49 Fun Facts About Alcatraz

Alcatraz Island sits in the bay of which US city?

Alcatraz sits in San Francisco Bay, east of the Golden Gate; the bay's cold water and strong currents made swimming to the city nearly impossible.

What is the prison's famous nickname?

The name comes from Spanish alcatraz, meaning gannet, though it is popularly taken to mean pelican.

What does the Spanish word 'alcatraz' mean in the island's name?

Alcatraz comes from Spanish alcatraces, 'pelicans' or gannets; Juan Manuel de Ayala's 1775 survey named an 'Isla de los Alcatraces', first applied to what is now Yerba Buena Island.

In which year did Alcatraz open as a federal penitentiary?

Alcatraz opened as a federal penitentiary in 1934; the Justice Department had taken the Army's disciplinary barracks in October 1933, and the first federal convicts arrived that August.

In which year did the federal prison close?

The federal penitentiary closed on 21 March 1963 under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, after structural decay and running costs far above other federal prisons made it uneconomic.

How far is Alcatraz from the shore of the city it faces?

Alcatraz lies about 1.25 miles (2 km) from San Francisco's shoreline; the bay's cold water and strong currents, not the distance, made escape so deadly.

Which Chicago gangster was among Alcatraz's most famous inmates and played banjo in its prison band?

The band was called the Rock Islanders and played Sunday concerts; Capone's syphilis was steadily eroding his mind by then.

Robert Stroud, the 'Birdman of Alcatraz', actually kept his birds at which other prison?

Stroud bred and studied canaries at Leavenworth, Kansas, for decades; Alcatraz banned the birds, and he spent his 17 years on the island mostly in segregation and the hospital wing.

Which actor played Robert Stroud in the 1962 film Birdman of Alcatraz?

Burt Lancaster played Stroud in John Frankenheimer's Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for the role.

Which gangster served more time at Alcatraz than any other inmate?

Karpis was there from 1936 to 1962, and was the only FBI 'Public Enemy #1' ever taken alive.

What nickname did fellow Alcatraz inmates give gangster George Barnes for his tall fish stories?

Fellow inmates dubbed Machine Gun Kelly 'Pop Gun Kelly' for his boastful tales; he had collected a $200,000 ransom for kidnapping oilman Charles Urschel in 1933 and died in Leavenworth in 1954.

How many escape attempts were made during Alcatraz's 29 years as a federal prison?

There were 14 escape attempts involving 36 men; 23 were caught, six were shot dead, two drowned and five were never found.

The three men in the famous June 1962 Alcatraz escape were Frank Morris and two brothers from which family?

John and Clarence Anglin, bank robbers from Georgia, remain on the US Marshals' wanted list.

In the famous 1962 Alcatraz escape, what did the fugitives leave in their beds to fool guards making night counts?

Papier-mâché heads with real hair fooled the guards until one fell on the floor at 7 a.m.; the hair had been stolen from the prison barbershop.

What did the 1962 escapees build their raft from?

They assembled it on top of the cell block behind sheets, then left through a roof vent.

What did the escapees use to power a homemade drill for widening their cell vents?

The drill was made from a broken vacuum cleaner motor; Morris's accordion during music hour covered the noise, and a spoon soldered with silver from a dime served as a chisel.

Which fourth conspirator was left behind in 1962 because his fake wall had set in cement?

Allen West had cemented his own false grille too firmly and broke through only after the others had gone; he told the FBI the plan was to paddle to Angel Island.

What did the FBI officially conclude in 1979 about the fate of the 1962 escapees?

The Marshals Service still lists them as wanted until September 2026, and theories about their survival keep surfacing.

Who played escape ringleader Frank Morris in the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz, directed by Don Siegel?

Escape from Alcatraz was the fifth and last film Clint Eastwood made with Don Siegel, the director who had given him Dirty Harry.

What was Al Capone's inmate number at Alcatraz?

Capone was Alcatraz inmate AZ-85 from his arrival in August 1934; Machine Gun Kelly was AZ-117 and Frank Morris AZ-1441.

Which armed force helped guards retake the cellhouse in the 1946 'Battle of Alcatraz'?

A detachment of US Marines joined guards to end the 2-4 May 1946 siege, dropping grenades through holes cut in the roof; three inmates died and two more were later executed at San Quentin.

What was the main corridor of the Alcatraz cellhouse, named after a famous street, called?

The main corridor between B and C blocks was Broadway; others were Michigan Avenue, Park Avenue and, in D-Block, Sunset Strip, with Times Square at Broadway's end.

What were the six isolation cells at the end of D-Block known as?

D-Block's six dark solitary cells were 'the Hole'; inmates could be stripped and locked in darkness there for up to 19 days at a stretch.

Roughly how big was a standard Alcatraz cell?

Standard cells measured about 9 by 5 feet and 7 feet high; the cellblocks were built so that no cell touched an outside wall.

How many prisoners in total passed through Alcatraz as a federal penitentiary?

About 1,576 men were held over the prison's 29 years (some tallies say 1,557); the population averaged around 260 and never topped about 300.

From which federal penitentiary was Al Capone transferred to Alcatraz in August 1934?

Capone arrived on 22 August 1934 in a group transferred from the Atlanta federal penitentiary, where he had been serving his 11-year tax-evasion sentence since 1932.

Which surprising fact was true of the food at Alcatraz?

Some inmates even volunteered to transfer to the Rock, despite its 'Hellcatraz' reputation.

Roughly how many books did the average Alcatraz prisoner read per year?

The average inmate read 75 to 100 books a year; every prisoner got a library card on arrival, newspapers were banned, and crime stories were cut out of magazines.

Why did huge quantities of drinking water have to be barged to Alcatraz every week?

Nearly a million gallons a week were barged in, one reason the prison cost about $10 per inmate per day versus $3 in Atlanta.

Who was the first warden of Alcatraz?

James A. Johnston, warden from 1934 to 1948, was the first of Alcatraz's four wardens; he set the strict regime and lived in the 15-room warden's house beside the lighthouse.

In which year was Alcatraz's original lighthouse, the first on the US Pacific coast, lit?

The first Alcatraz lighthouse was lit in June 1854, the earliest on the US Pacific coast; it was replaced by a taller concrete tower in 1909 after 1906 earthquake damage.

Before it held federal convicts, what did the Army use the island for during the Civil War?

It mounted 85 cannons by 1861 and held Confederate sympathisers in the citadel.

Which group occupied Alcatraz for 19 months from November 1969?

Indians of All Tribes cited the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, claiming surplus federal land should return to Native peoples.

Which Mohawk activist was the best-known spokesman of the 1969 Alcatraz occupation?

Richard Oakes, a Mohawk ironworker and San Francisco State student, led the November 1969 landing and spoke for the occupiers until he left after his stepdaughter's fatal fall in January 1970.

Which agency has run Alcatraz since it joined the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1972?

The National Park Service has managed Alcatraz since it joined the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1972; the island opened to visitors in 1973 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

Roughly how many visitors a year did Alcatraz draw in the 2010s?

Alcatraz drew about 1.4 million visitors a year in the 2010s; ferries leave from Pier 33 on the Embarcadero, between the Ferry Building and Fisherman's Wharf.

How large is Alcatraz Island?

Alcatraz covers about 22 acres (9 hectares), rising 135 feet at its highest point, and hosts a seabird colony of gulls, cormorants and egrets.

Which US president publicly proposed reopening Alcatraz as a federal prison?

Donald Trump announced on 4 May 2025 that he was directing the Bureau of Prisons to reopen a rebuilt Alcatraz; critics noted the decaying site would cost enormous sums to restore.

Which US politician bought Alcatraz for the government for $5,000 in 1846, then was never reimbursed?

John C. Frémont bought Alcatraz from Francis Temple for $5,000 in 1846 in the government's name; Washington later voided the sale, and his heirs pursued compensation claims into the 1890s.

The Alcatraz cellhouse, finished in 1912, was reputedly the world's longest building made of what?

The 1912 cellhouse, built for the Army at a cost of about $250,000, was reputedly the world's largest reinforced-concrete building at the time, some 500 feet long.

What have volunteers restored on Alcatraz that guards' and soldiers' families originally planted?

A Welsh rose called Bardou Job, thought extinct, was rediscovered growing among the overgrowth.

Which two prisoners vanished into the bay in 1937, the first Alcatraz escapees never accounted for?

Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe were presumed drowned; Aaron Burgett drowned in a 1958 attempt.

What did Alcatraz install in 1934 that was cutting-edge security for its time?

Metal detectors, which inmates called 'snitch boxes', were installed in 1934 at the dock and cellhouse entrances to catch smuggled weapons and tools.

Which sport did inmates play in the recreation yard, with four teams named after minor-league clubs?

The Bees, Oaks, Oilers and Seals played there in 1938; a wall behind first base had to be padded.

Alcatraz cost nearly $10 per prisoner per day; roughly what did Atlanta's federal penitentiary cost?

Alcatraz's daily cost of about $10 per inmate was over three times Atlanta's $3, thanks largely to barging in nearly a million gallons of fresh water a week and salt-air erosion of the buildings.

Which Chinese dissident artist staged @Large on Alcatraz in 2014, including Lego portraits of political prisoners?

Ai Weiwei's @Large explored human rights and freedom of expression on a former prison island; its creation was documented in the 2019 film Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly.

What did the 1969 Alcatraz occupiers offer to pay the government for the island?

The occupiers' proclamation offered $24 in glass beads and red cloth for Alcatraz, mocking the price reputedly paid for Manhattan about 300 years earlier.

Which Alcatraz building burned down during the 1969-71 Native American occupation?

In June 1970 fire gutted the warden's house, along with the lighthouse keeper's quarters and the officers' club; the cellhouse, dining hall and water tower survived.

Which skateboarding video game features Alcatraz as a playable level?

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 put a skate level on Alcatraz; the island also appears in the novel Al Capone Does My Shirts and as a racetrack in 1997's San Francisco Rush the Rock.