alcatraz Essay -- essays research papers

An icon of power and strength, Alcatraz has become the single most recognizablesymbol of American society. Situated in the San Francisco Bay, one cant support butbe drawn to the rocky shore, the dark walls, and the lone light tower sanding coldagainst a picturesque sunset imagining what it would have been like to beincarcerated in one of the worlds most infamous prisons. Discovered in 1775 by the Spanish explorer Juan Miguel de Ayala, La Isla de losAlcatraces was little more than a rock inhabited by a group of pelicans from whichthe island bears its name (Alcatraces meaning pelicans in Spanish). However, in1847 the US government began to look at it as lots more. Strategically placed atthe mouth of the San Francisco Bay it was the perfect site for a military fort. By1853 a state of the art military resistance was protecting the Western United Statesagainst foreign infiltration. In 1861, with outbreak of the Civil War, Alcatraz beganreceiving its first military prisoners. However, i t wasnt until 1898 and the Spanish-American War that the isolation of the island that made it an untroubled militaryinstallation also made it an inescapable prison. During this war the prisonerpopulation jumped from 26 to 450. That number spiked again as civil prisoners weretransferred from urban center jails after the famous 1906 earthquake. With the islandbecoming more and more a prison and less and less a military fort, a cell housewas make in 1912. This is generally felt to be the p...