About 18 officers were injured during the escape attempt. Marines were eventually called out to assist, and on May 4, the escape attempt ended with the discovery of the bodies of Coy, Cretzer, and Hubbard. Shockley, Thompson, and Carnes stood trial for the death of the officers; Shockley and Thompson received the death penalty and were executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin in December Carnes, age 19, received a second life sentence.
July 23, -- Floyd Wilson disappeared from his job at the dock. After hiding for several hours among large rocks along the shoreline, he was discovered and surrendered.
September 29, -- While working on the garbage detail, Aaron Burgett and Clyde Johnson overpowered a correctional officer and attempted to swim from the island. Johnson was caught in the water, but Burgett disappeared. An intensive search turned up nothing. Burgett's body was found floating in the Bay two weeks later. June 11, -- Made famous by Clint Eastwood in the movie Escape from Alcatraz, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin vanished from their cells and were never seen again.
A fourth man, Allen West, believed by some people to have been the mastermind, was also involved; however, he was still in his cell the next morning when the escape was discovered. An investigation revealed an intricate escape plot that involved homemade drills to enlarge vent holes, false wall segments, and realistic dummy heads complete with human hair placed in the beds so the inmates would not be missed during nighttime counts.
Behind the rear wall of the cells is a utility corridor that had locked steel doors at either end. The three men climbed the utility pipes to the top of the cellblock, and gained access to the roof through an air vent the men had previously bent the iron bars that blocked the air vent. They then climbed down a drainpipe on the northern end of the cellhouse and made their way to the water.
They used prison-issued raincoats to make crude life vests and a pontoon-type raft to assist in their swim. A cellhouse search turned up the drills, heads, wall segments, and other tools, while the water search found two life vests one in the bay, the other outside the Golden Gate , oars, and letters and photographs belonging to the Anglins that had been carefully wrapped to be watertight.
But no sign of the men was found. Several weeks later, a man's body dressed in blue clothing similar to the prison uniform was found a short distance up the coast from San Francisco, but the body was too badly deteriorated to be identified.
Morris and the Anglins are officially listed as missing and presumed drowned. December 16, -- John Paul Scott and Darl Parker bent the bars of a kitchen window in the cellhouse basement, climbed out, and made their way down to the water. Parker was discovered on a small outcropping of rock a short distance from the island.
Scott attempted to swim towards San Francisco, but the currents began pulling him out to sea. He was found by several teenagers on the rocks near Fort Point beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and was taken to the military hospital at the Presidio Army base suffering from shock and hypothermia, before being returned to Alcatraz. Over the 29 years that the Federal prison operated, 36 men including two who tried to escape twice were involved in 14 separate escape attempts.
Of these, 23 were caught, 6 were shot and killed during their escape, and 2 drowned. Two of the men who were caught were later executed in the gas chamber at the California State Prison at San Quentin for their role in the death of a correctional officer during the famous May , , "Battle of Alcatraz" escape attempt.
Whether or not anyone succeeded in escaping from Alcatraz depends on the definition of "successful escape. Officially, no one ever succeeded in escaping from Alcatraz, although to this day there are five prisoners listed as "missing and presumed drowned. One of the many myths about Alcatraz is that it was impossible to survive a swim from the island to the mainland because of sharks. In fact, there are no "man-eating" sharks in San Francisco Bay, only small bottom-feeding sharks.
Prior to the Federal institution opening in , a teenage girl swam to the island to prove it was possible. Fitness guru Jack LaLanne once swam to the island pulling a rowboat, and several years ago, two year-old children also made the swim. If a person is well-trained and -conditioned, it is possible to survive the cold waters and fast currents. However, for prisoners - who had no control over their diet, no weightlifting or physical training other than situps and pushups , and no knowledge of high and low tides - the odds for success were slim.
It did not close because of the disappearance of Morris and the Anglins the decision to close the prison was made long before the three disappeared , but because the institution was too expensive to continue operating. The major expense was caused by the physical isolation of the island - the exact reason islands have been used as prisons throughout history.
This isolation meant that everything food, supplies, water, fuel For example, the island had no source of fresh water, so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week. The Federal Government found that it was more cost-effective to build a new institution than to keep Alcatraz open. After the prison closed, Alcatraz was basically abandoned. In , the island again made news when a group of Native American Indians claimed Alcatraz as Indian land with the hope of creating a Native American cultural center and education complex on the island.
The "Indians of All Tribes" used their act of civil disobedience to illustrate the troubles faced by Native Americans. Stone not so regular I pay six dollars for these are rubble though I have used them in face. The concrete [for the foundation] is mostly made from beach stone. I should not hesitate to use brick could the hard bricks of the East be obtained here. Brick manufacturing was still an infant industry on the West Coast, and the army engineers found it difficult to locate good hard brick in quantity and at a reasonable price.
An summary of brick purchased for Alcatraz showed that a large variety of suppliers had attempted to fill the island's needs. Among them were the state prison brickyard and a brickyard at Fort Point that the engineers themselves had established. Tower and Barnard sent samples of local brick to the East for testing. In July , Totten informed them of the results. The large bricks from Contra Costa County seemed "rather tender from being under-done; and also rather too sandy; but, as in some of our Southern bricks, this last may not be a material doubt.
Later, when the engineers changed from sandstone to brick for the Alcatraz works, nearly all the brick came from Sacramento--after the problem of inconsistent quality had been solved.
In his first annual report Tower described the construction accomplished. The island was no longer a barren rock; wharves, roads, buildings, and batteries had already begun to change the island's skyline.
Tower first described the temporary buildings he had erected. Most of these "temporaries" remained for many years, serving the needs of the garrison as well as the construction workers. This shop was 30 by 20 feet, with a tool room in the half-basement. It was situated on the edge of the road leading to the southeast battery. A wooden cistern, 12 by 10 by 6 feet, stood outside the building at its northwest end.
This shop was 30 by 20 feet, had two forges. This stood near the main wharf, on a leveled spot on the cliff. A flight of steps led down to the wharf. These storehouses were used for cement and lime,one 40 by 26 feet, the other 40 by 20 feet. Both were located on the leveled area at the wharf, along the road leading to the northwest battery.
The stable was 30 by 20 feet, with a hayloft above and grain room attached. It accommodated eight animals I and it stood by itself on the southwest side of the island. This building was 66 by 21 feet I with a kitchen attached I and was used for mechanics and laborers.
Located at the southeast end of the island, adjacent to the five-gun temporary battery. This barracks was 75 by 22 feet, with three tiers of bunks accommodating 96 men. It stood across the road from the mess house. This barracks was 81 by 21 feet I with accommodations for 50 persons. It was located above the southeast barracks. Its dimensions were 24 by 14 feet, with an ell 20 by 20 feet. It crowned the southeast peak, where the Citadel would eventually stand.
This building was 26 by 12 feet I for master mechanics and principal overseer. The boarding housekeeper occupied the attic. This structure was not identified as such on Tower's map; but it may have been an unidentified building below the office, on the southwest side of the island. This tank, made of plank, had a 23, ODD-gallon capacity. It stood between the storehouses and the wharf area. Water for general purposes, including concrete mixing, was secured under contract from the Sausalito Water Company.
Two wharves have been constructed. The larger on the north [east] face of the Island [where today1s landing is located] consists of a bulk head built of timber and planks 96 feet long [along the shore] and a wharf head of frame work 70 feet wide. The planked structure covers an area of square feet and the entire wharf room is 6, feet, a portion of which is occupied by the mortar mill [and sand and gravel bins].
The large [water] tank and storehouses stand upon the road way near this landing. The wharf at the south [east] end. Tower had constructed two roads, one leading from the main wharf to the northwest battery area, where it terminated at the end of the island outside the scarp of the battery. The other branched off from the first to the southeast, passed to the rear of the southeast battery, and continued along the southwest side of the island, terminating at the temporary Three-Gun Battery that looked at the Golden Gate.
Tower regarded his roads as permanent structures. The ditches and the sites of the caponiers at both batteries had been essentially excavated. At the northwest battery, 91 yards of concrete foundation for the scarp wall had been laid. Running short on funds, Tower had suspended work on the battery until the new fiscal year.
Much more progress had been made on the southeast battery. During World War II, prisoners were also called upon to help the war effort: workers made tens of thousands of cargo nets for the US Navy and repaired the large buoys that secured the submarine net across San Francisco Bay.
Inmates making cargo nets; photo courtesy National Park Service. This corporation still exists today; operating under the name UNICOR, it has expanded to provide not only manual labor for government industry but also business services — such as prisoner-staffed call centers — for private companies. The workshops in the New Industries Building started shutting down in October , before the entire prison closed in Today, visitors to the national park can still see the views that were so tantalizing for the men who worked here, and observe the numerous birds that now use the cliffs outside New Industries as a nesting ground.
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