Alcatraz Island, a military fort turned an army prison in the San Francisco Bay, is most well known for operating as a federal prison from 1934 until 1963. That distinction is being challenged after ...

In August 1934, the first group of inmates arrived at Alcatraz, the maximum-security prison perched on a small island in San Francisco Bay. The Big House on the Bay was the ultimate destination for ...

If you can name even one prison, it's probably Alcatraz (no, Azkhaban doesn't count). Located on a rocky island off the coast of San Francisco, California, it's still used as a byword for an ...

It is hailed as America's greatest prison break. In June 1962, three inmates at Alcatraz fooled guards with papier-mâché heads, carved tunnels with spoons, stitched together a raft from raincoats and ...

Prisoner No. 85 spent four years at the island penitentiary ...

The film, Concrete, Steel and Paint, told the story of the Philadelphia Mural project in which inmates and victims of crime painted a mural on parachute cloth in the prison the inmates were housed, ...

"It caught the public's imagination," says Heaney. "We will be dead and gone for years, and people will still be saying, coming off the boat: 'That's Alcatraz.'" iStockphoto Frank Heaney can't escape ...

The 1962 escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary is perhaps the most infamous and fascinating jailbreak in American history. But what if that was just the beginning of the story? That's a question ...

Watch recordings of recent KQED Live events. Donor-Advised Funds Support KQED by using your donor-advised fund to make a charitable gift. As all good Bay Area history nerds know, Alcatraz Prison ...