Amazing Alcatraz discovery: Lasers reveal long-hidden military tunnel and fortifications
Experts have harnessed technology to unlock the hidden military secrets of Alcatraz Island. Using ground penetrating radar and laser scanning technology, experts performed high-tech scans of the penitentiary's former recreation yard to reveal a long-hidden military tunnel and fortifications beneath the prison. Binghamton University Archaeologist Timothy de Smet, said that the structures were in incredibly good condition.
Alcatraz Island, a 22-acre spit of rock surrounded by the deadly tides of San Francisco Bay, opened for its most notorious business when a group of federal prisoners arrived on this day in history, August 11, 1934.
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary housed many of America's most dangerous criminals for just 29 years — before closing in 1963 after its island operations proved far more costly than mainland-based prisons.
"Alcatraz was America's premier maximum-security prison, the final stop for the nation's most incorrigible prisoners," reports AlcatrazHistory.com.
"The Rock" is best remembered as a Hall of Fame of hoodlums.
Its most notorious inmates included gangsters James "Whitey" Bulger, Al Capone and George "Machine Gun" Kelly, plus infamous "Birdman of Alcatraz" Robert Stroud and "Public Enemy No. 1" Alvin Karpis.
The latter was one of only four career criminals who earned the infamous label from the FBI — and the only one captured alive. Karpis served 26 years at Alcatraz, longer than any other prisoner.
Low fog swirls around Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge as boats sail on the San Francisco Bay on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in Berkeley, Calif. (Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Among other haunting traits, the Lithuanian-American gangster who terrorized the Midwest during the Great Depression had his fingerprints erased by an underworld doctor in 1934.
Alcatraz was "the final stop for the nation's most incorrigible prisoners."
"Most of the prisoners incarcerated there were not well-known gangsters, but prisoners who refused to conform to the rules and regulations at other federal institutions, who were considered violent and dangerous, or who were considered escape risks," reports the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in its history of The Rock.
BUILDING ALCATRAZ: AMERICA'S INESCAPABLE, ISLAND-RIDDEN PRISON
"If a man did not behave at another institution, he could be sent to Alcatraz, where the highly structured, monotonous daily routine was designed to teach an inmate to follow rules and regulations," the BOP writes.
"At Alcatraz, a prisoner had four rights: food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Everything else was a privilege that had to be earned."
Mug shot of Robert Franklin Stroud (1890-1963), best known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz." Stroud was an American murderer, federal prisoner and author. (Universal History Archive/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Stroud was probably the island's most famous inmate, thanks to the success of the 1962 movie, "The Birdman of Alcatraz" starring Burt Lancaster.
Stroud became an expert on canaries and wrote two books on the birds while imprisoned in Leavenworth Penitentiary.
"Stroud never had any birds at Alcatraz, nor was he the grandfatherly person portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the well-known movie," writes the Bureau of Prisons.
He was, rather, an extremely dangerous individual, who began his 54-year-career behind bars after killing a bartender at age 19; and who later killed a Leavenworth guard in front of 1,100 inmates in the prison mess hall.
Thirty-six men tried to escape from Alcatraz.
He routinely had violent scuffles with other prisoners.
Thirty-six men tried to escape from Alcatraz: 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during the escape, and two drowned, according to AlcatrazHistory.com.
The other five were listed as missing and presumed drowned.
The welcome sign at the entrance to Alcatraz Island, a 22-acre rocky outcrop situated 1.5 miles offshore in San Francisco Bay, is seen on August 11, 2011, 77 years a group of federal prisoners classified as "most dangerous" arrived at the new high-security penitentiary designed to hold the most dangerous prisoners in the U.S. penal system. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
"Officially, no one ever succeeded in escaping from Alcatraz," the site states.
Alcatraz earned its name Isla de los Alcatraces, the "Island of the Pelicans," from Spanish explorer Lieutenant Juan Manuel de Ayala, who sailed San Francisco Bay in 1775.
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The seabird haven was turned into a Spanish fortification before it was sold to the United States in 1849 — just as the California Gold Rush descended on San Francisco and created a vibrant West Coast boom town.
Alcatraz was the site of the first California lighthouse in 1854, welcomed a U.S. Army detachment in 1859 and became a military prison in 1868, according to History.com.
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"In addition to recalcitrant U.S. soldiers, prisoners included rebellious Indian scouts, American soldiers fighting in the Philippines who had deserted to the Filipino cause, and Chinese civilians who resisted the U.S. Army during the Boxer Rebellion," notes History.com.
Alcatraz Island today is a popular San Francisco tourist attraction operated by the National Park Service.
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