The fortress was deactivated as a military prison in 1933 and opened as a federal prison in August of 1934. The main cellblock was constructed between 19, and an excavated pit was created as a dry moat to increase defensive efforts. In 1868, after the building of a brick jailhouse, it was officially designated a long-term facility for military prisoners. During the war it was also used to imprison Confederate sympathizers. As the American Civil War broke out in the early 1860s, Alcatraz was loaded up with cannons and served as storage and protection of firearms for the San Francisco Arsenal. In 1850 President Millard Fillmore claimed Alcatraz Island for military use only after America gained California in the Mexican-American War. In 1775 Spaniard Juan Manuel de Ayala named the island “La Isla de los Alcatraces” which translates into “The Island of the Pelicans.” Since then, the earliest recorded owner of the island is Julian Workman, who was assigned by Mexican governor Pio Pico to build a lighthouse on it in June 1846. It is the home of the oldest operating lighthouse on the west coast, a Civil War fortress that served as the San Francisco Arsenal, the infamous federal prison, the beginning of the American Indian Red Power movement, and also a bird sanctuary. ![]() ![]() Alcatraz, also referred to as “The Rock,” is rich in American history, more so than most people realize.
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