From riots and escape attempts to inmate baseball leagues and a prison band featuring Al Capone, these behind-the-scenes photos reveal what life was really like at Alcatraz.
Although it has been closed since 1963, Alcatraz prison is still one of the most notorious penitentiaries in American history. “The Rock,” as it was known, was a maximum security prison — formerly a military fort — off the coast of San Francisco and home to some of America’s most infamous criminals.
It was designed to be escape-proof, though some still tried. As an isolated island in the San Francisco Bay, however, even those who managed to escape the walls of the prison itself were more than likely doomed to meet an ill fate in the icy waters below. In theory, most prisons are meant to rehabilitate inmates. Alcatraz was different. It had one goal and one goal only: containment.
Eventually, the cost of operations and the crumbling facility simply required too much maintenance to stay open, but the legacy of Alcatraz remains something of a modern legend — albeit, not always for good reasons.
Here they could play games like baseball and handball, or just take the time to enjoy the little outdoor activity they were allotted. Wikimedia Commons
Capone was stabbed while serving time at the prison but lived on and completed his term there in 1939. Bettmann/Getty Images
Here, officers and ladies stand and sit on the dock. 1902. National Park Service
He spent 17 years on Alcatraz as inmate number 117, before being transferred to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, where he would die in 1954. Wikimedia Commons
On the right, a body is removed after the rioting, 1946. San Francisco Public Library
The Al Capone-associated mobster was serving a 15-year sentence for tax evasion. Bettmann/Getty Images
Here, inmates sew pants. 1954. San Francisco Public Library
Shockley and Thompson got the gas chamber for their failed escape that contributed to the 1946 riots. Carnes was shown mercy and given a life sentence.Wikimedia Commons
From Military Fortress To Inescapable Prison
Long before Alcatraz was a massive holding cell for America's most hardened gangsters, it was nothing more than an island off the coast of a landmass that would become the United States.
First mapped in 1775 by the Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala, he dubbed it La Isla de los Alcatraces, or "The Island of the Pelicans," or possibly "Island of the Strange Birds." Per the Bureau of Prisons, that name was eventually Anglicized to Alcatraz, which it remains known as to this day.
In 1850, a presidential order marked Alcatraz as a potential future location for a U.S. military reservation. After the Gold Rush transformed San Francisco into a bustling port city, the strategic position of Alcatraz was made abundantly clear, and fortifications such as cannons and ramparts were built on the island — as well as the West Coast's first lighthouse, according to the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
At the same time, a secondary use for Alcatraz also emerged: confinement.
As early as the Civil War, military prisoners were being sent to the remote outpost. Despite being heavily fortified for war, the cannons on Alcatraz were never fired in battle, and over time its use as a confinement facility overtook its role as a strategic fort. By 1907, Alcatraz was officially designated a military prison.
Over the following decades, inmates helped build many of the structures that would later define the penitentiary, from barracks to cellblocks. Soldiers convicted of crimes such as desertion, mutiny, or insubordination worked in rock quarries and maintained the island under the Army's stern watch. Just over two decades later, however, a new chapter in Alcatraz's history was beginning.
Life Behind Bars During The Federal Penitentiary Era
With organized crime on the rise and federal prisons struggling to contain high-profile gangsters, the Department of Justice took over Alcatraz in 1934. The island was transformed into the nation's first supermax prison, intended to break the spirits of those considered the most incorrigible. Surrounded by icy waters and brutal currents, reinforced with steel and concrete, Alcatraz became a place where escape was thought impossible.
When the first group of federal prisoners arrived in August 1934, they stepped into a world of rigid control.
San Francisco Public LibraryThe opening of Alcatraz Island Prison on August 18, 1934.
Silence was enforced in mess halls, letters were screened and censored, and privileges were stripped to the bare minimum. Each cell only measured about five by nine feet, furnished with a bed, sink, and toilet. Meals were plain but consistent, a deliberate policy to prevent hunger from sparking unrest. Punishment for rule-breaking was, naturally, severe, and those sent to solitary confinement in the D Block isolation wing called it "the Hole" due to how dark and bare the cells were.
"I killed an Army sergeant to protect my own life. I served 10 years in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, which was bad enough, and two months in Alcatraz prison, which was worse," reads the account of inmate Bryan Conway, published originally by Reader's Digest in 1938.
"...The first glimpse of Alcatraz prison fills a convict with grim forebodings. That bare rock rising out of San Francisco Bay has little vegetation. It is subject to fogs and damp winds. I've seen guards wearing overcoats in midsummer. I am certain that part of the convict's dread of Alcatraz prison is due to adroit propaganda regarding the terrors of 'the Rock.'"
Alcatraz typically held between 260 and 275 inmates at any given time, guarded by a staff of around 90. Prisoners worked in laundries, workshops, and maintenance crews. They were permitted some recreation, including handball and baseball in the yard, and music under strict conditions. A prison band even gave performances for the inmates, but the monotony in combination with an ever-present sense of isolation took a psychological toll on both the prisoners and the guards.
"Men go slowly insane under the exquisite torture of restricted and undeviating routine," Conway said. "And not so slowly at that, because out of a total of 317 prisoners, 14 went violently insane during my last year on the Rock, and any number of others were what we call 'stir crazy,' going about their familiar routine like punch-drunk boxers."
Unlike most penitentiaries, Alcatraz was also home to a community of prison staff and their families. Separate housing on the island provided a school, a chapel, and even a small grocery store for guards' children and spouses. This community existed in stark contrast to the strict prison regime at the heart of the island, contributing to the enduring fascination with the island's modern history.
It wasn't the only thing that cemented Alcatraz's place in history, though.
Infamous Inmates And Escape Attempts
A large part of Alcatraz's notoriety came from the caliber of men it held.
Chicago mob boss Al Capone, stripped of his influence and weakened by syphilis, spent four and a half years on the island, even playing banjo in the prison band. By then, Capone had become unpopular among his fellow inmates, simultaneously asking for the respect he had once earned and too weak to demand it.
"Capone gets lonesome because he doesn't come in contact with many other men," Conway recalled. "He has lost weight, is said to be in mortal fear for his life, and is deprived of all the privileges he used to purchase at Atlanta."
George "Machine Gun" Kelly, once a feared kidnapper, meanwhile, became a model prisoner and was mockingly called "Pop Gun Kelly" by guards.
Robert Stroud, the so-called "Birdman of Alcatraz," was transferred there in 1942 after killing a guard elsewhere. Despite his nickname, he was never allowed to keep birds on the island. Instead, he spent years in segregation, studying and writing in near-total isolation.
Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, a notorious kidnapper and bank robber, served the longest sentence of anyone at Alcatraz: 26 years.
Another member of the same gang, Arthur "Doc" Barker, was killed during an escape attempt in 1939. Despite this, Barker was hardly the only person to ever make an attempt to flee the prison.
San Francisco Public LibraryAlcatraz escapee Arthur Barker.
Between 1934 and 1936, 36 men attempted to flee in 14 separate incidents. Most were caught, killed, or presumed drowned, but a few cases remain unresolved. In 1937, for instance, Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe vanished into the bay after filing through cell bars. They were never seen again. Authorities assumed they drowned, but some speculated they may have survived.
Then, in 1946, the so-called "Battle of Alcatraz" erupted when six inmates, led by Bernard Coy, managed to overpower guards and seize weapons. Their bid for freedom failed when they could not access the prison yard, but the standoff lasted two days. Marines were called in, leaving two guards and three inmates dead.
The most famous attempt, however, came in June 1962, when Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin executed a daring and bold plan. Using handmade tools, they dug through ventilation ducts in their cells, created papier-mâché heads to fool guards at bed checks, and escaped into the bay on a raft fashioned from raincoats. The FBI concluded they drowned, but evidence and family claims have long fueled speculation that the men actually made it to freedom.
Decline, Closure, And Reopening As A National Park
In either case, the men's success in their endeavor — at least, in making it off the island — was indicative of a larger breakdown of Alcatraz's security. By the late 1950s, Alcatraz had begun to crumble. Saltwater and wind eroded its concrete, plumbing rusted, and the cost of operation fart outstripped other prisons, especially since every supply had to be shipped in.
At one point, it cost more than three times as much to house a prisoner on Alcatraz as on the mainland.
With all this in mind, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered the prison closed in 1963. On March 21, the final group of inmates was transferred, and the doors of Alcatraz shut for good. That didn't mark the end of the island's story, however.
Bettmann/Getty ImagesNative American protestors occupying Alcatraz.
In 1969, Native American activists occupied Alcatraz for 19 months, invoking a treaty that allowed indigenous groups to reclaim unused federal land. The protest brought national attention to Native rights before the government forcibly ended it in 1971, after the Nixon administration concluded that no agreement could be reached.
A year later, Alcatraz was incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Today, the National Park Service manages it as a historic site. Over a million visitors a year now walk through its decaying cellblocks, listening to audio tours that include the voices of former inmates and guards.
After this look at Alcatraz Prison, check out the dark side of mental asylums of decades past with these haunting photos. Then, step inside the five worst prisons on Earth.
