed, including the recreation hall, Coast Guard quarters, and the Warden's home. A number of other buildings (mostly apartments) were destroyed by the U.S. Government after the occupation had ended. After 18 months of occupation, the government forced them off. But the end of Termination and the new policy of self-determination were established in 1970 as a direct result of the occupation. Today American Indian groups, for example the International Indian Treaty Council, hold ceremonies on the island.
Most notable is Columbus Day and Thanksgiving Day when they hold a "Sunrise Gathering".
The island is also known as "The Rock."
Escape attempts
During its 29 years of operation, the penitentiary never logged any officially successful escapes. Thirty-four prisoners were involved in fourteen attempts, two men trying twice; seven were shot and killed, two drowned, five unaccounted for, the rest 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) there ran a metre-wide utility corridor that was unguarded. The prisoners chiseled away the moisture-damaged concrete from around an air vent leading to the 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 the escaper's accordions played during music hour, and their progress hidden by false walls they painted and placed (which, in the dark recess of the cells, did fool the guards).
The escape route then went up through a fan vent; the fan and motor had been removed and replaced only 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 removed the rivets from the grille (disguising their progress with soap rivets). 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 that night.
The official investigation by the FBI was aided by another prisoner, Allen West, who also was part of the escapee's 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.
In 2003, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, the co-hosts of the television series MythBusters, sought to prove whether the escapees could have survived. Using similar materials to those used by the three convicts, 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. 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 trek took 40 minutes and both Hyneman and Savage agreed that the escape could have succeeded.
Also, tests using the U.S. 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 escapees 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 escapees 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.
Appearances in popular culture
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 :
- Birdman of Alcatraz starring Burt Lancaster
- Escape from Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood
Murder in the First starring Kevin Bacon, Christian Slater and Gary Oldman
- A major pharmaceutical company in X-Men: The Last Stand safeguards its antidote to the mutant gene on Alcatraz. The final battle also takes place at Alcatraz. It is the hideaway for the villains in The Enforcer and appears in the final battle. It is the base of hostage situation and the location of the rockets and renegades in The Rock.
- Al Capone Does My Shirts, a novel about a boy and his autistic sister living on Alcatraz Island. Helping Al Capone escape from Alcatraz is a major plot point in the role-playing video game Shadow Hearts : From The New World.
- 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.
- The radio series Gangbusters presented a dramatised version of the 1946 Alcatraz Prison Riot
- Midtown Madness 2 has San Francisco as a playable level, where Alcatraz Island is viewable in the distance, though it is not reachable.
- 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.
- 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.
- The movie So I Married An Axe Murderer features a scene where two main characters take a tour of the prison, including a gruesome story about Machine Gun Kelly.
Notes
- 1 - Block 1067, Block Group 1, Census Tract 179.02, San Francisco County United States Census Bureau
- 2 - "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).
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatraz_Island
Text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
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