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fortress. The fortress was built in reaction to the influx of sailing ships during the Gold Rush of 1848–1849.

The most surprising thing about Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, perching dramat- ically on a rock in San Francisco Bay, is how few prisoners actually stayed there and how short a time it was in operation. Throughout its history, the prison never held more than 250 inmates at one time and was open for business for less than 30 years (1934–1963). However, its fame is largely due to the type of prisoners it held—the very worst—and by the way that Alcatraz was dramatized by Hollywood, capturing the imagination of millions of people. The Prisoners Through the years, the island housed military prisoners of various kinds: Civil War combatants, enemy aliens and spies duringWorldWar I, and finally, U.S. soldiers in need of extra discipline. Then later, in the 1930s, when the United States found it had a gangster problem, Alcatraz was used to put many of the mobsters behind bars.

This is howAlcatraz looks from the air. The large, white, central building is the cell house. On the edges of the island are the staff housing, docks, power plant, factory, and other support buildings.

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