Alcatraz Island has a long and fascinating history, and has been the site of a fortress, military prison, and an infamous federal penitentiary; the island is now a national park. The first people to visit the island were native peoples who arrived between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. Historians believe that they may have used Alcatraz as a camping spot, and as an area for gathering food, especially bird eggs and marine life. One native tradition implies that the island may have been used as a place of banishment for tribal members who violated tribal law.
Alcatraz guarded the strait of San Francisco Bay between 1859 and 1907, serving as the bay’s only defense until Fort Point was completed in 1861. Alcatraz’s fortifications included more than 100 cannon. Read more about it here.
The first convicts weren’t bank robbers or thugs but Confederate sympathizers, disobedient soldiers, Native Americans, and suspected spies. Fortress Alcatraz became a formal military prison in 1907.
During Prohibition and the Great Depression, the federal government developed a new type of prison for the most incorrigible troublemakers. The maximum-security, minimum-privilege Alcatraz facility was specially designed for inmates so troublesome that other federal prisons couldn’t handle them. During its 29 years of operation, more than 1,500 convicts were incarcerated here. The expense of operating and maintaining such an isolated facility brought about the prison’s closure in 1963. Notorious Inmates Al “Scarface” Capone, convicted of tax evasion, was one of the federal penitentiary’s first occupants; he spent five years on Alcatraz. Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, convicted of kidnapping, was the FBI’s Public Enemy No. One in1936. After 27 years and nine months on Alcatraz, a longer term than that of any other inmate, Karpis was transferred to another prison and eventually paroled. Convicted murderer Robert Stroud, "the Birdman," was an Alaskan Gold Rush pimp and committed two murders. Stroud spent 54 years of his life behind bars, 17 on Alcatraz, where he was not allowed to keep birds.
While Alcatraz stood empty and the federal government debated its fate, a boatload of 89 Native Americans claimed the island as “Indian land.” Frustrated by lack of support and personal tragedies, and confronted by US Marshals, the last of the occupiers left Alcatraz in 1971. While the occupation was short-lived, its ramifications were not: Native American pride surged and the US government abandoned its attempts to eliminate the Native American reservation system.
In 1972, Alcatraz was added to the newly created Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and was opened to the public in 1973.
