14 - The Morgue

WAYSIDE LAYOUT: Cream colored, vertically oriented panel with a dark banner running across the top. The banner reads “Golden Gate National Recreation Area” on the left and the National Park Service logo on the right. Main body of the panel is in one column on the left, with text first then an image with text below it. The background and remaining area of the panel is filled with a large image.  

TEXT: The Morgue: Death on the Rock. Although death on the island was seldom, both the U.S. military and the Federal Bureau of Prisons had to deal with the inescapable reality of death on Alcatraz.  

In 1910, the military constructed the morgue to store the bodies of the deceased. Built at the entrance to a Civil War-era tunnel, the thick, brick-lined walls that once kept gunpowder cool and dry became ideal for holding bodies prior to transport off the island.  

DESCRIPTION: View inside the morgue. There is a long well-worn table centered in the image. The walls behind it are covered in broken plaster and there are two large windows above, one with a big exhaust fan in the left window.  

TEXT: Who is buried here? The military called this island “the Rock” for a reason; it is composed entirely of hard graywacke sandstone which does not lend itself to burials. During the military era, soldiers who died here were buried on Angel Island or in the National Cemetery at the Presidio of San Francisco. Later, during the Bureau of Prisons years, deceased inmates were taken to the city morgue in San Francisco. If unclaimed, they were interred in the paupers’ graves in a local cemetery.  

BACKGROUND IMAGE: Filling the bottom half background of the panel is a large black and white photograph of the entrance to the Morgue. The entrance has a mission style façade, a door with vertical lines and a window and text above the door that reads, “Morgue 1910.”