Alcatraz was closed down one year later, in 1963. There were a handful of other attempts, but only one successful escape in 1962 when three bank robbers, using handmade rubber rafts and dummies with real human hair, vanished into the dark waters of the bay. In 1946, several inmates attempted a violent and bloody escape from the Rock, but failed. Suicide, murder and even insanity became common. It was a brutal place of punishment and confinement with few privileges. It was then re-opened in 1933 to be an escape-proof federal prison. The initial prison was built in 1859 but fell into disuse by the 1920s. Although it started as a military prison, for 29 years the prison kept the country’s most notorious lawbreakers – including Al Capone, Doc Barker, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and others – confined behind stone walls. It was the place where scores of the country’s worst criminal offenders, bloodletters, badmen and escaped artists called the end of the line. The “Rock,” the name given to Alcatraz Penitentiary, was the ultimate American prison. Apparitions have been seen, mysterious footsteps heard and strange sounds reported. Since that time, ghost stories and paranormal encounters have become commonplace. Solitary confinement was ended in the 1870s and a century later, the prison was closed down. Punishments for breaking the rules were extreme and suicides became common. Many of them were driven insane by the solitude. Inmates were confined in windowless rooms and allowed no contact with any living person. There is no escape – even after death.įounded by the Quakers in 1829, who envisioned the stone castle as a place where criminals could become penitent for their crimes (hence the name, “penitentiary”), the prison was a place of total isolation. The amount of trauma, pain and terror experienced by the men who are incarcerated often leaves a lasting impression behind and horrible events that occur behind the prison’s high walls tend to cause the spirits of the men imprisoned to remain in death, just as they were in life. When compiling a list of America’s most haunted places, prisons and jails are usually high on the list.
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