by Jason Medina

Created on: November 13, 2007   Last Updated: November 14, 2007

Perched atop a bluff on lonely and desolate Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, the time-ravaged and gutted remnants of Alcatraz Prison, one of the most notorious and well-known prisons ever to operate in America, stands defiant. With its empty prison cells and silent prison corridors, Alcatraz, also known as "The Rock," is but a memory of the bustling, crowded, and punitive dungeon of years past. Located just over a mile from mainland San Francisco, isolated by the frigid, torrid, and shark-infested waters of the Pacific Ocean, Alcatraz has a lengthy history as a place of incarceration designed to house the worst that humanity had to offer.

Before Alcatraz was acquired by the Department of Justice in 1933 and turned into a maximum security Federal Prison in 1934, Alcatraz operated as a military installation and military prison. With it's ideal location overlooking the large San Francisco Bay and with its uplifted rocky cliffs and outcroppings offering panoramic views of the surrounding waters, Alcatraz Island was an important strategic location used by the military. What better vantage point to spy oncoming enemy ships and attacks than from Alcatraz Island! In 1861, during the onset of the United States Civil War, Alcatraz was used as an ideal location to house Confederate prisoners and criminals. With an assortment of long-range cannons and guns encircling the prison and its perimeter, Alcatraz presented an intimidating front for all the world to see.

When San Francisco was devastated by a large earthquake and a large part of the city ruined by fire in 1906, many of the city's jails were demolished. Until the city and all of its damaged buildings could be rebuilt, many prisoners were transferred to Alcatraz to serve out their sentences. In 1909, the original Alcatraz prison buildings were torn down as construction began on a new prison facility. Ironically, the construction of this new prison was completed by military prisoners incarcerated during this time period. With a new and improved prison up an operating, the military would continue to operate and run Alcatraz as a military prison until its closure in 1933. Spawned by the increasing amounts of violent crime soaring across the United States during the roarin' 1920's and 1930's, an age when bootlegging and prohibition created many dangerous criminal gangs and outlaws, the search began for a place to incarcerate these dangerous, incorrigible criminals. With a fully-functioning prison already in operation,

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