Escaping Alcatraz: The History of the Prisoners' Attempts to Get Off the Rock

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of Alcatraz written by prisoners *Profiles the most famous escape attempts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents “You were a number, you weren’t a name; I wasn’t Jim Quillen. Hell, I was Number 586 and nobody wanted that.” – Jim Quillen “It’s mighty good to get up and leave. This Rock ain’t good for nobody.” - Frank Weatherman, the last prisoner to leave in 1963 Alcatraz Island has been home to a lighthouse, a military fort, a national park, and gatherings of Native American protesters, but say the name Alcatraz to any American and they will immediately associate it with prison. This is somewhat ironic since the island, just a mile and a half away from San Francisco in the Bay, was a federal prison for only three decades, but in that time, “The Rock” became notorious for being the most secure prison in the nation. In addition to harboring the legendary likes of murderous names such as Robert Stroud and “Whitey” Bulger, to public enemies Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, “Machine Gun Kelly,” and mob boss Al Capone himself, this was a last resort for inmates who plain refused to abide by prison rules. It would seem even the private cells and gourmet meals of baked meat croquettes, puree mongole, and bacon jambalaya were not enough to wheedle some inmates to submission. Many found themselves serving what they believed to be ridiculous sentences for relatively menial crimes. Among all of the 1,545 inmates ever housed in Alcatraz, a total of 36 men made 14 separate attempts to escape the highest maximum-security prison of its time. Just two years into its grand opening, inmate Joe Bowers climbed the fence while on incinerator duty. He was shot on the brink of semi-freedom and fell over 80 feet to his death. This was the beginning of a string of desperate escape attempts in the nearly 29 years of the prison's operation