After the jail was closed Native American Indians invaded the island and staged a peaceful 19 month occupation and proposed an education center, ecology center and cultural center. According to the occupants, the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) between the U.S. and the Sioux returned all retired, abandoned or out-of-use federal land to the Native people from whom it was acquired. The protest eventually came to an end after a huge fire that destroyed several of the prison buildings. Both sides still blame each other with the Indians saying the U.S. Government started it as an excuse to go in and get them. The Government accuse the Indians of deliberately burning the buildings to destroy the history of the island. Either way the occupation was over and it resulted in an agreement between both sides and land was returned to Native tribes ownership throughout the country.
What we had come to see was the prison though and we took a tour of the prison ground where we were given a headset that provided an audio tour of all the key information. The tour is narrated by 4 ex-cons and 4 ex-staff which gives a great insight into what life must have been like on the island.
As we arrived on the island a Ranger tour was just starting so we decided to go on that. It lasted for around 60 minutes and was on the subject of escape attempts. A total of 36 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, two men trying twice; 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, and three were lost at sea and never found. These three are the subject of intense debate.
On June 11, 1962 Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin successfully carried out one of the most intricate escapes ever devised. Behind the prisoners' cells in Cell Block B (where the escapees were interned) was an unguarded 3-foot (0.91 m) wide utility corridor. The prisoners chiseled away the moisture-damaged concrete from around an air vent leading to this corridor, using tools such as a metal spoon soldered with silver from a dime and an electric drill improvised from a stolen vacuum cleaner motor. The noise was disguised by accordions played during music hour, and their progress was concealed by false walls which, in the dark recesses of the cells, fooled the guards.
The escape route then led up through a fan vent; the fan and motor had been removed and replaced with a steel grille, leaving a shaft large enough for a prisoner to climb through. Stealing a carborundum cord from the prison workshop, the prisoners had removed the rivets from the grille and substituted dummy rivets made of soap. The escapees also constructed an inflatable raft from several stolen raincoats for the trip to the mainland. Leaving papier-mâché dummies in their cells with stolen human hair from the Barbershop for hair, they escaped. The prisoners are estimated to have entered San Francisco Bay at 10 p.m.
Articles belonging to the prisoners (including plywood paddles and parts of the raincoat raft) were located on nearby Angel Island, and the official report on the escape says the prisoners drowned while trying to reach the mainland in the cold waters of the bay. An episode of the TV series MythBusters investigated the myth and revealed that such an escape was plausible. Stories on the audio tape from other cons revealed that the men had been learning Spanish and they believed that they had made it. The FBI also received a postcard in the aftermath saying "Ha Ha! We Made It!" If this story seems familiar it is because Clint Eastwood reenacted it in the film Escape From Alcatraz. The heads that they used are still on display in their original cells and you can see that they do look quite life-like.
The most violent escape attempt occurred on May 2, 1946 when a failed escape attempt by six prisoners led to the so-called Battle of Alcatraz. It lasted between May 2–4, 1946. Two guards — William A. Miller and Harold Stites — were killed along with three of the inmates. 11 guards and one convict were also injured in the "battle". Two of the surviving convict participants were later executed for their roles in the escape attempt turned revolt.
Some of the prisons infamous inmates included Al Capone, George "Machine-Gun Kelly and Robert "the Birdman" Stroud. One of the biggest punishments of being sent to Alcatraz was the fact that on a clear day the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay could be seen and the prisoners could even hear the noise of laughter being carried across the water. We were fortunate enough to have a sunny day when we were hear and we could imagine what it must have been like to be trapped and it is no wonder so many people tried to escape.
The boat back to the mainland also gave us fantastic views of the island:
Golden Gate Bridge:
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed during the year 1937, and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City.
One of the best places to see the bridge is actually from Alcatraz island however there are plenty of other opportunities along the Bay which resulted in us taking hundreds of photos as we kept finding what seemed like a better view!
The bridge itself is impressive and it isn't until you start to walk form one side to another you realise how long it is! The bridge offers some spectacular views, one of the weirdest is that of surfers down below which seems strange but there were some big waves. These views are due to their being no barriers up to block your view which leads to the bridges more sinister status. The Golden Gate Bridge is the number one location for suicides in the entire world.
The deck is approximately 245 feet (75 m) above the water. After a fall of approximately four seconds, jumpers hit the water at around 76 miles per hour. At such a speed, water is similar to concrete. Because of this, most jumpers die on their immediate contact with the water. The few who survive the initial impact generally drown or die of hypothermia in the cold water.
An official suicide count was kept, sorted according to which of the bridge's 128 lamp posts the jumper was nearest when he or she jumped. By 2005, this count exceeded 1,200 and new suicides were averaging one every two weeks. The fatality rate of jumping is roughly 98%. As of 2006, only 26 people are known to have survived the jump.
To try and prevent this the bridge is closed to pedestrians at night time and there are help phones posted at several locations along the bridge. Attempts to introduce a suicide barrier have been thwarted by engineering difficulties, high costs, and public opposition.
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