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children, and that potential outbreaks of disease were a concern. The Hopi used the tactic of passive resistance, making commitments to send their children, but never following through. The government grew increasingly frustrated with their defiance, and began using its troops to intimidate the Hopi villages. When the Hopi continued to resist, the government representatives finally imposed force, and arrested “the headmen who are responsible for the children not being sent to school. ” During the course of their imprisonment at Alcatraz the Indians were brought to the mainland to tour San Francisco schools, in hopes that they would become interested in formalized education. They were released in September of 1895, after agreeing not to interfere with the “plans of government for the civilization and education of its Indian wards.”

A group of Hopi Indian prisoners posing in front of the original lighthouse in 1895. These Arizona Indians spent nine months on Alcatraz for refusing to establish a community farming system, and for keeping their children out of governmentally established schools. They are seen here wearing second-hand military uniforms.

Alcatraz in 1891. Note the small outline of a cannon visible on the parade ground.

Alcatraz in 1896.

Military inmates preparing the concrete foundation for new lavatories in the Upper Prison in 1902. Note the small exterior cell vent openings along the building exterior.

The Upper Prison complex and stockade wall entrance in 1902. Within the perimeter there were four prison complexes.

Military inmates during a routine verification count in 1902. The count is being performed on the Upper Prison Stockade grounds, facing one of the prison buildings. Note the sentry patrolling the catwalk that encircled the prison boundaries.

The only known photograph of the interior of the Upper Prison, circa 1902. The Upper Prison complexes could accommodate 307 prisoners in total, with two-tiered cellblocks. Close examination of this damaged photograph reveals several cells containing family pictures, and a stairwell with no safety railings.

In April of 1900, Alcatraz was temporarily used as a makeshift health resort for soldiers returning from the Philippine Islands with tropical contagious diseases. Many of these men had returned with severe dysentery and they were initially sent to the General Hospital at the Presidio. While convalescing, the men were actually organized into military companies and “Convalescent Company Number Two” was sent to Alcatraz.

As the prison population had continued to grow at Alcatraz, a temporary wooden cellhouse had been constructed on the parade ground. The cells in the wooden prison were small enclosures with the appearance of horse stables. There were 113 cells, and the average airspace per man was only 161 cubic feet. The cells had an average size of 81/4 x 6 x 31/4 feet, only a little larger than a standard closet. Even by the standards of that era, the wooden cellhouse was considered inadequate and unsafe for housing a large prison population. A medical report of the era described the following conditions:

Sanitary defects of the prison are especially apparent. The ventilation of the buildings is very faulty. The corridors, kitchen, and mess rooms are disagreeably drafty... The prisoner when locked up for the night is virtually boxed in for so many hours... The means available for solitary confinement are such as have long been discarded in the better class of civilian penal establishments.

In 1902, a lantern fire inside the wooden prison almost turned catastrophic. A quick-thinking guard immediately smothered the fire using water and sand, but the inmates remained horrified of the potential dangers. They knew that if another fire should start, they would be trapped inside a wooden inferno and feared being burned alive.

By 1904, inmate labor had been harnessed to modernize the prison at Alcatraz. The inmate population was moved to the upper prison, which now had the capacity to safely accommodate 307 men and the lower prison