Pod Insights Dan Snow's History Hit The History of Alcatraz About this episode Home to the likes of Al Capone and George 'Machine Gun' Kelly, Alcatraz was once the jewel in the American prison system. The wind-swept island fortress was the final stop for the nation's most dangerous criminals and was thought to be escape-proof - at least, until one night in June 1962, when three men on an improvised raft slipped into the icy waters of San Francisco Bay, never to be seen again.
President Donald Trump has said that he is determined to reopen this notorious prison, so today we're revisiting this episode, Jolene Babyak, a historian of Alcatraz and author of 'Breaking The Rock', to give you a potted history of this notorious penitentiary.
Produced by James Hickmanna and edited by Dougal Patmore.
Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.
We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.
You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] .
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 7,052 words · 10 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Snow? Hey friends, if you love this podcast and want to decide what history we cover, then you need to become a Dan Snow's History Hit subscriber. Pitch your topic and if I like it, we'll make it into a subscriber exclusive episode. So far, we've covered the English Reformation, the Hudson Bay Company, the Trail of Tears, all of which have been decided by dedicated subscribers. So take the reins of your favourite podcast by heading over to historyhit.com/subscribe or sign up in your podcast player.
0:33 Speaker 01 Hi, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of the higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings? And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.
1:07 Speaker 02 This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2% daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favourite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2% daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval.
1:50 Speaker 02 Apple Card, issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
1:56 Speaker 03 Hi everyone, it's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households. Yet, many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs. Ask a financial professional about how
2:41 Speaker 03 Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
3:01 Dan Snow? On the night of the 11th of June 1962, in Alcatraz, the isolated island maximum-security prison in the bay just off San Francisco, an escape attempt is underway.
3:19 Dan Snow? Frank Morris, John and Clarence Anglin have spent over a year secretly planning it. They have fashioned tools from items like spoons and saw blades to dig through the concrete walls of their cells. These holes opened up into a utility corridor, and on this night, they have crept through that utility corridor. Frank Morris decided to bail at the last minute, so the Anglin brothers proceed alone. To fool the guards, they've left realistic papier-mache heads tucked into the blankets of their beds.
3:54 Dan Snow? From that corridor, they can make their way to the roof up a ladder, and they quietly sneak across that roof to reach the security fence. I can imagine how shocked they must have been to make it this far. They scale the fence, they slide down a steep embankment to the shoreline of Alcatraz Island. They get to the water of the Pacific Ocean.
4:15 Dan Snow? They inflate and board a makeshift raft that they'd built, and they launch it into San Francisco Bay, and they were never seen again.
4:28 Dan Snow? As a result, as you can imagine, there are a myriad of conspiratorial theories that swirl around this story. But the most likely outcome is that the brothers drowned in the cold waters and very strong currents of this part of the Pacific coast of California. This was just one of several attempts, probably the most brilliantly executed attempt, to break out of the infamous Alcatraz prison, known as The Rock for its isolation, its austerity, the stark way in which it sits in the twinkling waters of the bay. Well, when it's not too foggy. Today, we're going to speak to Jolene Babyak. She's a historian of Alcatraz, and she's an author who's written several books on the inmates and the families who've lived there. She is very well-placed to write these books because she lived on the island during, in
5:13 Dan Snow? fact, during that infamous 1962 escape. She tells us what it was like to live on the island, who its most infamous prisoners were, and about several attempts that prisoners made to escape. This is a listener request from Paul Jones. Thank you very much, Paul. It's a brilliant idea, and I'm very, very glad you suggested it. So keep your requests coming in. It may well become an episode. You can email us at [email protected] and send us your ideas. Thank you very much. Enjoy.
5:42 Speaker 04 T minus ten.
5:43 Speaker 05 The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity.
5:51 Speaker 04 Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower.
6:00 Dan Snow? Jolene, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
6:03 Speaker 06 You're welcome. Thank you.
6:05 Dan Snow? Let's get started. What was it like growing up on Alcatraz?
6:09 Speaker 06 Well, you know, growing up on Alcatraz was not too different from living on a military base. If your dad was in the military, your mother would have told you not to go into certain areas because it could affect your dad's career. And that's something that all kids would have gotten, and, you know, we got that too. And in our case, it had more to do with security, but that was also an issue. So there were 60 families that lived there. About half of the staff lived on the island, and the structure was constantly changing. People were moving in, moving out. But there were a lot of long-term people. I can name about three families right off the bat that lived there more than 20 years.
6:54 Dan Snow? And did you guys go to school on the mainland?
6:56 Speaker 06 Yes, we did. We took a boat every day and went over to the city. And the boats ran from about six in the morning until midnight, frequently throughout the day. I have to admit, in my years, the boats were much more frequent. There were, when I was in high school, the boats ran 22 times a day.
7:18 Dan Snow? Wow, so you could just shuttle back and forth. Were there areas on the island in which you could be forgiven for thinking it was just like a normal island? Or was the prison always in your view in some way?
7:29 Speaker 06 Yeah, the prison was always in our view. I mean, but it's hard to say. We only occupied about a quarter of the island, and we were down below in a space. The prison was actually up a cliff and on top of a hill. So you didn't see it. It wasn't omnipresent, and it wasn't oppressive. But it was there, and you were aware of it.
7:51 Dan Snow? Did you have any interaction with prisoners?
7:54 Speaker 06 In general, no. People did not have interaction with prisoners, although a lot of kids had minor moments. And I had a minor moment when I was eight. A prisoner was cleaning up with a guard. Probably two prisoners and a guard were cleaning up behind the fence, where I was playing with a bunch of kids. And one of them found a little handball, which were quite cool items because they came from prisoners. Their yard was on the other side of the island, and they would play handball against the wall. But every once in a while, the ball would roll over or fly over and roll down, and we'd find them. And when he showed me the ball, I was tremendously excited because I knew he wanted to give it to me.
8:38 Speaker 06 And I looked at the guard, and the guard nodded. And I walked over to the fence, and this guy knelt down and squeezed it through the cyclone fence. And then I immediately had a problem. I was supposed to be polite to an adult, but I was not allowed to talk to a prisoner. And I remember weighing... Waiting that out. And I don't actually remember what I did, but I'm assuming I just ran away.
9:06 Dan Snow? Well, I'm sure that prisoner enjoyed a moment of connection with a young child. It must have made a nice change, yeah.
9:13 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think so.
9:15 Dan Snow? There was one escape attempt when you were there. That sounded exciting.
9:19 Speaker 06 Yeah, there were several escape attempts during the nine years that my dad worked there. But while we lived on the island, there was only the one, the 1962, happened to be, you know, what was later called the Clint Eastwood Escape from Alcatraz. That was in, on June 11th, 1962. And I was 15 and about to go to school, but I was still asleep. And the siren woke me up. I had never heard it before. I wasn't entirely sure what it was. But at the same time, I knew exactly what it was. And I got up and quickly got dressed. And my mother met me on the stairs and she said, get dressed. There's been an escape. We have to search the house, which is kind of what you did. You searched the house and then the guard would come around
10:04 Speaker 06 and knock on your door and you'd say, nobody's here. And, you know, my first question to my mother was, do you think they're still here? And she said, nah, they probably left last night. So we went about our duties and it was really kind of fun for us. Not so much for my father, who was the acting warden or in the British Isles way of speaking, the deputy governor. And the governor had gone on vacation. So my dad was the acting governor when that happened.
10:36 Dan Snow? And so was he, was he pretty stressed?
10:40 Speaker 06 Yes, very stressed, I think. Everybody's always stressed when there's an escape attempt. First of all, everybody's worried about their job. Who was the last person to see the prisoners? What the, how the Bureau was going to handle this. And then obviously this was a very big, unique escape attempt, which was aided by the fact that the men were never found. They disappeared. So it continued to be a mystery into this century and is still fascinating to the public. So that really helped. So it was an elaborate escape attempt and everybody, to some extent, felt culpable in this disappearance. And so people were worried about their jobs and you know how everything was going to go down.
11:26 Dan Snow? Let's delve back, not just into your personal history, but into the history of Alcatraz for a second. When does the island get its modern name?
11:33 Speaker 06 Right. It was actually kind of discovered in 1775, when Spanish explorers were actually able to come into the bay. You know, exploration was a summer phenomenon, and San Francisco's often fogged in in the summer. So the bay was not discovered until 1775, even though they'd been up and down the coast. They had never ventured into this area. Once they came in, it was the Spanish explorers who named the islands. They also named San Francisco Yerba Buena, Good Earth. Alcatraz was actually another island, but then it switched over and became Isla de las Alcatrazas, which means Island of the Really Big Dirty Birds.
12:16 Speaker 06 And then Isla de las Angelis was Angel Island. So it was Spanish explorers that named it. It was a barren rock for almost another 100 years, and then the military came in about 1849, 1859, and decided to build a fort there to protect the city from foreign invasion. And believe it or not, we were actually worried about England during the Civil War era, because England traded with the South for cotton products. And so the feeling was that England might come in during the Civil War on the side of the South. But they were also worried about Russia. They were worried about China, because Chinese laborers were
12:58 Speaker 06 coming over to help build the railroads during that era. Russia has a fort north of San Francisco. There's actually a hill in San Francisco called Russian Hill. And they were, of course, worried about the Spanish and perhaps the Mexicans, because, you know, the property had originally belonged to Spain and Mexico. And then San Francisco also was a financial capital during that era because of the gold rush. So for all of these reasons, the army came in and developed several forts in the Bay Area, and one of them was Fort Alcatraz.
13:34 Dan Snow? When did it start being used for detention?
13:37 Speaker 06 Almost immediately, all army forts have jail, uh, guardhouses where they keep the drunks and the guys that fight each other. And, uh, but the other forts in the Bay Area started sending their prisoners to Alcatraz because it was always fog and shrouded and it looked mysterious and it was cold. You know, so they, so that prison grew and it was an army prison, not for civilians, but it was an army prison that grew and grew and grew until it officially became the Pacific branch of, of the US Army prison. So that happened pretty much by about, um, 1860, 1865, right around that Civil War era. They're the ones that built the cellhouse that you can see today.
14:22 Speaker 06 That was actually built by military prison labor. And the island was, was a, you know, it was a contour, it was a rock and they flattened it out here and there and they built most of the buildings that you see today. And then in 1933, the army unloaded the property and the federal government came in and said, we'll take it and we'll make it the most maximum security federal prison in the nation.
14:46 Dan Snow? But it strikes me that before that, it, it really, it's interesting how it seems to chart US history. There, there were Native Americans and Indigenous Americans who objected to their children being taken away and sent to so-called Indian schools. There were Spanish Mexicans who were captured during the, the wars of conquest or the wars against Mexico. It seems like every period of US history has been reflected by the kind of inmates that have been warehoused on Alcatraz.
15:16 Speaker 06 Yeah, to some extent. I mean, there were only a few bands of, of Native Americans. There was a, there's a famous photograph of, I don't know if they're Choctaw Indians. So there were a couple of instances where, where Native Americans were kept on, on the island and not even Philippine Americans during the Philippine American War. It was mostly army, uh, soldiers.
15:40 Speaker 06 Ninety-five percent of them were army soldiers of some sort, but there were a few bands of of other groups.
15:46 Dan Snow? Okay. Tell me about when it becomes, well, tell me about some of the most notorious criminals who are then stored there after 1934.
15:57 Speaker 06 Certainly, the most famous was Al Capone. He came out there in 1934. His number, I think, is number eighty-five, so it was numbered sequentially. So that's a very early number. He came over on the very first train load from Atlanta. And Capone was was probably the, you know, one of the first celebrity gangsters in the United States, largely because of the prohibition, which I'm sure your audience will know. We made liquor, the sale of liquor, illegal from about 1920 until 1933. Terrible idea, because, of course, everybody wanted to drink, including immigrants who came over.
16:41 Speaker 06 You know, they all came over from Italy and Germany and France, and they all had, you know, wine labels behind them. So this was a terrible amendment, which then spawned a lot of crime, because the sale of liquor, you know, became very important and also very lucrative. And then also, you're talking about the aftermath of World War I, because two things happened. The automobile became very popular, and the machine gun came into use in the United States after World War I. And so a lot of the gangsters were using these machine guns and, of course, driving all over the country.
17:23 Speaker 06 You know, in the old days, you could only rob a bank on horseback, and horses can only go 20 miles, but once the automobile came in, they could go clear across the country. And the cops in one state have no jurisdiction in another state. So they had to have federal laws and federal prisons. Which was sort of an umbrella, which would allow the FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, to go across the country and pick up men who, mostly men, who robbed banks and were involved in kidnapping and bootlegging. So all of these were federal laws. So there was a period which was very violent and which was also generating a lot of noose
18:08 Speaker 06 print. And so in the midst of this, Al Capone became a big celebrity bootlegger and gangster.
18:15 Dan Snow? So it's interesting that Alcatraz, it becomes a federal penitentiary at a time when all these laws are being updated, government agencies are being updated, and really the modern, well, the modern political architecture of the US is taking shape as well. Alcatraz is central to that story.
18:31 Speaker 06 Yeah, there were four or five federal prisons in those days that actually started in 1930. Leavenworth, McNeil Island, a women's prison in Alderson, West Virginia, a medical prison in Springfield, Missouri. And then Alcatraz came on board about four years later, only because the army gave up the property. But yeah, you're right. It was one of the early. And all those other prisons, except for McNeil Island, are still in use.
18:58 Dan Snow? You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is a podcast about the rock. More coming up. This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail. But suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us. Mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next
19:43 Dan Snow? discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.
19:53 Speaker 07 Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
20:28 Speaker 08 Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected healthcare system.
20:32 Speaker 07 Next.
20:33 Speaker 08 So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it healthy optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patients. Will we fix it all overnight? No. But we'll wake up trying, again and again, until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at Optum.com.
20:58 Speaker 09 The Quarter Pounder with Cheese is made with 100% fresh beef, cooked when you order it. Add hot crispy fries and an ice cold Coke, and hopefully, a lot of napkins. All for $8. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.
21:22 Dan Snow? So Alcatraz is infamous for its position, the currents that swirl around it, how difficult it is to escape. Was it a particularly hostile or particularly friendly place for, say, Al Capone or Machine Gun Kelly when they were there? What was it like any other prison?
21:37 Speaker 06 No. Very singular. It was designed to be, you know, most of us who were involved in a federal crime would go to a Level 1. You mess up, you go up to a Level 2. And each time you go up a level, you lose privileges and gain restrictions. Alcatraz was a Level 6. It was the top level. It was the end of the line. And it was designed for people with behavioral problems in these other prisons. The theory being that you calm down every other prison by taking out the troublemakers and putting them in one spot. So it was designed as the most secure and most punitive prison in the system.
22:19 Speaker 06 Very, virtually no privileges outside of food, healthcare, you know, a bed and clothing. It wasn't too much. You lost all those other privileges when you came to Alcatraz.
22:32 Dan Snow? Were you quite isolated there as a prisoner or were you mixing with other prisoners? When, say, Al Capone would have been there, would he have been in solitary quite a lot? Or was it still?
22:41 Speaker 06 No, solitary is usually designed for the troublemakers. So you're going to be in the main prison population unless, unless people are acting out immediately. That's what solitary is for, for the men who act out, for the men who start throwing their fists, you know, or start, you know, just creating a huge ruckus, starting riots, those kinds of things. So Capone was in the main prison population. His challenge was that he had neurosyphilis. And then also he had a target on his back, you know, he probably didn't seem, you know, he was no longer the big time gangster, you know? And so all these young kids wanted to make the reputation by targeting Capone.
23:26 Speaker 06 And so he was in a number of fights. He, he was attacked with scissors by one prisoner, you know? So it was hard for him to get along and eventually he had to be put in a position where he worked alone. I think he was, he swept the yard, which would have been, I think, an unpleasant job because the yard was extremely windy and, and he worked alone essentially. But then they put him in the prison hospital after he had deteriorated.
23:59 Dan Snow? So you've got other, other infamous inmates, say, George Machine Gun Kelly, Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz, Keen. Keen ornithologist, but also...
24:10 Speaker 06 Um, Machine Gun Kelly was a rather stunning narcissist, so he's fascinating to me. Uh, he and his wife, his wife went to Aldersden, West Virginia. He, he involved 21 people on his, in his, uh, crime spree. 21 people went to prison because of him. I mean, if you could just imagine involving 21 of your family and friends and your wife's family in your crime, and they all go to prison because of you. You know, he was a stunning narcissist and, um, died in prison, 1954, uh, not on Alcatraz, but he died in prison of a heart attack on his birthday. The birdman of Alcatraz was really the birdman of Leavenworth, Kansas.
24:54 Speaker 06 He was there for 30 years before Alcatraz. That's where he did most of his bird study. He had amassed a lot of privileges in Leavenworth that were stunning. I'll tell you one anecdote. My father was forced into the job by the depression, 1933. He graduated in college in 1933 and there were no jobs. And he had part-time jobs until 1938. He had two kids, my older brother and sister, and he really needed a full-time job. So he went to work at Leavenworth. Now, Leavenworth was 12 times the size of Alcatraz. It had 3,600 men. It was only built for 1,100, but it had 3,600 men in it when my dad arrived.
25:39 Speaker 06 And, um, the tiny little cells, you know, they're only about five feet wide. I mean, I can touch both walls with my arms. Those were two-man cells. And Robert Stroud not only had a single cell, but he actually had two cells. So while every other prisoner had a cellmate, he had two cells. And the prisons, uh, had cut a hole in the wall so he could walk from room to room.
26:08 Speaker 06 And, and my dad said they were filled from floor to ceiling with bird cages and it smelled like a chicken coop. So in 1942, they were tired of this. And the war was just, we were about to enter into the war. And so manpower became a problem. And so they shipped Stroud to Alcatraz, where he lost all of his bird privileges. And that was over.
26:31 Dan Snow? And he, despite being an incredibly violent man, he published scientific papers about avian disease and canaries and made some contribution to science whilst he was in Leavenworth. Crazy story.
26:45 Speaker 06 Yeah, you know, murder is an emotional crime. Either a crime of passion, or, you know, a crime of hatred, or whatever. You can still be smart and intellectually accomplish things, but be emotionally, you know, not in a good way. I didn't say that properly, but emotional content and intellectual content are totally separate. And you can be both an intellectual giant and an emotional, you know, you can murder people. So, a lot of people don't understand that. They somehow think that your intellectual achievement is, should compensate for your emotional life.
27:30 Speaker 06 And it's just not true. They're separate.
27:32 Dan Snow? Let's talk about some of the famous escapes. We say it was impossible to escape from one man, John Paul Scott. He managed to swim to the mainland.
27:40 Speaker 06 He did. And, but he was brought back within 24 hours, or even probably within about 12 hours. Darryl D. Parker made it about 50 feet off the island, and I think he injured his foot, and they captured him within an hour or so. And Scott drifted all the way to Fort Point, which is right at the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge. He almost was swept out to the Pacific Ocean. But he draped up against the rocks, and some kids were parking, it was December, it was December, so it's dark at 5:00. And some kids saw him draped against the rocks, and they pulled him out of the water.
28:22 Speaker 06 They thought he was a jumper from the bridge, and they saved his life.
28:28 Speaker 06 And, you know, he was taken to the hospital and it was recognized right away that he was an escapee from Alcatraz. And Scott got out of prison. He had an interesting life, but unfortunately, it went well for, he got out in the seventies, I think. I've actually forgotten the details, but he got out of prison and went, he went, things went well for him for about 10 years, but sometimes it happens that guys get divorced or they lose their job or, you know, something happens and they sort of spiral down and he went back to prison.
29:02 Dan Snow? What about the Battle of Alcatraz?
29:05 Speaker 06 Well, that was actually the absolute worst moment in the history of Alcatraz. It's largely been forgotten nowadays. That was a moment in 1946 when prisoners actually obtained guns from the gun gallery and held off the guard staff for two days. And it ended in the, in the deaths of two guards, the three prisoners who were involved in the battle, and then two others were executed two years later. So it was seven deaths in that horrible incident.
29:41 Dan Snow? You're listening to Dan Snow's history hit. This is a podcast about the rock. More coming up.
29:56 Speaker 07 Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
30:31 Speaker 09 The Quarter Pounder with Cheese is made with 100% fresh beef, cooked when you order it. Then comes the melted cheese, the slivered onions, the pickles, the ketchup, and the mustard. Add hot crispy fries and an ice cold Coke, all for $8. And if things go well, one loose fry at the bottom of the bag. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal, now $8.
31:08 Dan Snow? The June 62 escape, why is it so notorious? What happened in 62?
31:14 Speaker 06 There was a man named Alan West who was a maintenance inmate. And he had kind of the run of the maintenance. He had always wanted to escape. And he was in the utility corridors. So, you know, cell blocks are like my arms, right? You know, but between them is a utility corridor. And that's where all the pipes, it's like a three-foot-wide corridor. And the pipes, the waste pipes, the water pipes are in that area. And so there, John Paul Scott was working back there one day. And he looked up and he saw this blower.
31:53 Speaker 06 And because in 46, the army had come in and had dropped grenades down into the cellhouse. And they had destroyed most of those blowers. And so later, the prison officers and inmate workers went up on the top of the block. And they got rid of those blowers. And then they sealed up the vent. That fact was always known by prisoners. They did some of the work, you know. But West was in the corridor one day and he looks up and he sees that there's one blower that's still up there. And he figured, and he was right, that vent had not been sealed.
32:34 Speaker 06 And so he, his goal then became, that was what he thought would be the escape route. And his goal was to get into the utility corridor, get up to that vent and get out on the roof. And they thought of many ways to do it. They did not want to dig, but ultimately they were forced to dig. And so they dug through about, you know, four and a half inches of concrete. But you've got to remember that cellhouse was built by military prison labor. So it probably was not the best construction in the world. And the aggregate, I think, came from the beach.
33:14 Speaker 06 We're not talking, you know, um, the aggregate in some cases, the, the pebbles were as big as this. You know, they were, they were huge. And so you were only digging through eight, about six and a half inches. And basically you were popping rocks, you know, very little debris. And so they dug, took about four and a half months to dig and they got into the utility corridor. That's also the escape where they put them, they made masks, right? Out of cement powder, not the same cement powder, but out of fresh cement powder. And then soap chips and they made masks and put them in their beds. And on, on the night of the escape, they got up to the top and got out on the roof.
33:55 Dan Snow? And this is, this is Alan West, but it's with John and Clarence Anglin as well. They, they were, they were brothers and Rob Banks had escaped from a prison before. So they were, they were hardened escapers.
34:08 Speaker 06 Yeah, Wes didn't go. Wes didn't go. In the movie, he's sort of the doofus who doesn't go. But in real life, Plentys would, should have played him. It was his idea, um, and he got them up there, but he didn't go. So the Anglins were mostly car thieves. They were poor boys from rural Florida. Fifth grade education, third grade. They weren't stupid, but you know, they weren't real sophisticated. They had, they were not escape artists. You know, they had, they had done one escape from, from Leavenworth. They were mostly car thieves. They liked to joyride. Morris was institutionalized from the age of 13 to 35, he'd never been out of prison more than about two years.
34:52 Speaker 06 He was an abandoned child. He had no family. His mother had given him up for adoption and. When he was about two and a half, I mean, you know, it was one of those tragic stories. He had escapes on his record, but they were mostly from reform schools and state prisons. But once he got out, he he had no capabilities, you know, he couldn't stay out at large without stealing. That's the sad part.
35:20 Dan Snow? So West gives them the idea, but then doesn't do the escape with them.
35:24 Speaker 06 Yeah, not unusual.
35:28 Speaker 06 There were other men who were involved in that escape attempt. Um, I think Glenn May made two of the masks. He didn't want to go. He wasn't interested in going, but he didn't mind helping.
35:38 Dan Snow? So they make it into utility corridor, then they climb up the vent?
35:42 Speaker 06 Yeah, they use the pipes as a ladder and they get up to the top of the block and they worked up there for about six weeks. They made a homemade raft, they made life jackets. Uh, it was a workshop up there and then they also were working on the the vent, trying to break through it, took about six weeks.
36:03 Dan Snow? Then they made their escape. What do we know about the escape?
36:09 Speaker 06 Well, we know that they got up there. We know that West had manipulated one of the officers to hang blankets. So that the the gun gallery officers couldn't actually look down and see what they were doing as as they had their workshop. We know that they were up and down the utility corridor many times over that six weeks period. Uh, we know that they used the masks several times, not just the one time. And we know the night of the escape, they left after lights out. Um, Wes claimed, and there's some evidence that he tried to get out of his cell that night, but he couldn't do it. That the anglers had actually cemented up the opening a little too tight and he couldn't push through.
36:51 Speaker 06 And there's some evidence for that, but a lot of people think he just chickened out. And they come came back down several times to help him. And then finally abandoned him and um and broke through the ceiling vent.
37:05 Speaker 06 The birds on top of the cell house would have flushed into the sky and would have made quite a racket when they emerged out onto the top of the roof. So the tower officers should have noticed that if it actually indeed happened. Then they ran down the length of the cell house away from our area. Everybody always went in the other direction, the Golden Gate Bridge direction, not our side. And they climbed down by what's now the morgue. Many of your visitors will have seen the morgue.
37:47 Speaker 06 It's kind of fascinating to people, but it's actually not that cool about as a history and a name. They got down, they crossed a road and they went down behind the officers' club. And if they'd hit that checkpoint before 10 o'clock, they could have actually heard the sound of a bowling ball hitting the lanes and rolling into the pins because there was a two-lane bowling alley down there left over from the military days. And they put in their little raft, they had a homemade raft with pontoons. No one ever saw it, so we don't know what it looked like. But Wes described it as having pontoons, which they inflated
38:30 Speaker 06 with a small accordion-like instrument that Morris had ordered. And then they put their pictures and I don't know, who knows if they had their shoes on or if they took their shoes off or threw their clothes into the raft. We don't know if the raft had a floor, but it was originally built for six people. And the three of them got in the raft and they were never seen again.
38:54 Dan Snow? We presume that they didn't make it to land, they were swept out to the Pacific and drowned?
39:01 Speaker 06 They certainly left in a high tide, which means they were sweeping towards the Pacific Ocean, no question. And we also know that it was the highest tide of the day, which is not a great tide to leave on. You know, ideally, you want to leave on a slack tide, when the tide is neither east nor west, and you can actually get across to the city or to Angel Island, if that was their goal. But with an outgoing high, high tide, you're going exactly where that tide is going, and it was going to Hawaii.
39:33 Dan Snow? When did, when did Alcatraz close?
39:37 Speaker 06 It closed about nine months later, in March of 1963.
39:42 Dan Snow? Was it partly in response to that escape?
39:45 Speaker 06 Well, I always like to say that was the final nail in the coffin. I found memos back as early as 1945, which clearly stated that if we don't fix this, the powerhouse, or we don't do that, the island is going to close. My dad arrived in 1954, and he was told pointedly that the island was going to get, was going to be closed. Don't get used to it. Uh, there was always a rumor that it was going to close. It was expensive. It was constantly needed repair. It was an old penitentiary by the time the feds came in, and now it's 30 years later. You know, it was built in 1909, and it's right in the path of all the winds from the Pacific Ocean,
40:29 Speaker 06 which are, which are filled with water. So the moisture was really, um, a problem for the towers, the metal towers and the catwalks and, and the concrete.
40:39 Dan Snow? Did it instantly become, did everyone know at the time it would become this sort of tourist phenomenon? Or what did they think was going to happen to it?
40:47 Speaker 06 Um, you know, it was abandoned from, you know, six, nine years, I think it was abandoned from, from 1963 until, um, it didn't become a... A national park until 1972. So yeah, nine years. No one knew what to do with it. It just sat there for a long time. And then in the midst of that, the Native Americans came in and occupied Alcatraz as a political statement for 19 months. And that's when the government started to realize, you know, we've got something here. And then they turned it over to the national parks. There were a number of private ideas. People wanted to turn it into a casino and, you know, there were lots of ideas.
41:30 Speaker 06 But, you know, it became a national park in 1972.
41:35 Dan Snow? Are you, why do you think people are so obsessed with it?
41:39 Speaker 06 Oh, it was probably one of the very first prisons that was open for people to visit. And of course, it always, always had that cachet of mystery and, you know, when people come out of San Francisco, they're stunned that it's so close. It's only a mile and a quarter away, less than two kilometers. And, and so people are stunned that it's so close and yet you can't escape. They don't get that, you know. And Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, and Creepy Carpe, and the Birdman. You know, there've been movies over these years. And so the fascination with Alcatraz has never eroded.
42:15 Dan Snow? Well, thank you for stoking up that fascination on this podcast, Jolene. Tell us what, what your book is called.
42:22 Speaker 06 I have four currently out. Birdman, The Many Faces of Robert Stroud, Breaking the Rock, about that 1962 escape. Alcatraz Most Wanted, which is written under a pen name. And I have, and I have another one called Mi Quinceañera in Alcatraz, which is written in Spanish, and it's about the kids there.
42:46 Dan Snow? Wow. Okay. Well, thank you very much coming on the podcast.
42:49 Speaker 06 You're welcome. Thank you.
43:03 Speaker 07 Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
43:38 Speaker 09 The Quarter Pounder with Cheese is made with 100% fresh beef, cooked when you order it. Then comes the melted cheese, the slivered onions, the pickles, the ketchup, and the mustard. Add hot crispy fries and an ice cold Coke, all for $8. And if things go well, one loose fry at the bottom of the bag. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal, now $8. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.
44:10 Dan Snow? Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to History and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III. We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
Previous VE Day Next The Siege of Vienna Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
