Alcatraz Darkly

Unconventional Alcatraz:by Day and by Night

By Jim Mallory

You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter, and medical attention. Anything else you get is a privilege.” That was just one of the rules prisoners lived by if they were sent to Alcatraz in 1934. Today visitors who take the “Alcatraz After Dark” trip to this windswept rock in the middle of San Francisco Bay can experience the loneliness the prisoners must have felt as they looked out the barred windows at the bright lights of San Francisco just over a mile away. The city seems close enough to touch but might as well have been a million miles away as far as those lonely men were concerned.

“Prisoners said the real torture was that the most beautiful city in the world was just a breath away,” said Nicki Phelps, Golden Gate Parks Association Director of Visitor Programs at Alcatraz.

The only way to reach the 12-acre island today is via one of the Blue & Gold Fleet ferries that depart from Pier 41. Departure times vary depending on the season, so check the Blue & Gold website at www.blueandgoldfleet.com for the current schedule. Dress warmly and don’t miss the homeward bound boat or you will spend a cold, uncomfortable night on the island.

With average sentences of 8-10 years, some men couldn’t stand the loneliness, the isolation or just being in jail. On 14 occasions prisoners attempted to escape “The Rock” during the time it was a federal prison. The most famous occurred in June 1962 when three men fashioned makeshift flotation devices from their prison issue raincoats and slipped into the frigid waters of the bay after digging their way out of the cellhouse using sharpened spoons. Their bodies were never found, but officials claim no one has ever successfully escaped from Alcatraz. Jolene Babyak, the teenage daughter of the warden at that time, eventually wrote a book titled Breaking the Rock: The Great Escape from Alcatraz that includes interviews and FBI and prison documents. Babyak has written two other books about her life on “The Rock”, and several former inmates have written of their stay on Alcatraz.

One of Alcatraz’ more recalcitrant prisoners, Jim Quillen – inmate #586 – found a unique way to pass his time in the pitch black segregation cell in which he was placed after an abortive escape attempt. “He tore a button from his shirt. He would flick it away in the darkness, then try to find it. It was one way to cope,” said Phelps. Quillen was at Alcatraz from 1942 to 1952 after escaping from San Quentin, and reportedly became a radiologist after his release and eventually received a pardon for his crimes.

Visitors to the island step ashore on a dock originally built in 1854. A government sign left over from the island’s prison days warning unauthorized visitors away greets them. The only landings permitted on the island are the Blue & Gold ferries. Splashed in bold letters on the government sign in uneven hand-painted red lettering is a welcome to Indians declaring that the island is Indian land, a reminder of the 1969 occupation of the island by Native Americans. A similar message is also still visible above the entrance to the cellhouse. The non-violent occupation ended in June 1971 but many of the buildings were damaged or destroyed by fire during the occupation.

A building with 10-foot thick walls that served as the military barracks looms over the boat landing. Visitors proceed up a ramp to the guardhouse and sally port built in 1857. An electric tram is available for wheelchair users and visitors with mobility needs who are unable to walk up the quarter mile, 12% grade hill.

The guardhouse and sally port was the first line of defense to the island and was protected by an oak drawbridge. Two cannons flanked the entrance, and a chest-high wall provided protection for rifleman. Rifle slits line the thick brick walls of the sally port to fire on any intruder who managed to breach the heavy iron-studded door, but guides are quick to point out that the riflemen would be firing towards each other. Fortunately, a shot was never fired in anger on the island during the time Alcatraz was a fort and eventually development of better weapons made its cannons obsolete.

Visitors to the 1912-era cellhouse 135 feet above the frigid waters of the bay are offered free earphone-equipped audio players that guide them through the cellhouse and let them listen to actual recorded interviews of former guards and inmates. The audio tours are available in six languages - English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. It’s not difficult to imagine a rifle-toting guard walking the gun gallery in the east end of the cellhouse as you listen to the recorded story of a prisoner scaling the bars and using a homemade screw and nut device to pry them apart wide enough to slip through and attack the guard, who had been distracted by another prisoner. The unsuccessful escape attempt became known as “The Riot of ’46.”

“The only reason they couldn’t get out of the recreation yard to seize the warden’s boat was that a guard had forgotten to put the (yard) key back, as was required by regulations,” said Phelps. The prisoners unknowingly herded that guard into a cell along with other officers they had overpowered. The officer managed to hide the key in the toilet, according to Phelps. She said it was their inability to open the gate that eventually caused the frustrated prisoners to fire into the crowded cell, killing two guards. The rest played dead in order to save their lives. Marines eventually punched holes in the roof over the utility passageway where the riot ringleaders were holed up and dropped hand grenades in, said Phelps. Three prisoners died in the storming of the prison.

During “Alcatraz After Dark” tours Golden Gate National Parks Association interpreters lead visitors into areas closed to the public during the day. The tours include “Sanity and Survival” about how prisoners deal with their imprisonment, “Small Town Alcatraz” about the families who lived on the island during its heyday and “Escapes of All Sorts,” a tour of the prison hospital. Phelps said interpreters create their own guided tours based on their extensive research into the history of “The Rock.”

Scientists believe Alcatraz first raised its sandstone peak above the bay waters about 10,000 years ago. Three thousand years ago Native Americans paddled their reed canoes to the island hunting for bird eggs and perhaps fishing from its shores. There is no water on the island except that which is brought there by boat.

In 1775, Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala sailed into San Francisco Bay to claim the area for Spain. The first lighthouse on the Pacific coast sent its oil-lamp fueled beacon seaward in 1854. Now electrified and operated by the U.S. Coast Guard, the revolving light still beckons to ships sailing through the Golden Gate.

In 1847 John Fremont, then military governor of California, purchased Alcatraz for the U.S from the Mexican government. Six years later, the Army began building a citadel, complete with dry moat, to defend the island. That citadel has remained hidden below the floor of the cellhouse since 1912 until uncovered again as engineers prepare for a $4 million earthquake project scheduled to start next fall. Their explorations have revealed gloomy coal bins that were later equipped with barred gates and iron rings in the walls to serve as dungeons where rebellious prisoners were probably chained and passed their days sometimes scratching their initials into the walls, according to a recent San Francisco Chronicle article. Modern day visitors to the cellhouse are invited to step into one of the all-steel segregation cells in D block to experience a few moments of the dark loneliness prisoners deemed troublemakers must have endured.

The island became a military prison in 1859 and over the years housed civil war soldiers convicted of desertion, theft, assault, rape and murder, private citizens accused or treason, the crew of a Confederate warship, Indians captured during the various Indian wars and military convicts from the 1898 Spanish-American War. Conscientious objectors from World War I were also imprisoned there.

After a brief period of inactivity, the prison re-opened as a federal penitentiary in 1934. Until it was de-commissioned in 1963 a total o

f 1,545 men occupied its tiny 5-ft by 9-ft cells equipped only with a toilet, sink, writing shelf and bunk in a room smaller than many closets in today’s homes. Officials said the prison’s 336 cells were never filled, with the maximum prisoner population reaching 302 at one point.

There were no women prisoners or guards at Alcatraz, but the wives and daughters of correctional officers lived on the island and seldom locked their doors. No one was ever executed at Alcatraz, although five men succumbed to the loneliness and took their own lives while another eight died at the hand of their fellow inmates.

Today Alcatraz, which is operated by the National Park Service, is not just one of the nation’s most popular tourist attractions. ”It’s the largest bird breeding population on the west coast. There are black crown night herons, western ducks and countless other breeds there from February to October,” said Phelps.

What does the future hold for Alcatraz? “Our dream is that it just keeps getting better,” Phelps told Bay Crossings.