Alcatraz Island

Mar 21 1963 – The federal prison at Alcatraz is closed.

Alcatraz Island is, to to be sure, a lonely, inaccessible little rock; windblown, covered in seagull droppings, a mere wisp of an island.


Alcatraz Island as America’s most feared Federal Prison was a response and an experiment. America’s attitude of the day, after Prohibition and The Great Depression, was that the public was constantly threatened by crime, that law and order must be preserved and that extreme measures for the worst criminals must be taken, bar no expense.
Alcatraz became the end of the line for the worst offenders, criminals who attacked guards or those too famous for their own good. Alcatraz was also an experiment in isolation. While the government did consider land in Alaska for the site of theiruberprison, the little island in the middle of the cold bay was too perfect and already a military prison, the very definition of isolation with San Francisco’s city lights just out of reach.