Alcatraz
Richard and I spent our first anniversary in the San Francisco
Bay area many moons ago. Alcatraz had long been on my bucket list, so of course
we took the ferry and went for an afternoon visit.
During its time as a military prison the island functioned
as a minimum-security facility with the inmates working at various jobs to
include working for the families who lived on the island. Even with the lax
security at the time the island was unescapable with inmates who tied having to
turn back or having to be rescued from the freezing waters. Those who did not
turn back or were not rescued drown long before reaching the shores of San Francisco.
The public disliked the rocky terrain of the island in the
middle of the beautiful bay so arrangements were made to have soil brought in
and prisoners were trained as gardeners, a variety flowers and plants were added to develop the
lovely gardens that can still be seen today.
In 1934 the military closed the prison due to the rising
costs of running the prison. The prohibition era of 1920’s had brought a wave
of organized crime to the United States, many hard core criminals were being
locked up in prisons. The worst of these prisoners were soon being sent to Alcatraz.
When prisoners arrived at Alcatraz they were processed in the
basement area, provided the most basic necessities and moved to a single cell. Inmates
would begin their day getting up at 6:30 with 25 minutes to straighten up their
small cells and be ready to be counted. Cells would open at 6:55 and the
inmates were expected to walk single file to the mess hall where they had 20
minutes to eat before moving on to their work assignments. Inmates were not
allowed to talk to each other in their cells and were only allowed short
periods of talking during mealtime. Every day was exactly the same for the inmates
and with a ratio of one guard for three inmates the routine was easily
enforced. Living the exact same way each
and every day and not being allowed to talk for fear of severe repercussions
drove many inmates mad. Rufe Persful a former gangster and bank robber went as
far as to grab a hatchet, place his hand on a block and begin to chop all of
his fingers off before begging a guard to chop the fingers off his remaining hand.
Punishments at Alcatraz were shift and severe. There was a
single strip cell, nicknamed “ The Oriental” a small dark cell with a hole in
the floor for a toilet that could only be flushed outside by a guard was one.
Inmates were placed in the cell naked, food was slipped through a slot in the door,
the inmates would be left in total darkness and only given a mattress to sleep
on at night, inmates were left in here for 2 to 3 days. Another similar cell called The Hole” was a
cell on the bottom tier, this contained only a low watt light bulb, sink and
toilet, here inmates could be kept for several days. There are also rumors of dungeon
like cells below ground were inmates were taken, tortured and left.
Alcatraz housed many notorious criminals, two of them were
Robert Stroud and Al Capone.
Robert “Birdman” Stroud at a young age made his way from Seattle to
Alaska to escape his abusive father. While in Alaska, he shot and killed a
bartender who had failed to pay a prostitute Kitty O’Brian. Robert had
befriended Kitty and may have been pimping her at the time. He was convicted of
manslaughter and sent to a prison in Washington State, while there he earned
the reputation of being a difficult inmate. He violently stabbed a
hospital orderly, for this he was given additional time and sent to Leavenworth.
At Leavenworth he continued to be a disciplinary problem and finally stabbed
and killed a guard after he was denied a visit from his brother. Stroud was
initially sentenced to death for this crime but his mother plead for his life
and President Woodrow Wilson commuted his sentence to life without parole. During
his time at Leavenworth Stroud developed an interest in birds and was allowed
to breed birds for a time in a cell adjoining his segregation cell. Stroud was transferred to Alcatraz after it
was discovered that some of the equipment he was using for his bird research
was being used as a still to make alcohol. Stroud spent six years in segregation on D
block at Alcatraz before being transferred to a prison hospital where he died
after eleven years.
Al Capone was of course convicted of tax evasion and given an 11 year sentence. He found
himself at Alcatraz were he soon discovered he was not able to manipulate his environment
as he had done at previous penitentiaries.
He spent 4 ½ years at Alcatraz fighting with other inmates and finding
himself in isolation on several occasions. Eventually he spent most of his time
playing his banjo in cell often refusing to leave. Untreated syphilis began to destroy Al Capone’s brain and his behaviors became more and more strange,
eventually his wife petitioned the warden to release him due to his medical condition.
He was released and died of heart failure
in Florida on Jan 25 1947 at 48 years of age. The prison closed in 1963 after 29 years of operation as a federal penitentiary.
Numerous stories of unexplained sounds and activity have
been reported from Alcatraz over the years. Visitors reported feeling cold spots and
strange feelings near cell 14D, there is a tale that in the 1940’s a prisoner
was locked in the cell and continued to scream that a creature with glowing eyes
was killing him, he was found dead the next day, the coroner’s report stated
that he was strangled. Other visitors report hearing the sounds of a banjo
being played near where Al Capone was housed. Guards have reported smelling
smoke when there is no fire, hearing crying and moaning when there is no one there
and feeling cold spots or of seeing ghosts of prisoners and military personnel.
The most paranormal activity seems to come from a utility
corridor where three inmates were shot in a reign of bullets after a failed
prion escape.
There is defiantly an eerie feeling walking the corridors' of this prison and mystery surrounding the famous inmates who dug through their cells, escaped the walls of the prison and were never seen again. Did they make it to freedom or did they likely drown and are their spirits still trying to find a way to freedom, we may never know the answer.
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