Alcatraz was a Federal Prison located in the San Francisco Bay. It was built on a twelve acre, solid rock island, one mile from the main land. There were no roads or bridges built to get there. The only access was by boat. The name Alcatraz means Pelican or strange bird. The reason it was named that was because when it was being built it had a lot of strange birds on it. It was built in 1933 as a federal maximum security prison. But prior to Alcatraz being built it had been a military prison and before that an Indian Reservation.

There have been several famous inmates who served time at Alcatraz. A short list would include Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and Robert "Birdman" Stroud.

Al Capone was convicted of mass murder after ordering his gang of mobsters to gun down 9 members of a rival mobster family execution style. It was said to be the most brutal mass murder in history. He was held at Cook County Jail in Chicago until arrangements could be made for his transfer to Atlanta. On

George "Machine Gun" Kelly got his name by waving around a machine gun, threatening to blow everybody's head off if they didn't do what he said. His federal conviction was for kidnapping and ransom demands. He plotted to kidnap a wealthy oil tycoon named Charles Urschel. He and his wife Kathryn stormed into Urschels house during a game of bridge and kidnapped Urschel and one of his friends. Neither of the hostages would admit to being Urschel, and so after searching for some kind of ID on both of the men, Kelly was finally able to find him. The other man was released unharmed and Urschel was taken to a ranch in Texas and held for $200,000 ransom. The ransom was paid and Urschel was then released unharmed. After that the Kelly's lived lavishly moving from state to state and disguising their identities. It was not until September of 1933 that they were captured while visiting a friend in Memphis. Kelly arrived at Alcatraz in Sept. of 1934. He was among one of the first groups of prisoners to serve time there. Although he always boasted about what a bad guy he was, the warden considered him to be a model prisoner. Kelly spent 17 years at Alcatraz. In 1951 he returned to Leavenworth and then died of a heart attack 3 years later.

In Alcatraz, you as a prisoner have four rights: Food, Clothing, Shelter and Medical care. You could g

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