Although Alcatraz Cruises’ tours often sell out during the year, it is a priority to educate the community about the robust history of the Island. As a result, Alcatraz Cruises wants to encourage local residents to experience the assets that make Alcatraz Island one of the country’s most visited national parks.

알카트라즈의 역사

"그들이 당신에게 말하는 것에도 불구하고, 나는 그들이 약간 향수를 느낀다고 생각합니다. 나는 그들이 이곳을 그리워할 것이라고 생각합니다." – 알카트라즈 감독 프레드 T. 윌리엄슨 1963년 마지막 수감자들이 출고되었을 때

Few islands in the world can boast such a glorious natural setting – and grim human past – as Alcatraz. Visited by Native Americans as early as 10,000 years ago, the barren island remained uninhabited until Europeans arrived. Spanish and Mexican settlers in the early 1800s called the guano-covered island “Isla de los Alcatraces” – Island of Pelicans. 

1848년 멕시코로부터 섬을 인수한 지 얼마 되지 않아 미 육군은 남북 전쟁(1861-1865) 동안 미시시피 강 서쪽에 가장 큰 방어 요새가 될 요새를 건설했습니다. Alcatraz는 또한 1854 년 서해안 최초의 등대가 운행 된 후 골든 게이트의 위험한 바다에 들어가는 선박의 등대가되었습니다. 

Alcatraz began its long era as a dreaded place of confinement when soldier convicts were first imprisoned at the fort in 1860. Over the next decades, the island became less of a defense fort and more of a military prison, with Army convicts building most of the structures still standing on Alcatraz today. 

Alcatraz was reborn as a civilian Federal Penitentiary in 1934, becoming known in the press as “The Rock” and “America’s Devil’s Island.” Wardens at Atlanta, Leavenworth, and other federal prisons selected their most unruly convicts to transfer there, among them Al Capone and “Machine Gun” Kelly. No less tough and carefully selected were the correctional officers, one for every three prisoners, who were trained to use their wits as well as their muscles when trouble broke out. 

Alcatraz was the most escape-proof prison in the nation. Even if a convict could get past the remote-control locks, guard towers, and barbed wire, he had to struggle against swirling tides and icy waters to reach shore. Yet, escape was uppermost on the minds of many inmates.  “Alcatraz is becoming a prison of madmen and men half mad,” Al “The Bug” Loomis, a bank robber once incarcerated there, wrote in 1938. “The sustaining hope is escape.”

수년에 걸쳐 탈출자들은 조잡한 물 날개와 나무 지느러미를 만들고 수영을 시도했지만 익사하거나 수영 중에 잡혔습니다. 1962년, 죄수 존 폴 스콧은 샌프란시스코 해안에 도착한 최초이자 유일한 교도소 탈출자가 되었습니다. 그는 포트 포인트의 바위에서 의식을 잃은 채 보라색으로 발견되었으며 양말만 신고 떨고 있었습니다. 계속하기에는 너무 약해서 결국 그가 시작한 곳으로 돌아 왔습니다.

In that same year, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy announced the phase-out of the prison. Alcatraz was turned over to the General Services Administration as surplus property and most of the inmates were transferred to a new facility in Marion, Ill. Over the next few years, hundreds of proposals were submitted for new uses for the island, including a West Coast version of the Statue of Liberty, a casino resort, and space museum.

In 1969, a group of 300 Native Americans began a 19-month occupation of Alcatraz, claiming rights to the island under an old Sioux Treaty that gave Native Americans the right to homestead unused federal lands. While the Occupation put a media spotlight on Native American issues, the numbers of activists gradually dwindled and Federal marshals removed the last few from the island in June 1971. Each November Native Americans of many tribes return to Alcatraz to hold a sunrise ceremony commemorating the Occupation. 

1972 년 Alcatraz는 국립 공원 관리청의 단위 인 새로 지정된 골든 게이트 레크리에이션 지역의 일부가되었습니다. 알카트라즈 투어는 내년에 시작되어 이제 많은 사람들이 한때 다시는 볼 수 없기를 꿈꿨던 곳으로 연간 약 170만 명의 방문객을 끌어들였습니다.