Текст книги "Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years "

Автор книги: Майкл Эсслингер

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Alcatraz Island photographed from North Point in 1865.

Alcatraz Island circa 1860.

As is illustrated by these 1870 photographs, the gardens situated next to the Citadel flourished in the rich soil ferried over from Angel Island. These opulent beds were meticulously nurtured by the officers and their families. The formal gardens featured beautiful panoramic vistas of the Bay and they were a popular gathering place for residents.

The original elevation and section plans for the Citadel. This building was designed as a self-sustaining defensive barrack of four-foot-thick brick construction, with multiple rifle slits in each wall to allow soldiers to fire upon enemy landing parties. There were no cannons or heavy armory mounted inside the building. The fortress was to be defended by infantry soldiers with musket rifles, and was accessed by crossing a small drawbridge over a dry moat. The original plans included iron shutters, and large water cisterns to help sustain soldiers for long periods of siege.

The Citadel in 1893 following the Civil War. With no threat of impending attack, the building was converted into apartments for married officers. Cannonballs lined the perimeter as decorative border pieces, and the lawn area where a tennis court can be seen here was once the storage area for ordinance.

General Edwin Sumner

A 1902 photograph showing the pathway leading up to “Officers’ Row.”  Note the brick Citadel building in the upper right corner.

The pathway known as “Officers’ Row” as it appeared in 1883. These Victorian-style homes were built in 1880-81, and were reserved for the post’s ranking officers. This photograph was taken from the Citadel grounds, with the descending stairway in the right foreground. Cannonballs are clearly visible as decorative borders along the path.

An engraving from 1883, depicting the original fortification buildings.

The “Great Sham Battle” of July 3, 1876 was meant to celebrate America’s centennial and to provide the citizens of San Francisco with a grandiose display of military prowess. With one stationary and one floating target (an old Navy schooner), the Bay of San Francisco resonated with the massive barrage of firing weaponry. But despite the awesome power of the 15-inch Rodman Cannons firing in sequence from Alcatraz, the idly floating target (carrying tons of explosives and with its hull soaked in coal oil) effortlessly evaded the bombardment. To avoid further embarrassment, a young soldier finally was launched under cover of the billowing smoke to set fire to the vessel.

The caption from the original print reads: “Smoothbore, buried muzzle-first serves as a traffic bumper on the uphill turn.”  Comparison of the 1902 image to the modern-day photo taken nearly one hundred years later illustrates the changes in architecture and landscape. In the earlier photograph, note the hospital and lower prison on the downhill roadway. Visible in the modern-day photo is the 250,000-gallon water tower built in 1939 and the Spanish-Mission-style chapel, which was later converted into bachelor quarters for Federal prison officers.

April 12, 1861 marked the official start of the American Civil War between the Northern and Southern States. On April 25 ^th, General Edwin Sumner assumed command of Alcatraz and prepared for war against the Confederate forces. However, many military advisors remained concerned that the Civil War might create vulnerabilities to watchful foreign powers. Sumner therefore issued orders to fire upon any vessel that flew the Confederate flag or advanced aggressively. Sumner proposed to station 400 men at Alcatraz and to provide ample provisions of food and water to sustain the fort for at least six months. However, the fort would only briefly house a staff of this size in 1862.

On October 1, 1863, a suspicious vessel entered the San Francisco Harbor and approached the Raccoon Straights. Typically a revenue service cutter would greet all vessels entering the Golden Gate, but on this fateful day, the cutter had been assigned to assist a Russian vessel that had run aground. The Commanding Officer at Alcatraz, William A. Winder, had been instructed to confront any vessel that was not registered for entry. His officer reported the sighting of a heavily armed ship being towed by several pilot boats. There was no wind and the ship’s flag was folded vertically with her colors indiscernible. Winder later reported:

I deemed it my duty to bring to her and ascertain her reason of admittance to the harbor. I therefore fired a blank charge, which apparently not attracting her attention. I directed a gun to be loaded with an empty shell and to be fired 200 or 300 yards ahead of her.

The ship seemed to return fire, but it was ultimately determined to be firing a salute. Alcatraz then responded with a twenty-one-gun salute, and it is documented that Fort Point commenced firing to join the salute. The approaching vessel was identified as Her Majesty’s ship the HMS Sutlej, the flagship of Rear Admiral John Kingdome  (The Sutlej was a Constance-class 50-gun fourth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy). The Admiral was not impressed with the welcoming.  Several months later, correspondence was still being exchanged and the military was accused of a careless action.

Though in its entire history as a military installation, the fortress had fired only one 400-pound cannon round (and missed),  nevertheless the island lived up to its self-proclaimed status as an icon of U.S. military power. But within a few decades the island's role as a military fortress would start to fade and its defenses would become obsolete by the standards of more modern weaponry.

Military soldiers in formation at the dock in 1902. The brick bombproof barracks are visible in the background. The predicted attacks by the Confederacy during the Civil War never materialized, and the original casements, which accommodated two tiers of mounted cannons, were eventually fully converted into permanent barracks. The wooden structure on top was added only as temporary quarters for enlisted soldiers.

A contemporary view of the corridor located behind the bombproof barracks, known as “China Alley.”

Another view of the temporary wooden structure set atop the unfinished bombproof barracks in 1893. Note the neatly trimmed decorative planters set in front of the First Sergeant’s dwelling and the other cottage, which served as a barbershop.

A photograph from 1893, showing the interior of the temporary wooden barracks. Visible are the gun racks and the neatly made bunks on both the upper and lower levels. The barracks were always immaculate and kept in perfect order.

The Casting of a New Prison Concept

The punishment of criminals has existed as a social force throughout the history of mankind, and the earliest records offer horrific tales of rat-infested dungeons and the use of barbaric torture devices. Before offenders were sentenced to serve time in confinement, they were publicly tormented both physically and mentally. One of the most common means of punishment in past centuries was to lock the convicted criminal into a pillory device for public display. Use of the pillory can be traced back to a remote period in English history, as early as the twelfth century. Throughout the history of this device, the prominent display of a pillory represented a firm presence of law and order within a community, and emerged as a popular mode of punishment even in more modern society. There were several other forms of discipline that were equally barbaric, such as public lashings and mutilation, as well as a variety of other means of degradation. Public executions were also frequent; hanging and fatal stoning were other common forms of punishment for sadistic crimes.

A broken device which resembled a pillory was found in a storage area on Alcatraz during the institution’s transfer to the Bureau of Prisons in 1934. Although its use was never validated or proven it was an actual pillory, it did suggest that t method of punishment was used during the island’s early history as a military prison.

Prisons have been documented to exist for several centuries, but until the 1700’s they were grim places that served only for transitory confinement while prisoners were awaiting trial or punishment. The conditions in these jails were horrendous, with open sewers and diseased rodents that scurried across dirt floors on which the men were forced to sleep without bedding. But after the American Revolution, the newly formed United States sought to reformthose who violated public laws. The Pennsylvania Quakers initially introduced the concept of reforming criminals through time spent under confinement. The Quakers built a small prison, which was comprised of sixteen individual and fully isolated cells. This new concept was intended to achieve reform by forcing criminals to serve out their entire sentence in complete isolation and silence. The criminals were left only with a Holy Bibleand the reformers believed that this would help them to achieve penance. It was from this practice that the word “penitentiary” was cast into modern society.

Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the world’s first true penitentiary. Eastern State opened in 1829, and was designed to inspire penitence in the criminals incarcerated there. The idea was to reform criminals through a Quaker-inspired system of strict isolation, which would allow for deep thought and remorse. It was from this philosophy of spiritual penitence that the term “penitentiary” was born. The medieval castle-like structure was intended to present a forbidding and haunted facade.

As a prison, Alcatraz would become a modernized and less barbaric form of the pillory. From its humble beginnings as a small military jail, it would eventually silence the most feared public adversaries, in the interest of maintaining the good order of society. It became both an icon and a societal pillar, a symbol of firm justice for America’s worst offenders.

The Early Years as a Military Prison

In August of 1861 the U.S. Military began sending Civil War prisoners to Alcatraz Island, which seemed perfect for this purpose because of its natural isolation. At this stage the island had no formal prison facilities, and prisoners were housed in a large damp cell located in the basement of the Guardhouse. Living conditions for the inmates were grim. Their jail was a crude structure, similar in many ways to a medieval dungeon and accessible only through a fortified ceiling hatch via a small ladder. The primitive cell was unheated and it accommodated approximately fifteen soldiers. There was no plumbing, and the inmates were forced to use buckets to relieve themselves. By day, the prisoners were assigned to exhausting hard-labor details, and by night, they were generally forced to sleep in cramped conditions on the ground, side-by-side. In a 1969 historical military report to the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, Herbert M. Hart described some of the problems that the commanders at Alcatraz were faced with in 1862.

A period photograph of the sallyport entrance. The support beams along the ceiling include both the base floor of the library and the distant passage is situated under the lower prison cellblock. At least one historical reference indicates that the gunroom on the immediate left was used as a dungeon cell for troublesome prisoners who were housed in the original jail, which was accessible through a hatch panel on the floor of the guardhouse.

An exterior view of the entrance leading to the lower prison in 1902. The blacksmith shop is seen on the right.

A modern view of the sallyport entrance as it appeared exactly 100 years later.

A 1903 photograph showing the blacksmith shop, the tool house under the wooden stairs, the library situated above the guardhouse, and an open latrine suspended over the water’s edge on wharf pilings. The “Overseer’s Squad Room” (seen here with the door ajar) is located on the upper floor above the sallyport entrance. Also visible is an armed sentry standing ready at the edge of the catwalk in the foreground.

He wrote:

The problem of prisoners was a pressing one from the early days of the war as pointed out on September 10, 1862, by Captain William A. Winder. He wrote to department headquarters that the “... caponiere at the entrance of the fortification, defending approach from the wharf, is occupied by the guard and prisoners; the latter being so numerous they entirely fill the casemate on the right of the entrance, rendering it necessary that the guard should occupy the one on the left. For this reason the howitzers intended for the defense have never been mounted, nor can they until some other arrangement is made for the care of the prisoners.”

Despite these difficulties, the military realized the potential of Alcatraz as an escape-proof prison for hard-core offenders. The first twenty arrivals were from Fort Point, and during the next year over a hundred more prisoners would be ferried to Alcatraz. In April of 1865, President Abraham Lincoln issued an executive order providing discretionary jurisdiction to arrest public activists for the Confederacy. Numerous sympathizers were arrested and sent to Alcatraz as punishment, and several of these offenders were prominent citizens and politicians.

As the role of Alcatraz began to evolve, the island’s defensive systems would eventually be redesigned. Major George Mendell from the Army Corps of Engineers filed a report that showcased flaws in the design of the original fortification. He illustrated that if canon shot were to strike any of the stone or brick structures, the post could suffer extensive casualties from the shard debris that would violently rain down on the soldiers. He submitted a new design that eliminated all exposed brick and rock, replacing it with sand and earthworks. The new plan would allow for better absorption of the powerful explosive debris, and would thus effectively reduce casualties among the soldiers. Using inmate labor, crews leveled many of the brick structures, and packed soft soil ferried from Angel Island in front of the gun placements.

In 1868, the Department Commander officially designated Alcatraz as a place of confinement for prisoners serving long sentences. In the same year, the Spanish-American War elevated the prisoner population from a mere twenty-six men to over four hundred and fifty. It wasn’t long before overcrowding and increasing demand gave cause to build a two-story brick jail structure with individual cells, and construction of this edifice was completed in 1867. The confinement conditions for inmates left much to be desired and the men would still be required to sleep on hard wooden pallets. A report submitted by the Assistant Surgeon General in 1870 described in detail the facilities at Alcatraz:

The buildings consist of a citadel, two brick barrack buildings for troops, and three prison buildings on the summit of the island, and the laundresses’ quarters, blacksmith and carpenter’s workshop, two boathouses, coal and wood house, and bowling alley and theater for the men, most of which are situated on the eastern face of the cliff.

The citadel, of brick, is 200 by 100 feet, and is two stories high above the basement, with bastion fronts facing the northwest and southeast. It is well ventilated by the main hall passages and windows. It is used as officers’ quarters, hospital, and quartermaster and subsistence offices and storerooms. The set for each officer consists of two large and comfortable rooms, with kitchen and dining room attached, and water –closets and bathrooms. The rooms set apart for hospital use comprises of a dispensary, and two wards, a kitchen, and an adjoining mess room, a store-room, bathroom, and a water-closet. The wards are each 35 by 26 by 17 feet, well floored and ceiled, and are furnished each with ten beds and bedside tables, chairs, dumbwaiter, closet, and a washstand. They are warmed by coal grates, lighted and ventilated by side windows. Air space per bed, 1,547 cubic feet; area, 91 feet...

The prison rooms are three buildings, ventilated by skylights and warmed by stoves in the main hall. They are arranged in two tiers (in one three), with galleries for the upper tiers. Ventilators are placed over the door of each cell, and air tubes in the walls. One building contains fourteen single and two double cells; the second has forty-five cells, and the third forty-eight single and four double cells. The average size is 8 ¹/ ₂by 6 by 3 ¹/ ₂feet, giving an airspace to each of 161 cubic feet. Adjoining these buildings are the kitchens and mess-rooms for the troops and prisoners, and the bakery for the post.

A 19th-century photograph showing the Lower Prison (to the right of the Sallyport and Guardhouse, with six visible skylights), and the Mess Hall (situated at the lower right, with four visible skylights). The small narrow building to the left of the Mess Hall was the prisoners’ bathhouse.

A rooftop view of the Lower Prison with an armed sentry patrolling his post, taken in 1893. The brick building on which the soldier is standing was the original jail, built in 1867. Following the completion of the larger three-story wooden prison structure, the brick building was converted into a guardhouse. The small wooden pinnacle was a bell tower. The bell was housed behind the grill, and was used for signaling escapes and other emergencies.

An interior view of the lower prison in 1902. The lower prison cellblock contained three tiers of cells, each with a closed-front wooden door. The cells were approximately three-feet by six-feet (about the size of a small closet), and were poorly ventilated despite the small exterior vent flues. The letters indicate a fallen oil lamp, which horrified the inmates by nearly turning the cellblock into a flaming inferno.

The lower prison mess hall facility. This narrow building was connected to the lower prison building, and was accessed via a small curved stairwell. Conditions were crowded in this hall, which could seat up to 200 men.

A circa-1902 view looking east toward the Lower Prison. The hospital can be seen on the right.

A photograph of the Prison Hospital taken in 1893 from the rooftop of the Lower Prison. Note the finely crafted lattice skirt covering the base of the structure, and the detail of the Lower Prison skylight on the right.

During the same decade, the military adopted the practice of sending what they termed as “troublesome Native Americans” to the post at Alcatraz. The first documented case of an American Indian incarcerated on Alcatraz was Paiute Tom, who arrived on June 5, 1873. There is no formal documentation providing a history of his prison time on Alcatraz, but it is recorded that he was fatally shot by a guard only two days after his arrival, presumably while attempting to escape. Four months later, two Modoc Indians named Barncho and Sloluck were transferred to Alcatraz following an attack on peace commissioners during the Modoc War in Northern California. Barncho died of scrofula (a disease associated with Tuberculosis) at Alcatraz on May 28, 1875, and he was buried on Angel Island and later moved to the Golden Gate National Cemetery. Sloluck was eventually transferred to Fort Leavenworth in February of 1878, having endured the longest prison term on Alcatraz of any Native American soldier. Several others would be arrested and sent to serve time at the prison, though some of them had not been convicted or sentenced for any specific crimes, but were held at Alcatraz for “safe keeping.”  Among others who were sentenced to serve time on the Rock were two privates from the Company “A” Indian Scouts. These soldiers had been involved in the mutiny at Cibicu Creek, Arizona Territory on August 30, 1881, in which Captain E.C. Hentig and six privates from the Sixth Cavalry were killed. Five Indian Scouts who mutinied at San Carlos, Arizona Territory in June 1887 were also imprisoned on the island, as were several Indian Chiefs, most notably Kae-te-na, a Chiricahua Apache and a friend of the famed Chief Geronimo.

In January of 1895 nineteen Hopi Indians were sent to Alcatraz from northern Arizona. The Hopi tribe had been involved in serious land disputes with the U.S. Government, and had refused to allow their children to attend government schools. Intense pressure had been levied on the Hopi people to “Americanize” by adopting governmental education for their children. However, the Hopi tribes fiercely opposed sending their children to distant schools to learn the trade skills of the white culture. References indicate that the school facilities were mostly inadequate to accommodate large numbers of children, and that potential outbreaks of disease were a concern. The Hopi used the tactic of passive resistance, making commitments to send their children, but never following through. The government grew increasingly frustrated with their defiance, and began using its troops to intimidate the Hopi villages. When the Hopi continued to resist, the government representatives finally imposed force, and arrested “the headmen who are responsible for the children not being sent to school. ”  During the course of their imprisonment at Alcatraz the Indians were brought to the mainland to tour San Francisco schools, in hopes that they would become interested in formalized education. They were released in September of 1895, after agreeing not to interfere with the “plans of government for the civilization and education of its Indian wards.”

A group of Hopi Indian prisoners posing in front of the original lighthouse in 1895. These Arizona Indians spent nine months on Alcatraz for refusing to establish a community farming system, and for keeping their children out of governmentally established schools. They are seen here wearing second-hand military uniforms.

Alcatraz in 1891. Note the small outline of a cannon visible on the parade ground.

Alcatraz in 1896.

Military inmates preparing the concrete foundation for new lavatories in the Upper Prison in 1902. Note the small exterior cell vent openings along the building exterior.

The Upper Prison complex and stockade wall entrance in 1902. Within the perimeter there were four prison complexes.

Military inmates during a routine verification count in 1902. The count is being performed on the Upper Prison Stockade grounds, facing one of the prison buildings. Note the sentry patrolling the catwalk that encircled the prison boundaries.

The only known photograph of the interior of the Upper Prison, circa 1902. The Upper Prison complexes could accommodate 307 prisoners in total, with two-tiered cellblocks. Close examination of this damaged photograph reveals several cells containing family pictures, and a stairwell with no safety railings.

In April of 1900, Alcatraz was temporarily used as a makeshift health resort for soldiers returning from the Philippine Islands with tropical contagious diseases. Many of these men had returned with severe dysentery and they were initially sent to the General Hospital at the Presidio. While convalescing, the men were actually organized into military companies and “Convalescent Company Number Two” was sent to Alcatraz.

As the prison population had continued to grow at Alcatraz, a temporary wooden cellhouse had been constructed on the parade ground. The cells in the wooden prison were small enclosures with the appearance of horse stables. There were 113 cells, and the average airspace per man was only 161 cubic feet. The cells had an average size of 8 ¹/ ₄x 6 x 3 ¹/ ₄feet, only a little larger than a standard closet. Even by the standards of that era, the wooden cellhouse was considered inadequate and unsafe for housing a large prison population. A medical report of the era described the following conditions:

Sanitary defects of the prison are especially apparent. The ventilation of the buildings is very faulty. The corridors, kitchen, and mess rooms are disagreeably drafty... The prisoner when locked up for the night is virtually boxed in for so many hours... The means available for solitary confinement are such as have long been discarded in the better class of civilian penal establishments.

In 1902, a lantern fire inside the wooden prison almost turned catastrophic. A quick-thinking guard immediately smothered the fire using water and sand, but the inmates remained horrified of the potential dangers. They knew that if another fire should start, they would be trapped inside a wooden inferno and feared being burned alive.

By 1904, inmate labor had been harnessed to modernize the prison at Alcatraz. The inmate population was moved to the upper prison, which now had the capacity to safely accommodate 307 men and the lower prison was converted to a work area for inmates, housing the laundry and other small workshops. By 1905 the inmate population had grown to over 270 inmates, and convict labor was being used to demolish several of the old building structures and begin new construction. In April of 1906, following the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake which completely destroyed the city’s jail facilities, 176 civilian prisoners were temporarily transferred to the island for safe confinement.

Army prisoners seen working in the Upper Prison against the stockade wall, breaking rock into gravel in 1910.

Another 1910 photograph showing army prisoners breaking rock with small hammers, while kept under close guard by an armed sentry. This view is looking east toward the future site of the powerhouse.

A rare photograph of garrison soldiers congregating at the island dock, taken on August 12, 1904. One of the Upper Prison buildings is partially visible at the top left.

A panoramic photograph showing the massive fires and destruction that followed the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Alcatraz in 1907.

A 1910 photograph of the Alcatraz Morgue. The Morgue was not used during the years in which the island served as a Federal penitentiary.