The Place where Al Capone was broken: the Legends and Horrors of Alcatraz

On March 21, 1963, the last 27 prisoners left the famous Alcatraz prison forever. According to the official version, this was done because of the excessive costs of keeping prisoners on the island. Today, this place is considered one of the most famous prisons in history. Although Alcatraz's biography is short — only 29 years old. Compared to places of detention, whose history goes back centuries, it does not look particularly impressive. The loud fame of Alcatraz is in many ways a product of "promotion" already at the time when its inhabitants were not criminals, but tourists.

Nevertheless, Alcatraz keeps a lot of secrets and riddles. On the anniversary of the closure of the legendary prison, we invite you to remember them.

The first prisoners were prisoners of war of Alcatraz — an island in the Bay of San Francisco Located in the middle of the bay with icy water and strong sea currents provided natural isolation of the island.

Thanks to this, Alcatraz became an ideal place for the detention of prisoners of war, and at the end of the XIX century, the first prison was built here. Civilian prisoners appeared in 1906, after a powerful earthquake destroyed San Francisco along with its prison. Then hundreds of criminals were urgently transported to Alcatraz, and a new stage in the history of this place began.

The place where the Capon was broken, the famous gangster sat in Alcatraz from 1934 to 1939, and these were clearly the most terrible years in his life. In the 30s, Alcatraz began to be considered a special prison, where those criminals whose mafia ties could not be broken anywhere else were sent.

That's what they did to Al Capone. The charismatic head of the Chicago mafia in Alcatraz has lost all his gloss, influence and authority. The prison authorities assigned him to the most low-profile and humiliating jobs, and the mafia boss soon turned into an outcast, whom the guards themselves had to protect from humiliation from other prisoners. One day, Capone even received a blow from another convict with a sharpener in a prison barber shop.

Were there no successful escapes or were there any?

On the bed there is a realistic sculpture of a man in full growth. Such dummies were made to deceive the guards, preparing for the escape, the Alcatraz prison was famous for the fact that for 29 years of its existence, not a single successful escape was carried out from it.

A total of 34 convicts tried to escape, as a result, seven were shot, two drowned, five went missing, the rest were captured and brought back.

The most famous escape attempt from Alcatraz was made in 1962, shortly before the prison was closed. On June 11, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin managed to punch a hole in the wall leading to the service tunnel. Leaving papier-mache dolls in their place, the fugitives got out of the prison and tried to swim across the bay on a raft made in advance of rubber raincoats and inflated with concertina.

How this carefully planned escape ended remains unknown even half a century later. The authorities are sure that the trio drowned. But the Englin brothers' relatives said that they subsequently received a postcard from them from South America. However, no one has been able to prove either the fact of death or the fact of the success of the event so far.

The Battle for Alcatrazo on May 2 to May 4, 1946, bloody events took place on the island in 1946. The group escape was conceived less inventively, but more bloody.

Bernard Coy, convicted of bank robbery for 20 years, managed to get to the warehouse with weapons unnoticed by the guards, after which he armed himself and armed his accomplices. The criminals managed to capture and lock nine guards in the cell. The prisoners intended to seize the boat and, hiding behind hostages, get to San Francisco. However, the rioters did not immediately find the key to leave their prison building, and the selection of the right one from those that they took away from the guards led to the lock being blocked.

The authorities became aware of the mutiny in the prison, which immediately pulled police officers, FBI agents and even marines to Alcatraz. The authorities stormed the captured building, suppressing the riot. As a result, two guards and three prisoners were killed, and 14 guards and one prisoner were injured. Two more participants of the riot were sentenced to death. This confrontation, which took place from May 2 to May 4, 1946, went down in history as the Battle for Alcatraz.

Goodbye, dear Alcatraz!

In this historic photograph from 1963, the last prisoners of Alcatraz leave the legendary prison to go to other correctional institutions in the United States. According to the official version, the prison was closed due to the high costs of keeping prisoners.

In addition, Alcatraz required repairs in the amount of 3 to 5 million dollars. In addition, the maintenance of prisoners on the island was too expensive compared to the mainland prison, since everything had to be regularly imported from the mainland.

After the closure, many ways of further using the island were discussed. For example, it was proposed to place a UN monument there. In 1969, a group of Indians from various tribes moved to the island, effectively capturing it. The relocation was made possible by the Federal Indian Free Resettlement Act of 1934. During their stay on the island, which lasted for two years, the Indians burned large bonfires in the buildings and painted the walls.

The mecca of tourists and basketball players, tourists now walk in the walls of Alcatraz, and the loud fame of this place is largely a product of the "promotion" of the prison—museum in new times in 1971, the government decided to make Alcatraz part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The all—American popularity of Al Capone helped the new life of Alcatraz - it turned out that tens of thousands of people dream of visiting the place where the famous gangster was sitting. And since 1973, the former Alcatraz prison has become a tourist center, which is now visited by up to a million people a year.

And in 2010, Alcatraz Island, which also has the second name Rock ("Rock"), was chosen by the masters of street basketball. Now the main tournament of street basketball players of the world Red Bull King of the Rock — "King of the Rock" is held in the former prison yard.

As a result, Alcatraz finally turned into a socio-cultural phenomenon known to the whole world. Perhaps this is not the worst transformation for a former prison.