page_title: Alcatraz Island
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Alcatraz Island / History
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Alcatraz Island in 1895, showing the lighthouse and prison buildings.
context_page_description: Alcatraz Island is located in San Francisco Bay, 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. The small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison, and a federal prison from 1934 until 21 March 1963. The water currents around the island were high at all times, which presumably decreased the chance of an inmate escaping. Beginning in November 1969, the island was occupied for more than 19 months by a group of Native Americans from San Francisco, who were part of a wave of Native American activism across the U.S., with public protests through the 1970s. In 1972, Alcatraz became part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and received designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.
  Today, the island's facilities are managed by the National Park Service as part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area; it is open to tours. Visitors can reach the island in a little under 15 minutes by ferry ride from Pier 33, located between the San Francisco Ferry Building and Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco.
context_section_description: The first European to document the island was Spanish naval officer and explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala during Spanish rule of California, who charted San Francisco Bay in 1775. He named one of the three islands "La Isla de los Alcatraces", which translates as "The Island of the Gannets" but is commonly believed to translate as "The Island of the Pelicans (Spanish for Pelicans is Pelícanos)", from the archaic Spanish alcatraz ("pelican"). 
  Over the years, the Spanish version "Alcatraz" became popular and is now widely used. In August 1827, French Captain Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly wrote "... running past Alcatraze's (Pelicans) Island ... covered with a countless number of these birds. A gun fired over the feathered legions caused them to fly up in a great cloud and with a noise like a hurricane." The California brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis californicus) is not known to nest on the island today. The Spanish built several small buildings on the island and other minor structures.
caption: Alcatraz Island, 1895.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "6000", "Image ImageLength": "4001", "Image BitsPerSample": "8", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "1", "Image XResolution": "80", "Image YResolution": "80", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:03:01 22:07:46", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "374", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4583", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "533"}