November 15, 2011 • 40 mins
Sure, you've heard stories about Alcatraz. From high-profile escape attempts to tales of notorious inmates, the Rock is unique in American history. But how did it actually work? Join Josh and Chuck as they explain the Stuff You Should Know about Alcatraz.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you hey? And welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark with me as always, It's Charles W.
(00:20):
Chuck Bryant that makes the stuff. You should know the
podcast the audio version, because we have a video version, baby. Yeah.
We throw videos that once a week now. No, no, no,
I mean we have like a video version of our
podcast that has rules. It's like a game show, remember
the stupid game show and we hey, yeah, yeah, that
one that's coming soon. It'll probably be out by this
(00:42):
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You and Me time right here. I think it publishes
next week in the time that where we're in people's
earbuds right now. Yeah, and published already. So go to
the video section of how Stuff works and search in
the video section Stuff you should know when you'll be
able to find that. And it's not an audio version
(01:03):
of what we do. It's a totally different. It's like
a couple of minutes long new content that you've never heard.
Loose fun. It's not that fun, but it is definitely loose.
You'll like it, and if you don't again, it's free. Yeah. Free. Um. Also, uh,
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(01:24):
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(01:46):
we love w FMU and it's we're very proud to
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classic episode. It makes them kiss like Barbie Dolls, right
and puts them into an hour long version. Alright, yea
plug fest out of the way. Oh. We have two
audio books, one on the Economy, one Unhappiness. You can
(02:08):
find them on iTunes. Yeah, super stuff guides. Yeah, okay,
you're ready now, Chuck. Have you heard about this occupy
Wall Street jam? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, they're shutting it down
here and there are they? I thought they were generally
keeping it as long as it uh stayed contained in
Zuccati Park. It was relatively okay. Well, I mean in
(02:31):
different cities. They're like, cleared them out of Atlanta yesterday,
Oakland and tear gas them, tear gasts and stunt grenades,
and the apparently when they came back, they tear gast
them again, stun grenade at them. And there and the
the Occupy Oakland people are like, we're gonna come back
every day, and the cops that are like, we're gonna
stunt grenade you every day. We got lots of stunt grenades.
(02:52):
Did they clear out Atlanta? What happened? He cleared out
Atlanta overnight last night, I think, But I don't know
if people are gonna come back or nothing. It is
so shady to clear it out overnight. It happens apparently
so well. Occupy Wall Street in particulars doing pretty well. Um.
It started September seventeenth, and as of today, October UM,
(03:14):
it's been going on for thirty nine days, which is substantial.
I think a lot of people are surprised that it's
been going on this long, But as long as thirty
nine days seems it's got nothing on the occupation of
Alcatraz that took place starting November nine sixty nine and
lasted nineteen months. The Red Power movement, Yes, Red Power.
(03:40):
Basically this was you've heard of AIM, the American Indian movement,
the one that UM Marlon Brando helped out by having
what was her name, Little Feather go except as Oscar, Yeah,
I think that was her name. UM this started that.
This is largely credited with starting that. So November sixty
nine a guy named Richard Mackenzie who was a UM.
(04:04):
I think he was a mohawk. No, I'm sorry, Uh,
Richard Oakes was a mohawk and he led an occupation
UM that took over another occupation basically that it started
like a couple of weeks earlier, and UM basically just
sat in with about a hundred people on Alcatraz and said, hey,
(04:24):
we think this should be a cultural center for Native Americans,
and we think it should be the site of an
Indian university as well, and we're gonna stay here until
you meet our demands. And they did. And one of
the key UM ingredients of this was that it was
UM inner tribal. There was more than one tribe. It
wasn't just the Mohawks who were doing this, which made
(04:45):
it UM groundbreaking as far as um Indian, the Indian
movement was concerned um and it lasted for a while,
It had its ups and downs, and basically it was
ultimately co opted by the dirty hippies in San Francisco,
um on the across the bay, who started showing up
and like doing drugs, like openly in the in the prison. Now, granted,
(05:06):
you don't get too many opportunities to take acid on Alcatraz,
but they they ended up eroding the occupation severely the
right and there was a basis for that. Even the
Treaty of Fort Laramie in eighteen sixty eight said that
all retired, abandoned, out of use federal land shall be
(05:28):
returned to the Native people from whom it was acquired.
And since Alcatraz the prison had shut down in nineteen
sixty three, it was declared a surplus federal property. So
they said, you know what, We'll give you forty seven
cents an acre, which is what you bought it for.
So we'll give you nine dollars and forty cents for Alcatraz.
Nice And they said no, let's bring in the coast Guard. Well,
(05:52):
for a while it was tolerated again nineteen months. But
then in January, two oil tankers collided UH in San
Francisco Bay, and although there was it was clearly established
that the lighthouse, which was no longer working on Alcatraz
because of the movement, had no part in this. It
(06:13):
was enough so that public sentiment was like, get those
guys out of there. So Nixon was like, get them
out of there. Yeah, they shut down the power, shut
off telephone service, a fire broke out, and then it
dwindled down to about fifteen people, and that was small
enough to where they could just go in and say,
come on, five women, four children, six unarmed men, and
Richard Oakes thirteen year old stepdaughter unfortunately felled her to
(06:36):
death during the middle of this occupation three three stories
down because she probably fell from a cell block because
they were three tiers high. That's right. So this is
just one major event in the history of Alcatraz, one
of many UH in. Alcatraz itself dates back at least
(06:58):
well far before this. As far as Europeans are concerned,
Alcatraz origins begin in seventeen seventy five, but let's talk
about the Native American um use of Alcatraz before then.
I got one more interesting factory. A young Benjamin Bratt
was one of the with his mother and sisters, Benjamin
(07:19):
brad of TV's Law and Order fame. Wow, he was
one of the one of the kids. That's awesome, alright.
So taking Alcatraz, let's go back in time to the
Native Americans. There was some rumors that it was actually
a prison for them as well, where they would exile
those who broke tribal law, but historians say that might
(07:40):
not be the case. They probably just went there looking
for eggs there, Pelican egg specifically, because the word Alcatraz
is an anglicization. I think that's right of the word alcatrasis,
which means Pelicans or gannetts. Though that's what I didn't
(08:00):
get working on with Pelicans, that's what I've heard, but
alcatrazs which was given to the island by the Spanish
explorer Don Juan Manuel day Ayala in seventeen seventy five
when he sailed into San Francisco Bay. He was pretty
cool because he was like, it is on this site
that I decree here and he will eventually play. Yes,
(08:22):
that's right, Yeah, that was my Don Juan Ayala. Very nice,
very nice. So that was that was the earliest history
that we know of, even though it's not written down. UH.
In eighteen forty seven there was an official survey of
this island, which we should mention is a the top
of a mountain, because San Francisco Bay used to be
(08:44):
a valley. Pretty much all islands are tops of mountains
when you get down to it. Yeah, But I like
how Grabanowski was like, no, I'm just coming out and
saying it. In this time, Lieutenant William H. Warner of
the U. S. Army UH was like, Hey, this is
a really prime location here in the bay to UH
stage munitions and to have a defense position. So let's
(09:07):
construct let's construct a building here to guard against the
Confederate soldiers. And you don't I don't really think about
you know, it's your north and south, but forget about
San Francisco on there. Yeah, being a part of the
Civil War. Oh yeah, especially with the gold rush going
on out there. Anybody who controlled San Francisco controlled the
substantial amount of gold. So it's a big deal. But
(09:30):
despite the fortifications that were eventually built there and the
guns that were brought there, the citadel is what they
called it. But It is not to be confused with
the school. Um. The the guns were fired a couple
of times, but never in battle. It was always like
a case of mistaken identity, like what was that? Or yeah,
or everybody who was on stationed on Alcatraz got drunk
(09:52):
and just fired him off out of boardom I suppose
that could have happened. Um, eventually people started being sent Alcatraz.
If you deserted and were caught, or your court martial
and it didn't go so well, you might end up
on Alcatraz, especially if you were stationed around there. And Um,
the guy who was the head of the um fort
(10:14):
they're basically, was like, wow, we have a basement. I
guess we can start keeping people in the basement, and
we will. It's a brig Now build a couple of
cells here there. And then all of a sudden it
became very apparent not only is it a great spot
for a garrison, it's a great spot for a prison, because, Chuck,
there's a lot of aspects to Alcatraz that that make
(10:37):
it a very attractive prison location. It's an island, it's
a rock, there's a prison on it, and the water
is very chilly. Uh, and it's invested with great white sharks.
And that's the word everyone uses, is infested. I don't
know if that's is it infested, that's what everyone uses.
Even San Franciscan's are like infested. They make it sound
(11:00):
like you jump in and you will be attacked by
great white sharks. Have you ever seen the movie Piranha. Yeah,
it's like that, but with great white sharks. I saw
the remake the other day. By the way, how is it?
It is kind of awesomely gruesomely awesome and funny? Is
it an homage to the first one? Yeah, I mean
it's way over the top, and it's one of those
is so over the top it's like, well this is
(11:21):
kind of fun. It's not good. I have a feeling
it's sort of like that. But yeah, there's way way
over the top and awesome for that reason too. But
have you seen Piranha three D? You remembers they fly eventually? Yeah?
The Spawning? Yeah you know who wrote that actually, Benjamin Bratt,
no amazing writer filmmaker John Sales. Yeah, that was one
(11:43):
of his first writing jobs in Hollywood, was writing a
Piranha three The Spawning. I think crazy, you know, Roger
Ebert wrote, Um, yea, did we talk about that and
they exploitation film. Yeah, that's well you should say that
beyond the Valley of the Dolls. All right, back to Alcatraz,
I'm sorry, back to the citadel post Civil War. Um,
(12:03):
there was a big earthquake in San Francisco in nineteen
o six, and so they had to actually bring two
hundred regular civilian prisoners out to Alcatraz, and uh, you know,
the military at that point was like, you know, it's
really expensive. Let's we don't really need a military prison anymore. So, um,
let's tear the citadel down. Jedger Hoover said, we need
(12:25):
a big deterrent in a big scary place, So why
don't we use Alcatraz and make that a regular federal
penitentiary penitentiary. Well, that was in the thirties. In l
they said the citadel, we do need a military prison,
or if we're gonna do it, let's do it right,
And they tore the citadel down and built the military prison.
They built actually the technical name was the United States
(12:46):
Military Prison Pacific Branch, Alcatraz Island, and that was in
nineteen twelve. But then, like you said, they were like,
this is really expensive. You got to bring in everything
from the San Francisco area. Everyone knows how exp some
cheeses in San Francisco. And they're like, hey, Mr JAA Hoover,
look over here. And he did, right, he did. He said,
(13:09):
I'm trying to crack down on all these bootleggers and
all of these chippies, and I need a prison that's
gonna just scare people. Just the name of it's gonna
scare people. And I'm in love with my assistant and
and we're gonna we're gonna use Alcatraz because it is again,
a perfect prison, that's right. So that that happened. Ownership
was transferred in between thirty three and thirty four, and
(13:32):
they brought the first regular civilian prisoners prisoners over to
stay and in secrecy. Yeah, I wonder why. I think
that's a good way to start off the worst prison
in the country. Okay, well they secretly transporting prisoners there.
That's like, yeah, that makes you feel like you can
be stolen out of your house at any moment. All right.
(13:52):
So that is the history of the island and the
origins of the prison a k a. Part one. Now
starts part too. M M, thank you, Chuck. Yes. Part
two begins with oh, let me stop you first. By
the way, did you mentioned that lighthouse. That's the very
first lighthouse on the West coast, and they rebuilt it
(14:14):
and it still operates today. Yeah. They actually had to
rebuild it because they started building up San Francisco and
the lighthouses, like, I can't see it's foggy, yeah, and
the sharks everywhere help and uh so they tore it
down and built it again in nineteen nine and now
it's bigger and it's unobstructed. That's right, all right, So
(14:34):
modern day or more modern day at least Alcatraz. We
mentioned it's a mountain top of a mountain. It's very rocky,
and well they call it the rock for a reason. Yeah,
there's not a lot of plant life growing there. It's
not some beautiful island getaway. No. Almost all the plant
life that grows there was brought in by construction crews
over the years who were like, God, we need a
tree or something here, you need a boxwood or something,
(14:57):
and so they started bringing in so oil and shrubs
and trees and planted a few things here there. Yeah,
a few of those things found purchase. It's just a
dead piece of rock, which just adds to the gloom
and the dismalness of it, right, which actually plays a
part in the end of the great, great great movie
Escape from Alcatraz movie. Remember you saw the little flower
(15:20):
on the shore. Yeah, that's right. He's like, they ain't
no flowers like this here. Yeah. Uh so Alcatraz Josh
was built to accommodate six hundred cons but it only
held about three hundred, and at the time in l
it was really innovative because first you had the island
as as hey, you can't escape from the island, so
(15:41):
why bother trying. Then they had cellblocks within the concrete wall,
so it was for the first time you know it
cells within cells almost right. You didn't have a window
looking out to the outside from yourself, no, no, no, um.
So yeah, if you wanted to get your way out
of there, you had to make it through the wall
of your cell and then the outer wall. That's right. Um.
(16:04):
They also had metal detectors, which were pretty much new,
brand new at the time, and rather than the key
like they had in the Green Mile, they had the levers.
The lever system to open cell blocks, like they had
an escape from Alcatraz, which was a big deal because
you could do that remotely. You didn't have to go
to the cell where you're vulnerable. Uh. They also reinforced
(16:25):
all the iron with hardened steels called tools distant because
you couldn't cut through it, just like me, because you
couldn't cut through the hacksaw. And apparently it cost as
much to install those did to build it in the
first place. So so the average the typical cell um
(16:47):
was something like, uh, five ft wide by nine ft deep,
and they were concrete walls. How big is this in here? Oh,
this is like two cells. I think if you go
like this, it's like two cells going that way. Yiche.
All three three, three of the four walls were made
of um concrete, and then the fourth wall was the
(17:08):
um steel tool resistant um bars. That's right, the fourth wall.
You didn't want to break that. People thought you were corny.
That a little bed. You have a little turlet. You
had a couple of shelves in the back to put
your stuff. You had a little they call it a desk.
It was really just a sort of a little fold down.
It was very small. Obviously everything was small. And that
(17:29):
was it. That was it. No uh, you know, no
dub's no breakfast in bed and you could, uh, you
can imagine this is pretty bad in and of itself.
But that's a block, B block and C block, right,
that's right. Um, there was also D Block, and D
Block was where if you were trouble they sent you.
(17:51):
They called that the treatment unit. Yeah, it was the
inhumane treatment is what they should have called it. Yeah.
That they had um, I think fourteen or fifth cells
in D Block and that was solitary confinement, and then
you had cells nine through fourteen was the whole and
those were the ones with the iron doors where you
had no light. And then they had one cell that
(18:13):
apparently was the worst of the worst that just had
a hole in the floor to go poo poo and
peepee and you were usually naked if you were in there,
and not for any good reasons. That's where the Birdman
stayed the whole time. Really, Nanny's on de block. Really Yeah,
apparently you couldn't be in the hole for more than
nineteen days. But the Birdman, Robert Stroud, was in prison
(18:37):
for fifty four years, and forty two years of that
were in solitary confinement. Can you imagine, dude, I can't.
They're not rehabbing that guy. And I'm not making a
big political statement, but forty two years in solitary that
was just straight up punishment. I think that. Um, I
think that that was the best Alcatraz movie ever. Birdman
(18:59):
of Alcatraz, no way, Yeah, have you seen it? Yeah, dude,
Burt Lancaster, Yeah, it was good, it was good. Um.
He didn't have any birds in Alcatraz though, Did he
really spent Yeah? He did. What are you talking about? You?
It's like, you're crazy. He had There were no animals
all out there. He had that came from Leavenworth Prison
and when he got to Alcatraz there were like no
(19:19):
more birds for you. Oh. I thought he ended up
keeping birds anyway, and that's probably why he was in
D block the whole time. Let's go with that, Okay. Um, Well,
then why would they call him the Birdman of Alcatraz
because he was already a birdman when he went to Alcatraz.
It's a movie the same reason they fictionalized murder in
the first with Kevin Bacon. We'll get to that, um.
(19:43):
And prior to the the construction of D Block. You
would just be held in the dungeon, which is in
the basement of the original citadel, which is where the
first prisoners ever to be kept on Alcatraz were kept.
It's probably not a fun place. So Chuck, you said
that there was no breakfast in bed. There was breakfast,
and that came every day. After you swept yourself, then
(20:05):
you lined up for inspection and you went down for breakfast.
That's right. Then after that you went to work. Twenty
minutes twenty minute breakfast. Huh, twenty minute for each meal.
I could do twenty minute breakfast. It's leisurely, that is true.
Is lesually, so you'd be sent to like the laundry. Um,
you would be maybe if you were the book guy,
(20:27):
you would be sent for the library. A lot of dockwork,
lots of unloading and loading of things. Yeah. Um. And
also they manufactured stuff on Alcatraz. They manufactured brushes and brooms,
but a little known fact these things, by law, could
not be sold on the own open market, only to
federal agencies because the government didn't want to flood the
(20:48):
broom and brush markets with cheaply made goods. So government
buildings were swept with Alcatraz rooms. Interesting. Yeah, I did
not know that the walkways they named the Central Walkway
was between the Cell Blox was Broadway. Because they had
a flair for the dramatic, they named them after New
York streets, Park Avenue, Michigan Avenue and Broadway. And then
(21:10):
Times Square was between the mess Hall and the Cell Blox.
And overlooking all this on either end was a very
important station called the Gun Gallery and it was enclosed
in bars and mesh, and there's where you will find
some of the only guns aside from the towers and Alcatraz,
where these armed dudes that had a very clear shot
(21:32):
in the line of sight of the whole place. But
the guards didn't carry guns or keys or handcuffs because
that was a risk, but they illegally carried these things
called SAPs. It was like a metal baton and a
leather strap black jack. Yeah, and they weren't supposed to
have those, but they had those um And then after
(21:54):
a hard day of work of being eyed by guys
in the Gun Gallery, you would have inner lights out
at ninety and then ovensmores and then the thing is Alcatraz.
Thanks to Jacker Hoover had a really crazy reputation for
being like the hardest place ever. UM. But everything we
just described you're going to go through generally in any
(22:16):
prison in the thirties through the sixties, UM, but Alcatraz
did differ in some ways. Specifically, it was extremely especially
at its beginning, it was extremely rigid in its UM discipline,
Like there was literally no talking for most of the time. UM.
(22:37):
Prisoners weren't allowed to speak out loud UM except for
designated times. I think like twenty minutes a week. I
don't know that sounds about right. UM. And they if
you if you did speak out loud, you went to
the dungeon or d black later on. Did you have
no talk in school elementary school, I don't remember if
we did. They would do that in the cafeteria sometimes
(22:59):
we had these flags and if things were getting roundy
or they were whatever, they were mad at us, they
would say, you know, you're on no talk and they
put up the red flag. And it was the worst.
It was awful, especially for me. I was just like
trying to say things to my friends. Yeah, they actually
said the dining room is the most dangerous place in Alcatraz.
(23:19):
I would imagine because you got all the cons in there,
and they had um have you ever been no, I'd
like to go go. They have on the wall in
the dining room they have where they kept the knives,
the knife rack. They had silhouetted outlines in the shape
of each one, so if one of them was missing,
you would see what's missing immediately, So there's no sneaking
(23:41):
out of butcher knives. Even though they had that stuff there.
John lithcow On Dexter had that for his tools. Oh yeah,
that was a great season. They did have visiting hours
um or should I say visiting our You got one
visit a month. Had to be an immediate family or
a proo the visitor, and you could only talk about
(24:02):
personal matters. You can talk about the prison or life there.
And there was of course no contact whatsoever. Like they
wouldn't like put you in a room with them. They'd
be like not touching, not touching at all. Um. Alcatraz
also was a little different in that people lived on
the island, which isn't all that different. I think most
prisons have an area around him where the guards live.
(24:24):
I didn't know this, um, but with Alcatraz it was
like you live on the island, Your family lived on
the island. Your kids take a boat to school every
day and back. Um, if you want a grocery shop,
if you want some smokes, whatever, you take a boat
and back. If you use up your razor and you
need to shave, you throw your old razor in the bay.
(24:47):
Same with used utensils. I'm sure after they're worn out,
not from washing like every time, it's their work in
the bay or anything like that. Um and the kids
weren't allowed to have toy guns for really good reasons,
because she didn't want to convict getting their hands on
one and then pretending that they were gonna shoot a
guard with a with a cap gun. And magazines had
(25:11):
to be carefully patrolled because they didn't want prisoners looking
at sexy things or reading about current events at all,
or sex or crime. Those are two things that the
prisoners who were not allowed to read about, which came
into play with your buddy Robert Stroud what the birdman? Yeah?
What do you mean? He? Um was not allowed to
read his biography because it had chapters of his criminal past.
(25:35):
In so his biography came out and he wasn't ever
allowed to read it. It's said he had a pretty
sad life. What did he do? He was a He
moved to Alaska and took up with in the pimping industry,
with one particular lady of the night. Ah. He though
he went to go protect her at one point from
(25:56):
this dude who didn't pay her. A scuffle broke out
out and he was killed, and uh, he turned himself
in with the gun, said here I did this, and
um but took the money from his wallet, which I
think trumped it up to a more serious charge. But
it was originally manslaughter. So he he probably would have
been okay if he hadn't gone to prison and been
(26:17):
such a jerk. When he got to prison, he was
one of the most violent inmates anywhere he went. And
that just kept adding time and adding time, and he
kept shuffling him around until he ended up at Alcatraz.
But Burt Lancaster says that he wasn't like that. One
thing the Grabster did not mention was the wreck yard,
where you could go I think, for an hour a
(26:38):
day if you're a good boy, in an hour a
week if you're in solitary. And they had handball and
horse shoes and chess and checkers and backgammon, and you
were allowed to play hearts, cribbage, and that is it
for card games, even though it says they played bridge
using dominoes. And you could see from the from the
(27:03):
reck yard, you could see San Francisco, which they said
it was the biggest psychological crippler of all is. You
could see the stuff going on, and they said every
New Year's at the yacht club would have a party,
a big, big party, and if the winds were blowing right,
you'd actually hear like music and ladies laughing and stuff
like that, which was just torture. Were a lot of fun. Yeah,
(27:27):
like listening to something at last spirit Um. You know
al Capone was there, Did you know that? That's what
I hear? And so al Capone was there. You get
the Birdman of Alcatraz and then has the reputation of
being the worst of the worst, the worst prison where
the worst of the worst are housed. That was you know,
al Capone is a pretty big criminal. He has a
pretty big nab for the g men. But it was
(27:49):
a federal prison and it was early on in the
history of the federal prison system, so people who really
probably didn't belong there sometimes ended up in Alcatraz as Um,
you could be sent there for shoplifting in a store
that had a post office branch, madd a federal crime.
If like you know, how like you like to bring
(28:10):
fireworks into Georgia a lot. Well, had that been bootleg
liquor and had you been caught just just bringing in
like a fifth, you could have gone to Alcatraz. So
it wasn't all murderers and gangsters, No it wasn't. It
had a very um, a surprisingly normal history as far
as prisons go, federal prisons go for the time. Um,
but it also had a very fearsome reputation and some
(28:32):
of it was earned compundn't a very good time there though. No,
he had syphilis and he was crazy and used to
cry like a baby. Plus he had it made in
the prison before apparently he was still running his ops
and they got to Alcatraz like no, no, no, now
it's not happening here. So, um, you want to talk
about escaping from Alcatraz? Yeah, I didn't want to mention. Two,
you did get cigarettes. You got a pack of smokes
(28:53):
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, whether you smoked or not.
Oh yeah, that's currency right there. Yeah, would smoke. I
think if I was in prison, would you Yeah? Something
to do? Man? Yeah, And you're like, I don't know.
I think at that point I trying to be I
try to shorten my life anyway. I could this faster
ways than smoking, that's true, more efficient ways as well.
(29:19):
So escape, Yeah, it happened. Yeah, there have been plenty
of attempts, but um at least two were possibly successful. Right.
So the first attempt was two years after the prison started.
I think when you still weren't allowed to talk. This
guy was like, I can't take it anymore and he
ran and jumped on the fence and was shot and killed.
(29:41):
So that was pretty easy. That was the first escape attempt.
What two years after that? No, the next year two
prisoners got out and they escaped and they think that
they drowned, but they're not sure because they never got bodies, right,
But the places infested with great white sharks, right, I'm
(30:01):
sure they were eating alive. Then, Henry Young, we talked
about the movie Murder in the First with Kevin Bacon
n nine. He tried to escape with three other ones,
three other inmates. They were found on the beach so
they did get out. One was shot and killed, another
one was wounded, and Young and rufus McCain. Uh, we're
(30:23):
probably near hypothermia, and we're collected back into prison. And
this was there. I think Young stab McCain the next
year to death in the workshop. But um, if you
see the movie Murder in the First it is highly,
highly fictionalized. It's not very close to the real story.
(30:45):
So don't don't take it's a good movie though. Now
and the trial of Henry Young definitely brought attention to
the treatment of prisoners in Alcatraz and public outcry, Um,
you may still be out there. He broke parole, he
was released and in Washington and skip parole and just disappeared.
(31:06):
He's probably not out there because he was in prison
in ninety nine. They said he'd be in his nineties. Crazy.
My grandmother lived to be a one. Well, if you're
Henry Young, we want to hear from you. Please let
us know. We want your your Deathbay confession. They'd be sweet.
Did I ever tell you that? Um? You know I
wrote about dB Cooper. I wrote an article, a brief
(31:27):
article about him. Um. One of the guys who I
cited is possibly having been dB Cooper. His widow emailed
me it was like it was not him, It wasn't him.
I'm like, that is pretty cool. People have asked for
that podcast? Is it? Is it meeting enough your article? Uh? Yeah?
And and there's enough research and stuff that's happened since
it was like a five minute podcast. Do you want
(31:49):
to redo that one? We actually did that one. No, No,
I didn't see it. I'm sorry, cheater. Do you want
to yes? Okay, we will. That brings us o to
the most famous escape attempt and possibly escape from the
great great movie, Escape from Alcatraz, which was really pretty
accurate Clint Eastwood. No, man, that was pretty accurate job
(32:16):
that they did. Have you ever seen the real head?
It was? So we're talking about Clarence and John Anglin,
two brothers, and uh played by Fred Ward and some
other guy and Frank Morris played by Clint Eastwood, worked
a couple of years on their plan to get out
of Alcatraz, and they chipped away at the wall, which
(32:37):
was at that point rotting somewhat from salt water and
salt air. We'll probably not water, and um, they chopped
the way holes big enough to get out they made
a little false facade that looked like the great in there. Anyway,
it was like painted cardboard. Yeah, that they would pull
too behind them when they went out in the conduit
(33:01):
area behind the walls. So they go behind the walls,
which is where they kept all their stuff. They fashioned
raincoats together to make a crude, uh sort of a
life raft that they could blow up. They made paper
mache heads that they put in the bed every night,
and they could go work and think about how tired
they work, and they couldn't sleep the next day. They
must have gotten they I wonder how they figured out
(33:22):
a schedule, like Okay, we can do this X number
of hours every night or else we're gonna lose our minds. Yeah,
but I imagine it's like should I be tired or
should I escape from Alcatraz? Oh, and you escape from Alcatras.
You want to take your time do it right? As
they proved though, because one night finally everything was finished
and they went up to the roof through this little
conduit area and um hopped the fence and made their
(33:46):
way out into the night and were never heard from again.
That's right. And they found apparently, uh, these myth Busters.
Have you heard of them? Yeah, they apparently did in
the first season. They tried to recreate it because they
lived in San Francisco, right, Yeah, they're up there somewhere,
so they they tried to recreate the escape and they
did it, which I guess kind of shows that it
(34:08):
is possible, especially if you were going to go back.
I can imagine they had all the incentive in the
world to make that happen. Yeah, that's good point. Eight
months after that escape, there was a Norwegian ship discovered
a body that they said resembled Frank Morris. But years
(34:29):
later they found this body, dug it up, did DNA
testing and found it wasn't him, and the FBI closed
the case in seventy nine. And then years later, I'm sorry,
this year on a station called nat Geo, they had
a special called Vanish from Alcatraz and there was new
(34:49):
evidence where they discovered a raft on Angel Island with
footprints leading away and a report of a stolen car
in the area that night, which could have been those guys.
And they confirmed these facts and that they were hidden
from officials for a long time, and as a result,
the US Marshall's office said, you know, what, We're going
(35:10):
to keep the case open until these guys are supposedly
a hundred years old, and then we'll close the case.
Well that's great. If they live to be one on one,
we'll just give it to them. Yeah, you know, then
they can come out exactly. Yeah. So what else you
got that was it? I mean that that escape and
the deterioration of the prison physically pretty much meant the
(35:34):
end of Alcatraz. They're like, it's really expensive to operate
if dudes can escape from here. Kind of the whole
point of being here in the first place was that
it was escape proof. So it's just a drain on
our funds. So let's just shut it down. And now
it's a tour. Yeah, it's starting in the seventies, right,
seventy two something like that. Yeah, well worth your time.
(35:57):
And Alcatraz is not alone. There are other Alcatraz islands
or Alcatraz like islands throughout the world, Like South Africa
has Robin Island, um Tasmania has Port Arthur, and there's
one that's in Quentin right in then An Island, Rikers Island,
You've got Rikers Island. There's a bunch of them. The
one that I found that was really interesting though. Um
(36:19):
is in Norway and it's called Boss Toy or however
you pronounced the oh with the slash through it. Yeah, yeah,
Um boss Toy is. It doesn't have any bars, no
doors are locked. There's no guns on the island, so
the guards aren't armed. Uh. The guys farm their own food.
(36:39):
There's a little grocery store. When they get there, they're
given five cronan I believe it's cronanner to spend at
the supermarket and basically get themselves started. And that's it.
Like that's the prison. It's basically like a little commune
where like you're free to kind of live your own
life and hopefully underghost some sort of reformation. But there's
(37:01):
guards there, there are, but they're not armed. The only
gun on there on the whole island, it's it's in
the warden's office and it's a statue of a bronze
statue of pistol. And the warden says he has no
idea where it came from. It predates him. I kind
of like the Escape from New York plan. Yeah, that's
a good one where you just throw him on the
(37:22):
island and build up big walls and just leave them
to work it out. That's kind of what they're doing
with Boss Toy, but it's a little more hippie then
Escape from New York probably. Well there're Norwegian, so not
too much violence there. And if it is, it's just
like one guy, you know, that's it. That's Alcatraz, baby,
(37:46):
scary place. Its chilling. There's ghosts apparently. Yeah, I didn't
look into that. I didn't either that. I'm sure there's
you know, I'm sure there's just there. Um. If you
want to know more about Alcatraz, a picture of Robert Stroud,
who is a little bird like himself in appearance. Um.
And well, this is just a good article all around.
(38:07):
If you want to go over it, you can type
in Alcatraz, not Alcatrazi's alcatraz um in the search of
bartow stuff works dot com, which means now it's time
for listener male friends. Yeah, this is an old one
that's been sitting in the queue. It's about ethnobotany, remember
that one. Yeah, that's a good one. Guys. I'm an
undergraduate chemistry student who has been a long time listener
(38:29):
to your awesome podcast. You guys asked about synthesis versus
extraction in the Ethnobotany podcast, So I thought i'd clear
it up for you. Extraction is often more difficult than
synthesis because when one extracts something from a plant, one
also has to worry about separating the desired component from
the rest of the plant, since the plant is an
(38:50):
organic material, separating he robe that by the way, uh,
separating one organic compound from another is often very difficult,
whereas if you used synthe this one could use polar
and nonpolar solvents to manipulate the process for easy separation,
kind of like how oil and vinegar will separate when
left alone. And lastly, syntheses are constantly being updated because
(39:14):
of more efficient and faster reactions. The less steps and
a synthesis, the better the inn yield. The better the yield,
the happier your bosses. And that is from Evan, and
he says, ps, I forgot to mention that an extracted
product and a synthetic product will show no chemical difference.
Very interesting, that's excellent. Thank you for clearing that up.
(39:35):
That was Evan, Yeah, very excited. Thanks a lot of
evan um is he an anthropologist, A nutcom botanist. I
think he's a gym teacher. Okay, um chuck. We got
a pretty good response from our call out for um
autumn treats. Do they be cocktails, dessert and um breads?
(39:57):
What have you? That was I think we should do again,
and I think we should compile them eventually once we
get enough into like maybe a step you Should Know
autumn cookbook or something like that. That's great. I I
will undertake that with forward by Paula Deene. Anyway, if
you have a great autumn treat, whether that be drink
or food, we want it. You can email it to
(40:18):
us at stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought
(40:40):
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you hey? And welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark with me as always, It's Charles W.
(00:20):
Chuck Bryant that makes the stuff. You should know the
podcast the audio version, because we have a video version, baby. Yeah.
We throw videos that once a week now. No, no, no,
I mean we have like a video version of our
podcast that has rules. It's like a game show, remember
the stupid game show and we hey, yeah, yeah, that
one that's coming soon. It'll probably be out by this
(00:42):
time on the website. I think it published in our
You and Me time right here. I think it publishes
next week in the time that where we're in people's
earbuds right now. Yeah, and published already. So go to
the video section of how Stuff works and search in
the video section Stuff you should know when you'll be
able to find that. And it's not an audio version
(01:03):
of what we do. It's a totally different. It's like
a couple of minutes long new content that you've never heard.
Loose fun. It's not that fun, but it is definitely loose.
You'll like it, and if you don't again, it's free. Yeah. Free. Um. Also, uh,
you can find us on Twitter. We have fun on Twitter.
Our Twitter handle is s y s K podcast for
(01:24):
front loading this one, okay? Um. And then on Facebook,
we're almost like fifty friends on Facebook. You can call
them and you can listen to us on w FMU
in the New York metro area at ninety point one
FM and in the Hudson Valley at nine one point
one and that's Friday evenings at seven at seven o'clock. Yeah,
(01:46):
we love w FMU and it's we're very proud to
be a part of that station. Yeah. Our buddy can
over there. Um just takes one classic episode and another
classic episode. It makes them kiss like Barbie Dolls, right
and puts them into an hour long version. Alright, yea
plug fest out of the way. Oh. We have two
audio books, one on the Economy, one Unhappiness. You can
(02:08):
find them on iTunes. Yeah, super stuff guides. Yeah, okay,
you're ready now, Chuck. Have you heard about this occupy
Wall Street jam? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, they're shutting it down
here and there are they? I thought they were generally
keeping it as long as it uh stayed contained in
Zuccati Park. It was relatively okay. Well, I mean in
(02:31):
different cities. They're like, cleared them out of Atlanta yesterday,
Oakland and tear gas them, tear gasts and stunt grenades,
and the apparently when they came back, they tear gast
them again, stun grenade at them. And there and the
the Occupy Oakland people are like, we're gonna come back
every day, and the cops that are like, we're gonna
stunt grenade you every day. We got lots of stunt grenades.
(02:52):
Did they clear out Atlanta? What happened? He cleared out
Atlanta overnight last night, I think, But I don't know
if people are gonna come back or nothing. It is
so shady to clear it out overnight. It happens apparently
so well. Occupy Wall Street in particulars doing pretty well. Um.
It started September seventeenth, and as of today, October UM,
(03:14):
it's been going on for thirty nine days, which is substantial.
I think a lot of people are surprised that it's
been going on this long, But as long as thirty
nine days seems it's got nothing on the occupation of
Alcatraz that took place starting November nine sixty nine and
lasted nineteen months. The Red Power movement, Yes, Red Power.
(03:40):
Basically this was you've heard of AIM, the American Indian movement,
the one that UM Marlon Brando helped out by having
what was her name, Little Feather go except as Oscar, Yeah,
I think that was her name. UM this started that.
This is largely credited with starting that. So November sixty
nine a guy named Richard Mackenzie who was a UM.
(04:04):
I think he was a mohawk. No, I'm sorry, Uh,
Richard Oakes was a mohawk and he led an occupation
UM that took over another occupation basically that it started
like a couple of weeks earlier, and UM basically just
sat in with about a hundred people on Alcatraz and said, hey,
(04:24):
we think this should be a cultural center for Native Americans,
and we think it should be the site of an
Indian university as well, and we're gonna stay here until
you meet our demands. And they did. And one of
the key UM ingredients of this was that it was
UM inner tribal. There was more than one tribe. It
wasn't just the Mohawks who were doing this, which made
(04:45):
it UM groundbreaking as far as um Indian, the Indian
movement was concerned um and it lasted for a while,
It had its ups and downs, and basically it was
ultimately co opted by the dirty hippies in San Francisco,
um on the across the bay, who started showing up
and like doing drugs, like openly in the in the prison. Now, granted,
(05:06):
you don't get too many opportunities to take acid on Alcatraz,
but they they ended up eroding the occupation severely the
right and there was a basis for that. Even the
Treaty of Fort Laramie in eighteen sixty eight said that
all retired, abandoned, out of use federal land shall be
(05:28):
returned to the Native people from whom it was acquired.
And since Alcatraz the prison had shut down in nineteen
sixty three, it was declared a surplus federal property. So
they said, you know what, We'll give you forty seven
cents an acre, which is what you bought it for.
So we'll give you nine dollars and forty cents for Alcatraz.
Nice And they said no, let's bring in the coast Guard. Well,
(05:52):
for a while it was tolerated again nineteen months. But
then in January, two oil tankers collided UH in San
Francisco Bay, and although there was it was clearly established
that the lighthouse, which was no longer working on Alcatraz
because of the movement, had no part in this. It
(06:13):
was enough so that public sentiment was like, get those
guys out of there. So Nixon was like, get them
out of there. Yeah, they shut down the power, shut
off telephone service, a fire broke out, and then it
dwindled down to about fifteen people, and that was small
enough to where they could just go in and say,
come on, five women, four children, six unarmed men, and
Richard Oakes thirteen year old stepdaughter unfortunately felled her to
(06:36):
death during the middle of this occupation three three stories
down because she probably fell from a cell block because
they were three tiers high. That's right. So this is
just one major event in the history of Alcatraz, one
of many UH in. Alcatraz itself dates back at least
(06:58):
well far before this. As far as Europeans are concerned,
Alcatraz origins begin in seventeen seventy five, but let's talk
about the Native American um use of Alcatraz before then.
I got one more interesting factory. A young Benjamin Bratt
was one of the with his mother and sisters, Benjamin
(07:19):
brad of TV's Law and Order fame. Wow, he was
one of the one of the kids. That's awesome, alright.
So taking Alcatraz, let's go back in time to the
Native Americans. There was some rumors that it was actually
a prison for them as well, where they would exile
those who broke tribal law, but historians say that might
(07:40):
not be the case. They probably just went there looking
for eggs there, Pelican egg specifically, because the word Alcatraz
is an anglicization. I think that's right of the word alcatrasis,
which means Pelicans or gannetts. Though that's what I didn't
(08:00):
get working on with Pelicans, that's what I've heard, but
alcatrazs which was given to the island by the Spanish
explorer Don Juan Manuel day Ayala in seventeen seventy five
when he sailed into San Francisco Bay. He was pretty
cool because he was like, it is on this site
that I decree here and he will eventually play. Yes,
(08:22):
that's right, Yeah, that was my Don Juan Ayala. Very nice,
very nice. So that was that was the earliest history
that we know of, even though it's not written down. UH.
In eighteen forty seven there was an official survey of
this island, which we should mention is a the top
of a mountain, because San Francisco Bay used to be
(08:44):
a valley. Pretty much all islands are tops of mountains
when you get down to it. Yeah, But I like
how Grabanowski was like, no, I'm just coming out and
saying it. In this time, Lieutenant William H. Warner of
the U. S. Army UH was like, Hey, this is
a really prime location here in the bay to UH
stage munitions and to have a defense position. So let's
(09:07):
construct let's construct a building here to guard against the
Confederate soldiers. And you don't I don't really think about
you know, it's your north and south, but forget about
San Francisco on there. Yeah, being a part of the
Civil War. Oh yeah, especially with the gold rush going
on out there. Anybody who controlled San Francisco controlled the
substantial amount of gold. So it's a big deal. But
(09:30):
despite the fortifications that were eventually built there and the
guns that were brought there, the citadel is what they
called it. But It is not to be confused with
the school. Um. The the guns were fired a couple
of times, but never in battle. It was always like
a case of mistaken identity, like what was that? Or yeah,
or everybody who was on stationed on Alcatraz got drunk
(09:52):
and just fired him off out of boardom I suppose
that could have happened. Um, eventually people started being sent Alcatraz.
If you deserted and were caught, or your court martial
and it didn't go so well, you might end up
on Alcatraz, especially if you were stationed around there. And Um,
the guy who was the head of the um fort
(10:14):
they're basically, was like, wow, we have a basement. I
guess we can start keeping people in the basement, and
we will. It's a brig Now build a couple of
cells here there. And then all of a sudden it
became very apparent not only is it a great spot
for a garrison, it's a great spot for a prison, because, Chuck,
there's a lot of aspects to Alcatraz that that make
(10:37):
it a very attractive prison location. It's an island, it's
a rock, there's a prison on it, and the water
is very chilly. Uh, and it's invested with great white sharks.
And that's the word everyone uses, is infested. I don't
know if that's is it infested, that's what everyone uses.
Even San Franciscan's are like infested. They make it sound
(11:00):
like you jump in and you will be attacked by
great white sharks. Have you ever seen the movie Piranha. Yeah,
it's like that, but with great white sharks. I saw
the remake the other day. By the way, how is it?
It is kind of awesomely gruesomely awesome and funny? Is
it an homage to the first one? Yeah, I mean
it's way over the top, and it's one of those
is so over the top it's like, well this is
(11:21):
kind of fun. It's not good. I have a feeling
it's sort of like that. But yeah, there's way way
over the top and awesome for that reason too. But
have you seen Piranha three D? You remembers they fly eventually? Yeah?
The Spawning? Yeah you know who wrote that actually, Benjamin Bratt,
no amazing writer filmmaker John Sales. Yeah, that was one
(11:43):
of his first writing jobs in Hollywood, was writing a
Piranha three The Spawning. I think crazy, you know, Roger
Ebert wrote, Um, yea, did we talk about that and
they exploitation film. Yeah, that's well you should say that
beyond the Valley of the Dolls. All right, back to Alcatraz,
I'm sorry, back to the citadel post Civil War. Um,
(12:03):
there was a big earthquake in San Francisco in nineteen
o six, and so they had to actually bring two
hundred regular civilian prisoners out to Alcatraz, and uh, you know,
the military at that point was like, you know, it's
really expensive. Let's we don't really need a military prison anymore. So, um,
let's tear the citadel down. Jedger Hoover said, we need
(12:25):
a big deterrent in a big scary place, So why
don't we use Alcatraz and make that a regular federal
penitentiary penitentiary. Well, that was in the thirties. In l
they said the citadel, we do need a military prison,
or if we're gonna do it, let's do it right,
And they tore the citadel down and built the military prison.
They built actually the technical name was the United States
(12:46):
Military Prison Pacific Branch, Alcatraz Island, and that was in
nineteen twelve. But then, like you said, they were like,
this is really expensive. You got to bring in everything
from the San Francisco area. Everyone knows how exp some
cheeses in San Francisco. And they're like, hey, Mr JAA Hoover,
look over here. And he did, right, he did. He said,
(13:09):
I'm trying to crack down on all these bootleggers and
all of these chippies, and I need a prison that's
gonna just scare people. Just the name of it's gonna
scare people. And I'm in love with my assistant and
and we're gonna we're gonna use Alcatraz because it is again,
a perfect prison, that's right. So that that happened. Ownership
was transferred in between thirty three and thirty four, and
(13:32):
they brought the first regular civilian prisoners prisoners over to
stay and in secrecy. Yeah, I wonder why. I think
that's a good way to start off the worst prison
in the country. Okay, well they secretly transporting prisoners there.
That's like, yeah, that makes you feel like you can
be stolen out of your house at any moment. All right.
(13:52):
So that is the history of the island and the
origins of the prison a k a. Part one. Now
starts part too. M M, thank you, Chuck. Yes. Part
two begins with oh, let me stop you first. By
the way, did you mentioned that lighthouse. That's the very
first lighthouse on the West coast, and they rebuilt it
(14:14):
and it still operates today. Yeah. They actually had to
rebuild it because they started building up San Francisco and
the lighthouses, like, I can't see it's foggy, yeah, and
the sharks everywhere help and uh so they tore it
down and built it again in nineteen nine and now
it's bigger and it's unobstructed. That's right, all right, So
(14:34):
modern day or more modern day at least Alcatraz. We
mentioned it's a mountain top of a mountain. It's very rocky,
and well they call it the rock for a reason. Yeah,
there's not a lot of plant life growing there. It's
not some beautiful island getaway. No. Almost all the plant
life that grows there was brought in by construction crews
over the years who were like, God, we need a
tree or something here, you need a boxwood or something,
(14:57):
and so they started bringing in so oil and shrubs
and trees and planted a few things here there. Yeah,
a few of those things found purchase. It's just a
dead piece of rock, which just adds to the gloom
and the dismalness of it, right, which actually plays a
part in the end of the great, great great movie
Escape from Alcatraz movie. Remember you saw the little flower
(15:20):
on the shore. Yeah, that's right. He's like, they ain't
no flowers like this here. Yeah. Uh so Alcatraz Josh
was built to accommodate six hundred cons but it only
held about three hundred, and at the time in l
it was really innovative because first you had the island
as as hey, you can't escape from the island, so
(15:41):
why bother trying. Then they had cellblocks within the concrete wall,
so it was for the first time you know it
cells within cells almost right. You didn't have a window
looking out to the outside from yourself, no, no, no, um.
So yeah, if you wanted to get your way out
of there, you had to make it through the wall
of your cell and then the outer wall. That's right. Um.
(16:04):
They also had metal detectors, which were pretty much new,
brand new at the time, and rather than the key
like they had in the Green Mile, they had the levers.
The lever system to open cell blocks, like they had
an escape from Alcatraz, which was a big deal because
you could do that remotely. You didn't have to go
to the cell where you're vulnerable. Uh. They also reinforced
(16:25):
all the iron with hardened steels called tools distant because
you couldn't cut through it, just like me, because you
couldn't cut through the hacksaw. And apparently it cost as
much to install those did to build it in the
first place. So so the average the typical cell um
(16:47):
was something like, uh, five ft wide by nine ft deep,
and they were concrete walls. How big is this in here? Oh,
this is like two cells. I think if you go
like this, it's like two cells going that way. Yiche.
All three three, three of the four walls were made
of um concrete, and then the fourth wall was the
(17:08):
um steel tool resistant um bars. That's right, the fourth wall.
You didn't want to break that. People thought you were corny.
That a little bed. You have a little turlet. You
had a couple of shelves in the back to put
your stuff. You had a little they call it a desk.
It was really just a sort of a little fold down.
It was very small. Obviously everything was small. And that
(17:29):
was it. That was it. No uh, you know, no
dub's no breakfast in bed and you could, uh, you
can imagine this is pretty bad in and of itself.
But that's a block, B block and C block, right,
that's right. Um, there was also D Block, and D
Block was where if you were trouble they sent you.
(17:51):
They called that the treatment unit. Yeah, it was the
inhumane treatment is what they should have called it. Yeah.
That they had um, I think fourteen or fifth cells
in D Block and that was solitary confinement, and then
you had cells nine through fourteen was the whole and
those were the ones with the iron doors where you
had no light. And then they had one cell that
(18:13):
apparently was the worst of the worst that just had
a hole in the floor to go poo poo and
peepee and you were usually naked if you were in there,
and not for any good reasons. That's where the Birdman
stayed the whole time. Really, Nanny's on de block. Really Yeah,
apparently you couldn't be in the hole for more than
nineteen days. But the Birdman, Robert Stroud, was in prison
(18:37):
for fifty four years, and forty two years of that
were in solitary confinement. Can you imagine, dude, I can't.
They're not rehabbing that guy. And I'm not making a
big political statement, but forty two years in solitary that
was just straight up punishment. I think that. Um, I
think that that was the best Alcatraz movie ever. Birdman
(18:59):
of Alcatraz, no way, Yeah, have you seen it? Yeah, dude,
Burt Lancaster, Yeah, it was good, it was good. Um.
He didn't have any birds in Alcatraz though, Did he
really spent Yeah? He did. What are you talking about? You?
It's like, you're crazy. He had There were no animals
all out there. He had that came from Leavenworth Prison
and when he got to Alcatraz there were like no
(19:19):
more birds for you. Oh. I thought he ended up
keeping birds anyway, and that's probably why he was in
D block the whole time. Let's go with that, Okay. Um, Well,
then why would they call him the Birdman of Alcatraz
because he was already a birdman when he went to Alcatraz.
It's a movie the same reason they fictionalized murder in
the first with Kevin Bacon. We'll get to that, um.
(19:43):
And prior to the the construction of D Block. You
would just be held in the dungeon, which is in
the basement of the original citadel, which is where the
first prisoners ever to be kept on Alcatraz were kept.
It's probably not a fun place. So Chuck, you said
that there was no breakfast in bed. There was breakfast,
and that came every day. After you swept yourself, then
(20:05):
you lined up for inspection and you went down for breakfast.
That's right. Then after that you went to work. Twenty
minutes twenty minute breakfast. Huh, twenty minute for each meal.
I could do twenty minute breakfast. It's leisurely, that is true.
Is lesually, so you'd be sent to like the laundry. Um,
you would be maybe if you were the book guy,
(20:27):
you would be sent for the library. A lot of dockwork,
lots of unloading and loading of things. Yeah. Um. And
also they manufactured stuff on Alcatraz. They manufactured brushes and brooms,
but a little known fact these things, by law, could
not be sold on the own open market, only to
federal agencies because the government didn't want to flood the
(20:48):
broom and brush markets with cheaply made goods. So government
buildings were swept with Alcatraz rooms. Interesting. Yeah, I did
not know that the walkways they named the Central Walkway
was between the Cell Blox was Broadway. Because they had
a flair for the dramatic, they named them after New
York streets, Park Avenue, Michigan Avenue and Broadway. And then
(21:10):
Times Square was between the mess Hall and the Cell Blox.
And overlooking all this on either end was a very
important station called the Gun Gallery and it was enclosed
in bars and mesh, and there's where you will find
some of the only guns aside from the towers and Alcatraz,
where these armed dudes that had a very clear shot
(21:32):
in the line of sight of the whole place. But
the guards didn't carry guns or keys or handcuffs because
that was a risk, but they illegally carried these things
called SAPs. It was like a metal baton and a
leather strap black jack. Yeah, and they weren't supposed to
have those, but they had those um And then after
(21:54):
a hard day of work of being eyed by guys
in the Gun Gallery, you would have inner lights out
at ninety and then ovensmores and then the thing is Alcatraz.
Thanks to Jacker Hoover had a really crazy reputation for
being like the hardest place ever. UM. But everything we
just described you're going to go through generally in any
(22:16):
prison in the thirties through the sixties, UM, but Alcatraz
did differ in some ways. Specifically, it was extremely especially
at its beginning, it was extremely rigid in its UM discipline,
Like there was literally no talking for most of the time. UM.
(22:37):
Prisoners weren't allowed to speak out loud UM except for
designated times. I think like twenty minutes a week. I
don't know that sounds about right. UM. And they if
you if you did speak out loud, you went to
the dungeon or d black later on. Did you have
no talk in school elementary school, I don't remember if
we did. They would do that in the cafeteria sometimes
(22:59):
we had these flags and if things were getting roundy
or they were whatever, they were mad at us, they
would say, you know, you're on no talk and they
put up the red flag. And it was the worst.
It was awful, especially for me. I was just like
trying to say things to my friends. Yeah, they actually
said the dining room is the most dangerous place in Alcatraz.
(23:19):
I would imagine because you got all the cons in there,
and they had um have you ever been no, I'd
like to go go. They have on the wall in
the dining room they have where they kept the knives,
the knife rack. They had silhouetted outlines in the shape
of each one, so if one of them was missing,
you would see what's missing immediately, So there's no sneaking
(23:41):
out of butcher knives. Even though they had that stuff there.
John lithcow On Dexter had that for his tools. Oh yeah,
that was a great season. They did have visiting hours
um or should I say visiting our You got one
visit a month. Had to be an immediate family or
a proo the visitor, and you could only talk about
(24:02):
personal matters. You can talk about the prison or life there.
And there was of course no contact whatsoever. Like they
wouldn't like put you in a room with them. They'd
be like not touching, not touching at all. Um. Alcatraz
also was a little different in that people lived on
the island, which isn't all that different. I think most
prisons have an area around him where the guards live.
(24:24):
I didn't know this, um, but with Alcatraz it was
like you live on the island, Your family lived on
the island. Your kids take a boat to school every
day and back. Um, if you want a grocery shop,
if you want some smokes, whatever, you take a boat
and back. If you use up your razor and you
need to shave, you throw your old razor in the bay.
(24:47):
Same with used utensils. I'm sure after they're worn out,
not from washing like every time, it's their work in
the bay or anything like that. Um and the kids
weren't allowed to have toy guns for really good reasons,
because she didn't want to convict getting their hands on
one and then pretending that they were gonna shoot a
guard with a with a cap gun. And magazines had
(25:11):
to be carefully patrolled because they didn't want prisoners looking
at sexy things or reading about current events at all,
or sex or crime. Those are two things that the
prisoners who were not allowed to read about, which came
into play with your buddy Robert Stroud what the birdman? Yeah?
What do you mean? He? Um was not allowed to
read his biography because it had chapters of his criminal past.
(25:35):
In so his biography came out and he wasn't ever
allowed to read it. It's said he had a pretty
sad life. What did he do? He was a He
moved to Alaska and took up with in the pimping industry,
with one particular lady of the night. Ah. He though
he went to go protect her at one point from
(25:56):
this dude who didn't pay her. A scuffle broke out
out and he was killed, and uh, he turned himself
in with the gun, said here I did this, and
um but took the money from his wallet, which I
think trumped it up to a more serious charge. But
it was originally manslaughter. So he he probably would have
been okay if he hadn't gone to prison and been
(26:17):
such a jerk. When he got to prison, he was
one of the most violent inmates anywhere he went. And
that just kept adding time and adding time, and he
kept shuffling him around until he ended up at Alcatraz.
But Burt Lancaster says that he wasn't like that. One
thing the Grabster did not mention was the wreck yard,
where you could go I think, for an hour a
(26:38):
day if you're a good boy, in an hour a
week if you're in solitary. And they had handball and
horse shoes and chess and checkers and backgammon, and you
were allowed to play hearts, cribbage, and that is it
for card games, even though it says they played bridge
using dominoes. And you could see from the from the
(27:03):
reck yard, you could see San Francisco, which they said
it was the biggest psychological crippler of all is. You
could see the stuff going on, and they said every
New Year's at the yacht club would have a party,
a big, big party, and if the winds were blowing right,
you'd actually hear like music and ladies laughing and stuff
like that, which was just torture. Were a lot of fun. Yeah,
(27:27):
like listening to something at last spirit Um. You know
al Capone was there, Did you know that? That's what
I hear? And so al Capone was there. You get
the Birdman of Alcatraz and then has the reputation of
being the worst of the worst, the worst prison where
the worst of the worst are housed. That was you know,
al Capone is a pretty big criminal. He has a
pretty big nab for the g men. But it was
(27:49):
a federal prison and it was early on in the
history of the federal prison system, so people who really
probably didn't belong there sometimes ended up in Alcatraz as Um,
you could be sent there for shoplifting in a store
that had a post office branch, madd a federal crime.
If like you know, how like you like to bring
(28:10):
fireworks into Georgia a lot. Well, had that been bootleg
liquor and had you been caught just just bringing in
like a fifth, you could have gone to Alcatraz. So
it wasn't all murderers and gangsters, No it wasn't. It
had a very um, a surprisingly normal history as far
as prisons go, federal prisons go for the time. Um,
but it also had a very fearsome reputation and some
(28:32):
of it was earned compundn't a very good time there though. No,
he had syphilis and he was crazy and used to
cry like a baby. Plus he had it made in
the prison before apparently he was still running his ops
and they got to Alcatraz like no, no, no, now
it's not happening here. So, um, you want to talk
about escaping from Alcatraz? Yeah, I didn't want to mention. Two,
you did get cigarettes. You got a pack of smokes
(28:53):
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, whether you smoked or not.
Oh yeah, that's currency right there. Yeah, would smoke. I
think if I was in prison, would you Yeah? Something
to do? Man? Yeah, And you're like, I don't know.
I think at that point I trying to be I
try to shorten my life anyway. I could this faster
ways than smoking, that's true, more efficient ways as well.
(29:19):
So escape, Yeah, it happened. Yeah, there have been plenty
of attempts, but um at least two were possibly successful. Right.
So the first attempt was two years after the prison started.
I think when you still weren't allowed to talk. This
guy was like, I can't take it anymore and he
ran and jumped on the fence and was shot and killed.
(29:41):
So that was pretty easy. That was the first escape attempt.
What two years after that? No, the next year two
prisoners got out and they escaped and they think that
they drowned, but they're not sure because they never got bodies, right,
But the places infested with great white sharks, right, I'm
(30:01):
sure they were eating alive. Then, Henry Young, we talked
about the movie Murder in the First with Kevin Bacon
n nine. He tried to escape with three other ones,
three other inmates. They were found on the beach so
they did get out. One was shot and killed, another
one was wounded, and Young and rufus McCain. Uh, we're
(30:23):
probably near hypothermia, and we're collected back into prison. And
this was there. I think Young stab McCain the next
year to death in the workshop. But um, if you
see the movie Murder in the First it is highly,
highly fictionalized. It's not very close to the real story.
(30:45):
So don't don't take it's a good movie though. Now
and the trial of Henry Young definitely brought attention to
the treatment of prisoners in Alcatraz and public outcry, Um,
you may still be out there. He broke parole, he
was released and in Washington and skip parole and just disappeared.
(31:06):
He's probably not out there because he was in prison
in ninety nine. They said he'd be in his nineties. Crazy.
My grandmother lived to be a one. Well, if you're
Henry Young, we want to hear from you. Please let
us know. We want your your Deathbay confession. They'd be sweet.
Did I ever tell you that? Um? You know I
wrote about dB Cooper. I wrote an article, a brief
(31:27):
article about him. Um. One of the guys who I
cited is possibly having been dB Cooper. His widow emailed
me it was like it was not him, It wasn't him.
I'm like, that is pretty cool. People have asked for
that podcast? Is it? Is it meeting enough your article? Uh? Yeah?
And and there's enough research and stuff that's happened since
it was like a five minute podcast. Do you want
(31:49):
to redo that one? We actually did that one. No, No,
I didn't see it. I'm sorry, cheater. Do you want
to yes? Okay, we will. That brings us o to
the most famous escape attempt and possibly escape from the
great great movie, Escape from Alcatraz, which was really pretty
accurate Clint Eastwood. No, man, that was pretty accurate job
(32:16):
that they did. Have you ever seen the real head?
It was? So we're talking about Clarence and John Anglin,
two brothers, and uh played by Fred Ward and some
other guy and Frank Morris played by Clint Eastwood, worked
a couple of years on their plan to get out
of Alcatraz, and they chipped away at the wall, which
(32:37):
was at that point rotting somewhat from salt water and
salt air. We'll probably not water, and um, they chopped
the way holes big enough to get out they made
a little false facade that looked like the great in there. Anyway,
it was like painted cardboard. Yeah, that they would pull
too behind them when they went out in the conduit
(33:01):
area behind the walls. So they go behind the walls,
which is where they kept all their stuff. They fashioned
raincoats together to make a crude, uh sort of a
life raft that they could blow up. They made paper
mache heads that they put in the bed every night,
and they could go work and think about how tired
they work, and they couldn't sleep the next day. They
must have gotten they I wonder how they figured out
(33:22):
a schedule, like Okay, we can do this X number
of hours every night or else we're gonna lose our minds. Yeah,
but I imagine it's like should I be tired or
should I escape from Alcatraz? Oh, and you escape from Alcatras.
You want to take your time do it right? As
they proved though, because one night finally everything was finished
and they went up to the roof through this little
conduit area and um hopped the fence and made their
(33:46):
way out into the night and were never heard from again.
That's right. And they found apparently, uh, these myth Busters.
Have you heard of them? Yeah, they apparently did in
the first season. They tried to recreate it because they
lived in San Francisco, right, Yeah, they're up there somewhere,
so they they tried to recreate the escape and they
did it, which I guess kind of shows that it
(34:08):
is possible, especially if you were going to go back.
I can imagine they had all the incentive in the
world to make that happen. Yeah, that's good point. Eight
months after that escape, there was a Norwegian ship discovered
a body that they said resembled Frank Morris. But years
(34:29):
later they found this body, dug it up, did DNA
testing and found it wasn't him, and the FBI closed
the case in seventy nine. And then years later, I'm sorry,
this year on a station called nat Geo, they had
a special called Vanish from Alcatraz and there was new
(34:49):
evidence where they discovered a raft on Angel Island with
footprints leading away and a report of a stolen car
in the area that night, which could have been those guys.
And they confirmed these facts and that they were hidden
from officials for a long time, and as a result,
the US Marshall's office said, you know, what, We're going
(35:10):
to keep the case open until these guys are supposedly
a hundred years old, and then we'll close the case.
Well that's great. If they live to be one on one,
we'll just give it to them. Yeah, you know, then
they can come out exactly. Yeah. So what else you
got that was it? I mean that that escape and
the deterioration of the prison physically pretty much meant the
(35:34):
end of Alcatraz. They're like, it's really expensive to operate
if dudes can escape from here. Kind of the whole
point of being here in the first place was that
it was escape proof. So it's just a drain on
our funds. So let's just shut it down. And now
it's a tour. Yeah, it's starting in the seventies, right,
seventy two something like that. Yeah, well worth your time.
(35:57):
And Alcatraz is not alone. There are other Alcatraz islands
or Alcatraz like islands throughout the world, Like South Africa
has Robin Island, um Tasmania has Port Arthur, and there's
one that's in Quentin right in then An Island, Rikers Island,
You've got Rikers Island. There's a bunch of them. The
one that I found that was really interesting though. Um
(36:19):
is in Norway and it's called Boss Toy or however
you pronounced the oh with the slash through it. Yeah, yeah,
Um boss Toy is. It doesn't have any bars, no
doors are locked. There's no guns on the island, so
the guards aren't armed. Uh. The guys farm their own food.
(36:39):
There's a little grocery store. When they get there, they're
given five cronan I believe it's cronanner to spend at
the supermarket and basically get themselves started. And that's it.
Like that's the prison. It's basically like a little commune
where like you're free to kind of live your own
life and hopefully underghost some sort of reformation. But there's
(37:01):
guards there, there are, but they're not armed. The only
gun on there on the whole island, it's it's in
the warden's office and it's a statue of a bronze
statue of pistol. And the warden says he has no
idea where it came from. It predates him. I kind
of like the Escape from New York plan. Yeah, that's
a good one where you just throw him on the
(37:22):
island and build up big walls and just leave them
to work it out. That's kind of what they're doing
with Boss Toy, but it's a little more hippie then
Escape from New York probably. Well there're Norwegian, so not
too much violence there. And if it is, it's just
like one guy, you know, that's it. That's Alcatraz, baby,
(37:46):
scary place. Its chilling. There's ghosts apparently. Yeah, I didn't
look into that. I didn't either that. I'm sure there's
you know, I'm sure there's just there. Um. If you
want to know more about Alcatraz, a picture of Robert Stroud,
who is a little bird like himself in appearance. Um.
And well, this is just a good article all around.
(38:07):
If you want to go over it, you can type
in Alcatraz, not Alcatrazi's alcatraz um in the search of
bartow stuff works dot com, which means now it's time
for listener male friends. Yeah, this is an old one
that's been sitting in the queue. It's about ethnobotany, remember
that one. Yeah, that's a good one. Guys. I'm an
undergraduate chemistry student who has been a long time listener
(38:29):
to your awesome podcast. You guys asked about synthesis versus
extraction in the Ethnobotany podcast, So I thought i'd clear
it up for you. Extraction is often more difficult than
synthesis because when one extracts something from a plant, one
also has to worry about separating the desired component from
the rest of the plant, since the plant is an
(38:50):
organic material, separating he robe that by the way, uh,
separating one organic compound from another is often very difficult,
whereas if you used synthe this one could use polar
and nonpolar solvents to manipulate the process for easy separation,
kind of like how oil and vinegar will separate when
left alone. And lastly, syntheses are constantly being updated because
(39:14):
of more efficient and faster reactions. The less steps and
a synthesis, the better the inn yield. The better the yield,
the happier your bosses. And that is from Evan, and
he says, ps, I forgot to mention that an extracted
product and a synthetic product will show no chemical difference.
Very interesting, that's excellent. Thank you for clearing that up.
(39:35):
That was Evan, Yeah, very excited. Thanks a lot of
evan um is he an anthropologist, A nutcom botanist. I
think he's a gym teacher. Okay, um chuck. We got
a pretty good response from our call out for um
autumn treats. Do they be cocktails, dessert and um breads?
(39:57):
What have you? That was I think we should do again,
and I think we should compile them eventually once we
get enough into like maybe a step you Should Know
autumn cookbook or something like that. That's great. I I
will undertake that with forward by Paula Deene. Anyway, if
you have a great autumn treat, whether that be drink
or food, we want it. You can email it to
(40:18):
us at stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought
(40:40):
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready,
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