Alcatraz Prison Break travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

Alcatraz. The Rock. Perhaps the most famous prison in the world; certainly few place names are as evocative. From the mid 1930s until the mid 1960s, this small rocky island in San Francisco Bay was home to America’s premier maximum-security prison, created to incarcerate a small number of inmates who were so dangerous, so violent, and so escape-prone that they could not be managed safely in other prisons.
Many people, though, are unaware of the wealth of other stories to be learned on the island. Alcatraz is now home to rare flowers and plants, marine wildlife, and thousands of roosting and nesting sea birds. Civil War-era buildings dotting the island give insight into the 19th century when the island served as both a harbor defense fort and a military prison. You can also see visible reminders of the American Indian Occupation that started in 1969 after the prison closed, highlighting an important milestone in the American Indian rights movement.

Famous inmates included Al Capone, the notorious Chicago mobster, George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly, and Robert Stroud, a murderer rather erroneously depicted by Burt Lancaster in The Birdman Of Alcatraz. Over the 29 years that the prison operated, 36 men were involved in 14 separate escape attempts. Twenty-three were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, and two drowned.

Alcatraz Prison is an historic landmark maintained by the National Park Service.
You can reach Alcatraz Prison, which is in the middle of San Francisco Bay, by taking a ferry boat from Fisherman’s Wharf.