Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [26]
Army prisoners seen working in the Upper Prison against the stockade wall, breaking rock into gravel in 1910.
Another 1910 photograph showing army prisoners breaking rock with small hammers, while kept under close guard by an armed sentry. This view is looking east toward the future site of the powerhouse.
A rare photograph of garrison soldiers congregating at the island dock, taken on August 12, 1904. One of the Upper Prison buildings is partially visible at the top left.
A panoramic photograph showing the massive fires and destruction that followed the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
Alcatraz in 1907.
A 1910 photograph of the Alcatraz Morgue. The Morgue was not used during the years in which the island served as a Federal penitentiary.
U.S. Disciplinary Barracks
On March 21, 1907, Alcatraz was officially designated as the Pacific Branch of the United States Military Prison, and the Third and Fourth Companies of the U.S. Military Prison Guard were established there as a permanent garrison. Trained sentries would supervise all prisoner activities, and it was during this period that the rigid routine of Alcatraz would begin to emerge. By the turn of the century, the military prison on the island had grown so large that it obscured the lighthouse. Work on a new lighthouse began in 1909 and soon the tower would soar into the sky at a height of eighty-four feet. Electricity powered the light, as well as the fog sirens at the north and south ends of the island. The new keeper’s house was adjacent to the quarters of the Warden and prison doctor, located at the top of the main roadway.
The original lighthouse would be replaced in 1909 by an eighty-four-foot concrete tower, which loomed over the newer concrete prison. This photograph shows the new lighthouse under construction.
In 1909 Major Reuben Turner, a military construction engineer from the 29th Infantry, designed and supervised an ambitious building project. He created a fully enclosed building that incorporated the main prison, hospital, kitchen, mess hall, library, shower rooms and auditorium – all encapsulated within a single cement superstructure. The top floors of the old Citadel were destroyed and a large new cellhouse was constructed, literally on top of the solid masonry structure of the old defensive barracks. The cellhouse was the largest steel-reinforced concrete structure in the world at the time of its construction, and it was designed to hold up to six hundred inmates. Each inmate could occupy a private cell, with a forced air ventilation system and cold running water. A convict labor force with a meager $250,000 budget would be tasked to build the entire cement complex, which would be completed in 1912. By the late 1920’s the three-story structure was nearly at full capacity.
The original prison blueprints by Major Reuben Turner, a military construction engineer from the 29th Infantry. Turner’s escape-proof design featured a fully enclosed building that incorporated the main prison, hospital, kitchen, mess hall, library, shower rooms and auditorium – all encapsulated within a single steel-reinforced cement superstructure.
Construction photographs of the main prison taken in roughly 1909-1910.
A photograph showing the original D Block during the final construction phase in March of 1911. Note the dirt floor prior to cementing, the flat steel bars, and the group of open swing-out doors on the second tier.
The Alcatraz Military Prison cellhouse was completed in 1912. This was the largest steel-reinforced concrete structure in the world