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Alcatraz Island was one of the strangest prisons in the world. It lay smack in the middle of San Francisco Bay. The views were spectacular. The Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands lay to the west. Berkeley and the Oakland Hills were to the east. The whole city of San Francisco lay to the south, a glittering diamond of light at night. The fog rolling in from the Pacific and sailboats gliding across the waves offered an eye-catching panorama. For decades this was the spectacle afforded to America’s most hardened criminals.

The story of Alcatraz maximum security federal penitentiary began in the 1770s, when a Spanish explorer named it for the Alcatraces or pelicans he found living on this roughly 20 acre rock. It was not until the 1850s, following the Gold Rush, that the US Army was spurred to construct a military base and the first lighthouse on the West Coast on Alcatraz. The objective was to protect the growing gold mining industry from foreign prowlers. The island quickly became a stark symbol of American military might with a massive battery of 36,000 pound guns.

Soon the location’s natural strengths as a prison were recognized. The freezing water and sharp currents around the island made swimming away nearly impossible. The Army turned its attention to constructing detention facilities, and the island began housing disciplinary offenders and deserters. It remained an army prison until the 1930s. The rules were strict, but there were also activities like gardening and boxing that made spending time here far less gruesome than it became during the next 30 years. It was those three decades as a federal prison that really gave “the Rock” its reputation.

Al Capone spent time here. So did George “Machine Gun” Kelly and James “Whitey” Bulger, a renowned bank robber. Robert Stroud, the prison’s most famous inmate, spent 17 years at Alcatraz. Best known for inspiring the movie Birdman of Alcatraz, starring Burt Lancaster, Stroud actually developed his famed bird care skills during the 30 years he spent at Leavenworth prison before coming to Alcatraz. Cells at Alcatraz did not have windows. Birdman of Leavenworth - it just would not have had the ring the actual movie had, which so ably exploited the brand reputation of an island prison that the public found worthy retribution for the many violent gangsters that flourished during Prohibition and the Great Depression.

Prisoners did not have a good time at Alcatraz. The cells were tiny, something like 5 by 9 feet. Toilets and washbasins were inside each cell. There was little entertainment beyond books from the library (according to a sign in the library today, “these men read more serious literature than does the ordinary man in the community. Philosophers like Kant, Schopenhauer and Hegel, etc. are especially popular . . .”). As “Machine Gun” Kelly is once said to have put it, there is nothing worth doing that is worth ending up here. An average of 260 prisoners were on the Rock at any one time. Some 90 officers watched them. There was a segregation area, Block D, which included a handful of cells that featured a thick door between the cell door and hallway. Prisoners could be kept in complete isolation and darkness. Few prisoners however were ever sent to these cells.

Alcatraz was shut down in 1963 because it was too expensive to maintain. In the 1970s it was occupied by protesting Native Americans whose graffiti is still visible above the main sign on the landing dock. They took over the island to protest the treatment of native Indians in America and their protests actually resulted in significant reforms later that decade.

Today Alcatraz is operated by the National Park Service. Thousands of people visit each day. Unlike many commercialized tourist destinations, Alcatraz has been largely left alone. Unused buildings are falling apart and food is banned from all but the dock area. The cell block and dining hall have been left as is. The last day’s breakfast menu is still posted. Thanks to the authenticity, the visitor does absorb some of the grueling boredom and sense of confinement prisoners faced despite being enclosed on one of earth’s most beautiful locations.

The lighthouse still functions. Birds are slowly returning to the island, taking over abandoned buildings and nesting in the stairwells. Perhaps pelicans will be brought back one day too. One does not get the sense that the last chapter about the Rock has been written.