I had always wondered if visiting Alcatraz in real life would be at all similar to all the documentaries I had watched on the History Channel. And you certainly can't forget the Mythbusters episode where Adam and Jamie try to escape the island the same way the prisoners did back in 1962. On a quick three day visit to the Golden Gate City, this was a must-do.
The weather was a perfect 75 degrees out with the sun shining as we took the ferry out across the San Fransisco Bay to the infamous Alcatraz Island. Hypothetically if I were a prisoner there I would certainly have tried to escape. I mean it's not like there would be much to do there. And it'd be quite an engineering feat to break out of the most "secure" prison in the world and then make a boat that was able to combat such a strong current. Then again the ferry we were on could carry 250+ people through the strong current much faster. Guess that's kind of cool engineering as well (Yes, sarcasm intended). Disembarking from the boat took a few minutes, but after that, we were standing right where some of America's worst prisoners had stood before, along with the families of the prison guards that would ferry into the city each day. One of the many interesting facts I learned was that many of the prison guards would live with their families on the island itself and their kids would go to school off the island each day. Kind of interesting in my opinion.
Our first stop was the main prison where we all participated in the audio tour. Basically some ratty old earphones with an MP3 player attached, but the content throughout the tour made up for it! As the voice coming through the headphones told you to walk to the next cell/feature where the next story/ history lesson would begin. To my surprise, the prison had three stories of cells. All of which were not very large but had all the basic amenities that a prisoner of that time period would need. The solitary confinement section was one place I would not want to have ended up. Not a whole lot going on in those cells. Check out the slide deck below to see some pictures from inside the prison.
Second, to the escape, one of the events that went on during the operational period of the prison was an overtaking of the prison. Essentially, the prisoners knew when the guards would switch their shifts there was a key passed to a weapons locker at each shift change. Long story short, the prisoners mugged a guard, took the keys and were able to get themselves some nice weapons to take over the prison for an extended period of time. **SPOILER ALERT: The U.S. Marines were called in and the prisoners eventually lost control. At one point the audio tour has you walk to one area where a grenade was thrown in from the roof and exploded inside the prison. Fortunately, only one person was killed during the siege. After it was all said and done I recall the prisoners getting some time in solitary confinement.
Now, everyone has heard about how three people may or may not have escaped from Alcatraz. I am convinced that this did in fact happen. Their escape was so meticulously planned out and breadcrumbs found on the mainland after the escape leave me no choice. Enough with the conspiracy, back to the escape.. The prisoners obviously didn't have much to work with, but some metal utensils would get the job done. They were able to dig their way through the cell walls to gain roof access where they were able to then climb down to the water. That was just one obstacle they would have to overcome. Next being the bay. By using roughly 50 raincoats and whatever else you can build a boat within a prison they made a boat. One good enough to travel across the bay. With tide table intel on the night of 1962-05-11, the gentlemen were off to freedom. They did leave one of their buddies behind because he was too slow getting out. Rumor has it they are still out there for good reason. There have been a couple of sightings and one of the escapees used to send his mom flowers or something on her birthday.
The post wasn't incredibly long, but I didn't want to spoil to much. Either way, I hope you enjoyed the post and I recommend going if you get the chance. Thanks for reading!
