Too costly to repair, the U.S. government decided to close the famed prison in 1963.
On March 21, 1963, the last 27 prisoners were removed from Alcatraz Penitentiary with “their heads bowed and their bodies chained,” according to the Oakland Tribune.
Prisoners Leave Alcatraz
Prison officials and reporters watched the final prisoners leave the prison nicknamed “the Rock” because it was the only building on a 12-acre island in San Francisco Bay.
“The closing was abrupt and final. The prisoners, dressed in new, dun prison garb for the occasion, were taken by boat in two trips from the island. Guards and their families — some on the island for as long as 20 years — went in a third crossing to San Francisco. Only a few will remain on the island to prepare for formal abandonment June 30. The rest will either retire or be re-assigned,” reported the Oakland Tribune.
Warden Olin Blackwell gave the newsmen a final tour of the prison. At one point, he stopped and chipped away plaster with his hand to show one of the reasons why the facility needed to be closed.
“It seems sinful that this famous prison, the impenetrable rock which stood in defiance to such men as Al Capone, should die such a slow death,” reported the Tribune.
The Escape-Proof Prison
Alcatraz became a civilian prison in 1934. During its 29 years of service, 40 prisoners made 13 escape attempts.
The most famous escape attempt was in 1962. Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, all bank robbers, dug their way out of the prison using sharpened spoons. Their bodies were never found and they were believed to have drowned in the bay.
The only escapee known to have made the swim from prison to shore was John Paul Scott. Though he made the swim, he was found unconscious on the shore and near death from his efforts.
Renovation or Closure
While the water of San Francisco Bay contained the prisoners on the island, the sea air in San Francisco Bay ate away at the prison, corroding metal and weakening concrete.
“It would pay us and would pay the government in the long run to replace Alcatraz with an institution more centrally located.” Federal Prison Director James Bennett said. “Perhaps in the Midwest.”
Besides the crumbling concrete and rusting steel, electrical and water conduits were rusting through. In some places, the steel girders were rusted through and had been replaced with wooden timbers.
It had been known that massive repairs were needed since 1954. At that time, needed renovations were estimated at $4 million. By 1963, the repair costs had risen to $5 million and the cost to keep a prisoner was the highest in the country.
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Great article!
It’s kind of amazing that Alcatraz deteriorated as quickly as it did. I mean, 29 years is an extremely short lifespan for a building as formidable as that one was designed to be. I don’t hear this aspect talked about much regarding the Alcatraz prison, but it seems to me to have been a colossal failure of engineering (and environmental engineering, if indeed it was the moist air of SF Bay that corroded the structural elements). Considering there are plenty of buildings in San Francisco that don’t melt into wet toilet paper in a mere 29 years, it doesn’t seem that hard to have built a prison that could at least return its infrastructure investment. You could argue that the Morris-Anglin escape attempt was a stark demonstration of the engineering and structural deficiency of the place, not just in 1962, but from the very beginning. The oldest part of Sing Sing, by contrast, was built in 1825 and was in continuous use until the 1940s.
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I love that point. Maybe the prisoners didn’t think it was worth the effort to get out of the prison when they would still have to deal with bay. Just speculation.
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