Today in History—March 21: Alcatraz Is Shut Down

At 10:50 am on this day in 1963, the Federal Bureau of Prisons formally closed the maximum-security prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. The remaining 27 prisoners were transferred.

One of them summed it up on his way out: “Alcatraz was never no good to nobody.”

It closed because it was expensive. A prison on a rock more than a mile from shore was always going to be a logistical nightmare. Maintenance and operating costs were higher than any other prison in the country. Even the concrete was a problem: Much of it had been mixed with saltwater during construction, and serious erosion was occurring.

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The closure had nothing to do with recent escape attempts, but those made it the stuff of legend—and sometimes conspiracy.

The most elaborate attempt came in June 1962. Three men squeezed out through ventilation holes. They shimmied up utility pipes and down a drainpipe and used raincoats to fashion life vests and a raft. In their beds they left imitation heads (made of soap, concrete dust, and hair from the barbershop) so convincing that guards didn’t realize they were gone until morning.

The story of Alcatraz starts in 1850, when the island was set aside for military use, as San Francisco’s population surged during the Gold Rush. A fortress was built to protect the bay.

Within a decade, it was being used as a military prison. In 1909 the fortress was demolished and a new prison built in its place. At first it was an army prison. In 1933 the Department of Justice turned it into a federal penitentiary for prisoners considered especially violent or unmanageable.

Inmates were given food, shelter, clothes, and medical care; everything else was a privilege to be earned. Until 1940 they were not even allowed to speak. (They could have all the cigarettes they wanted, though.) Most didn’t stay long—a few years on the Rock was usually enough to convince them to behave elsewhere.

During its decades of operation, 36 men attempted to escape. Five are still listed as “missing and presumed drowned,” including the three from June 1962.

In the end, the same thing that made Alcatraz formidable—its isolation—made it unsustainable.

But after it stopped being a place people couldn’t leave, it became a place everyone wanted to see. Within months of it becoming part of the National Park Service, more people visited Alcatraz Island than had set foot there in the previous 120 years combined.

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