San Francisco's hottest tourist attractions these days are a big red bridge and an abandoned prison. But before it was a $60 tour for the whole family, Alcatraz was a max security federal prison that was home to a lot of very bad dudes and yes, strictly dudes. Today we're going to explore what it was like to be a prisoner in Alcatraz.
But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Channel, and let us know what famous historical landmark you would like to hear more about. Alcatraz had a strict maximum occupancy for its cells, topping off at just one inmate per jail cell. Alcatraz was generally kept at a capacity of 330 men, which meant individual cells, allowing for assured safety and privacy.
This resulted in Alcatraz being the sort of Mykonos of prison destinations for some federal prisoners, requesting this all inclusive hotspot for their mandatory stays. Cells were divided into blocks, the blocks B and C housing 336 cells measuring a cozy five feet by 9 feet. Cellblock A was the real fixer upper of the blocks.
A broken down row of cells with so much unlocked potential, this block was not used to house inmates for any significant amount of time. Cellblock D was reserved for those sent to solitary confinement. And though those cells were larger than the typical cells, inmates were forced to spend 24 hours a day in this space with one weekly exception to spend some time in the recreation yard.
Solitary confinement could last anywhere from a few days to several weeks. And as a former inmate Jim Quinlan put it "a day in the hole was like an eternity. " Prisoners in Alcatraz were given the rights to only four guaranteed things; food, clothing, shelter, and medical care while other privileges like access to the library were earned.
When a prisoner arrived at Alcatraz donning the standard stamped prison uni after the close they arrived and were taken and inmates were showered, while in the clothing room, they were also strip searched and given cursory medical examinations. The residents of Alcatraz were given three meals a day, a roof over their head that they legally could not leave, and visitation access to hospital care if they ever should need it. The hospital at Alcatraz also provided dental and psychiatric services as well.
Until the 1950s, there was a physician in residence. But due to budget cuts, the position was eliminated in favor of contracted doctors in the final years the prison was open. The hospital also became the permanent home for the very sick inmates, with some even serving out huge chunks of their sentence in the infirmary.
The Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud, spent 11 of his 17 years in the hospital due to both a kidney infection and Birdman's need to be isolated from people on account of him being dangerous. The library of Alcatraz had stacks on stacks on stacks of books for inmates to read should they earned the privilege to do so, a privilege that could also be taken away for misbehavior. Inmates couldn't visit the library at all.
Instead, each morning, those with library privileges filled out a card requesting items they could find from a catalog. These items, be it books, magazines, and the like, were delivered to their cells with all crime related content removed ahead of time. Since reading was one of the few leisurely activities inmates can look forward to, some took full advantage of what the library had to offer, using the opportunity to study law, learn other languages, or take correspondence classes offered by the University of California at Berkeley.
Other leisurely endeavors the inmates could earn with good behavior included recreational activities, such as chess or softball, and also visit with family members and work duty. In the 1950s, prisoners were given access to headsets so they could listen to the radio and watch movies in the auditorium. Just like with library privileges, any of these could be taken away if the inmate stepped out of line.
The Alcatraz band, awesomely called the Rock Islanders, were made up of inmates who had earned the right to jam out. Though a revolving door of members throughout the years, positions within the band were highly coveted. Even Al Capone himself begged to be let in, which eventually he was.
Capone wrote to his son he had learned to play the tenor guitar, tenor banjo, and was learning how to play the mandala and eventually learned how to play more than 500 songs. The band itself was, according to former guard George Gregory, "only a cut above the fourth or fifth grade band, but it did wonders for their self-esteem. " The band played on holidays in the dining hall with Sunday and special event performances sprinkled in as well.
Inmates could purchase their instruments but after regulations issued in 1956, could only practice between 5:30 to 7:30 PM. Any instrument played outside these parameters would result in the confiscation of said instrument and disciplinary action to the inmate playing. Cells at Alcatraz were quite small and didn't come with much-- just a cot, a washbasin, and a toilet.
When future Yelp reviewer and pretty bad dude Jim Quinlan arrived at Alcatraz, he remarked that his new living quarters were pretty subpar, noting that all he saw was a steel bed, a straw mattress, and a dirty lumpy pillow. He went on to note the toilet had no seat and the washbasin only had one tap, which was only for cold water. Inmates were not allowed to bring in outside items.
And Alcatraz didn't exactly have a gift shop yet, so creature comforts were sparse. However after prison regulations in the 1950s, they were allowed to purchase certain items, including textbooks, correspondence courses, musical instruments, or magazine subscriptions. The first warden of Alcatraz, James A Johnston, was a real no-nonsense guy, instituting a rule of silence at the prison that lasted until 1937 and basically keeping all of these inmates on mute while under his watchful eye.
Under Johnston's very cool rule, prisoners were only permitted to speak at meals or during recreation time. Johnston, however, cared far less about their smoking habit, allowing prisoners to smoke up to three packs of cigarettes a week, which meant smoking cigarettes was more common than speaking at Alcatraz. To get around his prison rules, prisoners would communicate to each other through pipes between cells, like tin can telephones.
The rule was eventually lifted because it was both difficult to enforce and flat out cruel. The golden rule of silence remained though for those troublesome prisoners locked in solitary confinement, which our resident Alcatraz complainer Quinlan described as total silence and darkness as his only constant companion for 24 hours of the 19 days he spent in the hole. The incarcerated citizens of Alcatraz were served three meals a day-- breakfast at 6:45 AM, lunch at 11:40 AM, and dinner at a reasonable 4:25 in the afternoon.
But the food was allegedly the best served in the federal prison system. Kitchen staffers at Alcatraz took pride in what they served their fellow inmates, with some even coming from culinary backgrounds. As former inmate Brian Conway recalled in 1938, "food at Alcatraz is much better than usual prison fare.
For dinner, there's meat, beans, coffee, bread, and celery; for supper chili, tomatoes, and apples with hot tea. According to a menu from 1946, meals included stewed fruits, cereal, milk, bread, and coffee for breakfast. And lunch being the biggest meal of the day included soup and meat like roasted pork shoulder, or beef pot pie.
Dinner might include leftovers from these extravagant lunches fit for a king and even get dessert such as apple pie cake kogelo. Like most of us just trying to get through the day, work became the best way for inmates to pass the time at this federal prison. Prisoners not in solitary could work a variety jobs in the laundry, kitchen, or on the docks.
Inmates would march to their jobs after breakfast and earn a staggering 5 to 12 cents an hour. Industry jobs, like the laundry room or woodworking plant, allowed prisoners to actually deduct two days of their sentence for each month worked during the first year and increased to four days for the second through fourth years and finally five days per month from five years on. Alcatraz prisoners were counted several times a day to keep them accounted for.
Prisoner Brian Conway noted that the bell was the signal for the count of prisoners, a really serious business which has done every 30 minutes. In reality, it was more like 13 times a day, far less than every 30 minutes. Prisoners lined up outside their cells and were counted first thing in the morning on their way to breakfast, at the mess hall, and counted after eating before heading off to work where they were counted again.
Prisoners were also counted before lunch, after lunch in their cells, another mid-day check in before dinner, one after dinner in their cells, and a couple of times after lights out at 9:30. When Brian Conway checked into Alcatraz, he noted he was introduced to the snitch box, a metal detector used to search prisoners for contraband that worked too well. He remembered the snitch box sounding an alarm on every man who came from the laundry, which after what was surely a gentle search, was discovered that the snitch box was picking up on the metal clasps on the men's shoes.
A few days later, however, the snitch box remained alarmingly silent as two men carried knives in their pockets. The snitch box was one of three metal detectors in the prison, with guests and prisoners alike having to pass through, including one embarrassing moment with Al Capone's mama when the metal stays in her corset kept setting off the detectors, forcing Mama Capone to strip down. Because so much of life inside of Alcatraz was an earned privilege and not a right, mandated guests of Alcatraz were limited in the correspondence with the outside world and subjected to judgment by prison authorities.
While prisoners in solitary confinement could receive no letters, well-behaved prisoners could send and receive letters that were regulated and monitored, which wouldn't be a problem anyways because, as Brian Conway, noted letters were to and from blood relatives. Only on Mother's Day, they were allowed to write their dear sweet mother's. And they better have.
But that correspondence too had to be approved by prison officials. The handwritten notes were retyped and a copy was given to the inmate. Visitation was also heavily regulated, as one could imagine, with inmates requesting permission for a visitor only after earning the right to visitation time.
Prisoners got one 90 minute visit a month by either a blood relative or a wife where they would talk on a phone through a small glass window. Conversation was closely monitored, and any talk of other inmates would shut the whole thing down. As accurately depicted in the 1979 classic Escape from Alcatraz, escaping the Rock was damn near impossible.
That didn't stop 14 different escape attempts during the duration of the prison's existence involving 36 prisoners. Considering that the lifetime number of inmates was 1,545 men-- a pretty small sample size in the scheme of things-- the efforts to escape Alcatraz had to be bold since leaving the island was extremely treacherous if not on a boat. Joe Bowers tried to climb over a fence but was shot and died from his injuries.
The following year, Theodore Cole and Ralph Rose escaped and attempted to swim to San Francisco only to get caught in a storm and drift away at sea, and their bodies were never found. Unsuccessful trips to freedom failed again in 1938, 1939, 1941, and 1943. In 1945, John Giles got cute, piecing together an army uniform by slowly gathering materials over time while on laundry duty.
Finally, it was John Giles's time to shine as he donned his piecemeal hobo outfit and made it all the way to Angel Island before being apprehended and sent back to prison. The following year was the year of the Battle of Alcatraz, which was as fun as it sounds. Six prisoners overpower the guards and stole their weapons only to discover nobody had the key to the recreation yard.
In a pure panic move, they started a riot. And gunfire was exchanged between the inmates and the guards. The battle lasted a full two days, and three prisoners and two guards were killed.
A few prisoners took to the waves and tried to swim away from Alcatraz. But nobody made it to shore, and some bodies were never found. In 1962, Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, John and Clarence, disappeared from their cells and were never seen or heard from again.
This disappearing act of three criminals in federal prison would later inspire the aforementioned film Escape from Alcatraz. The prevailing theory is the trio shimmied down the drain pipes after they slipped through enlarged vent holes in their cells and then attempted to swim to safety. It's assumed they died in the process of swimming to shore, but who knows.
Our old pal Brian Conway claimed the monotony and the strict discipline of this penitentiary drove 14 of 317 prisoners violently insane during the final year of his sentence, with several others getting a little stir crazy. Doctors on the Rock at times would accuse inmates of faking their mental illness in order to gain some type of advantage. Prisoner Joe Bowers was admitted to Alcatraz in 1934 and after refusing to work was thrown into solitary confinement.
He attacked two guards twice. This fit of rage was inexplicably diagnosed as epilepsy until a few months later when an actual psychiatrist said there might be reason to believe he was truly psychotic, though that same dude cautioned he had something to gain if he can induce us to believe he is insane. Though what exactly that would be is unclear.
Once this faker was returned to a cell, he tried to take his own life. He would die in 1936 while trying to escape. So what do you think of Alcatraz?
Let us know in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
