when was alcatraz built?

Answer 1

According to the web page listed below, the US Army started building Fort Alcatraz in 1853.

Answer 2

When Was Alcatraz Built

Answer 3

the island became a federal prison in August 1934

Answer 4

http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/mainpg.htm


Alcatraz Island (slang: 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 1963, 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.


[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." (A gannet is a type of seabird.) 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.

Alcatraces is also the Spanish word for Calla Lilies. (see artist Diego Rivera's piece 'El Vendedor de Alcatraces' [[1]]


[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.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. [Boston, Mass. : Published by a Group of friends, 1933?; http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13728108] (reprinted 2007: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/68772704) [citation needed]


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), James "Whitey" Bulger 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.


Escape attempts

View of San Francisco from Alcatraz IslandDuring 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 escapees were interned) was an unguarded meter-wide utility corridor. The prisoners chiselled 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.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 escapees 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 San Francisco Bay at 10pm.

The official investigation by the FBI was aided by another prisoner, Allen West, who also was part of the escapees' 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 the bay.

Answer 5

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