The History & Hauntings of Alcatraz

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Alcatraz Island Federal Penitentiary (1934 -1963)

Beginning on January 1, 1934, much to the chagrin of the people of San Francisco, the Bureau of Prisons began the process of selecting a warden and upgrading Alcatraz to an “escape-proof” maximum security prison. Four guard towers were constructed at strategic points around the island and 336 of the cells were reconstructed with tool-proof steel cell fronts and locking devices operated from control boxes. None of the cells adjoined a perimeter wall.

Alcatraz Island, courtesy the Library of Congress

Al Capone

On July 1, 1934, the maximum security, minimum-privilege penitentiary, officially received its first prisoners. The 32 hard-case prisoners who had been “left” by the Army were turned over to Alcatraz authorities, the first of which was a man named Frank Bolt, who was serving a five-year sentence for sodomy. Other inmates in this first group of men had committed such crimes as robbery, assault, rape, and desertion. The next month, 69 more prisoners arrived from the McNeil Island and Atlanta Penitentiaries, the most famous of which, inmate #85, was Al Capone.

Warden Johnston began a custom of meeting the new inmates upon their arrival to Alcatraz. When Capone arrived, Johnston immediately recognized the grinning man who was quietly making smug comments to nearby inmates. When it was Capone’s turn to approach the warden, he attempted to flaunt the power he had enjoyed at the federal pen in Atlanta by asking questions of the warden on the inmate’s behalf.

While in Atlanta, he had been successful in bribing the guards for additional favors such as unlimited visiting privileges, liquor, and uncensored reading materials. He was so successful in gaining special privileges, that family members had taken up residence at a nearby hotel, through whom, he continued to run his organization in Chicago.

However, Johnston was not to be manipulated and immediately assigned him his prison number and ordered him back in line with the others.

Capone’s arrival at Alcatraz generated more newspaper headlines then the opening of the prison itself, beginning an era of public fascination with the maximum security prison.

During Capone’s sentence on the “Rock” he would make several other attempts to con Johnston into allowing him special privileges, but all would be denied. Capone spent 4 ½ years at the “Rock” holding a variety of menial jobs at the prison. While he was there he spent eight days in isolation as a result of fight with another inmate and was stabbed with a pair of scissors by another prisoner. Eventually, he became began to suffer symptoms of syphilis that he had contracted years earlier, and actually spent more time in the hospital than he did in the cell house. In 1938, he was transferred to Terminal Island Prison in Southern California to serve out the remainder of his sentence. He was released in November of 1939, settled in Miami and died in 1947, at the age of 48.

Arriving on the second "official" shipment to Alcatraz in September was George "Machine Gun" Kelly. First involved in bootlegging, he was sentenced to Leavenworth where he spent three years. Obviously not rehabilitated, he resumed a life of crime, this time robbing banks. He soon advanced to kidnapping and in 1933, he held for ransom a wealthy Oklahoma oil magnate. After his capture, he was given a life sentence and returned to Leavenworth. However, within months he was transferred to Alcatraz, where he was said to have been a model prisoner for the next seventeen years. When Kelly suffered a mild heart attack he was returned to Leavenworth in 1951 and was paroled in 1954. Within months, he suffered another heart attack and died at the age of 59.

As part of its maximum security efforts, the ratio of guards to prisoners was one to three, compared to other prisons, where the ratio averaged one to twelve. In addition, inmates were allowed no visitors for the first three months, and afterwards, were only allowed one visitor per month, a privilege that had to be earned.  While prisoners were allowed limited access to the prison library, no newspapers, unapproved books, or radios were allowed. All incoming and outgoing mail was screened, censored, and retyped. Consideration for work assignments were based on a prisoner’s conduct record. Each prisoner was assigned a private cell with only the basic minimum necessities such as food, water, and clothing.

The routine was the same every day, with prisoners awakened at 6:30 a.m., given time to tidy their cells and wash up, then marched silently to the mess hall. Following breakfast, the prisoners were then given their work assignments for the day, and after dinner, were again locked within their cells.  The strict rules required inmate counts every half hour.

However, the worst rule was Warden Johnston’s strictly enforced silence policy. Many of the inmates considered this to be their most unbearable punishment. Prisoners were only allowed to talk during meals, in the yard on Saturdays, and for three minutes during a morning and afternoon work break. Though the silence policy was later relaxed, there were several reports that inmates were driven insane by the severe rule of silence. Many stories, including the classic movie "Escape From Alcatraz" tell of an inmate by the name of Rufe Persful, a former gangster and bank robber, who went so far as to take a hatchet and chop off the fingers of one of his hands while working in one of the shops. Though the strict rule, no doubt, did drive men insane, Persful actually lost his fingers when a shop door blew shut on his hand.

The routine was unyielding, day after day, year after year. As quickly as privileges were earned they could be revoked for the slightest infraction of the rules.

The only “redeeming” qualities of the prison were the private cells and quality of food served at the prison. These too had their reasons. The first was to further isolate these hardened criminals, while the second was to prevent riots that were often known to start in other prisons because of the poor quality of food.

Continued Next Page

Alcatraz Cell Blocks, 1986, photograph by Jet Lowe,

courtesy Library of Congress.

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