He christened the land La Isla de los Alcatraces, which translates to Island of the Pelicans. He had no interest, as it was uninhabited, barren ground with minimal vegetation and treacherous, icy currents.Having little to offer, Alcatraz was left on its own for another 72 years. In 1847, the U.S. Army claimed the island for use as a military fortification. Within a year, U.S. Army engineers were hard at work constructing both a military fortress and the Pacific Coast’s first operating lighthouse.Once completed, the fortress of Alcatraz became a symbol of military strength. Its features included long-range iron cannons and four 36,000 pound, 15-inch Rodman guns, which were capable of sinking hostile ships as much as three miles away. While the image of Alcatraz lived up to its reputation, the only round ever shot came from one 400-pound cannon. This was aimed at an unidentified ship, which it missed. Within Signs of Cheating 20 years, the rapid modernization of weaponry rendered Army defenses on Alcatraz obsolete. Soon the Army began rethinking uses for their island.The natural isolation made Alcatraz the ideal location for an Army penitentiary. In 1861, the island began its 102-year history of housing prisoners, first as an Army penitentiary, then as a Federal prison.Alcatraz was the Army’s debut as a prison for long-term sentences. Civil War prisoners were the first to arrive. The population remained small until 1898, when the Spanish-American war brought the prisoner count from 26 to more than 450. In 1906, a catastrophic earthquake in San Francisco forced the city to evacuate hundreds of prisoners to Alcatraz. The large influx of prisoners forced building expansion. By 1912, a large, three-story cell house had been constructed on the island’s central crest. The structure had almost reached full capacity by the late 1920s.
