Alcatraz Federal Prison

About

The island in San Francisco Bay serves as a military fortress and military prison from 1850 to 1934, with the facility built at a cost of $250,000 between 1910 and 1912. It opens as a federal penitentiary on August 11, 1934, receiving its first 137 inmates transferred from Leavenworth. Over the following 29 years, the prison holds inmates including Al Capone; Robert Stroud, the so-called "Birdman of Alcatraz," who arrives in 1942 and serves 17 years; and Frank Morris, who attempts an escape on June 11, 1962. The federal penitentiary closes on March 21, 1963, and from 1969 to 1971 the island is occupied by Native American activists. Today it is managed as a historic site within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area under the National Park Service, operating as a museum with public tours that draw roughly 1.6 million visitors a year.