6 - Quartermaster Warehouse & Powerplant

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. The panel has two columns. The first column is text. The second column has 2 images. 

FIRST COLUMN:  

TEXT: Quartermaster warehouse and power plant: Sustaining the city in the bay. Throughout the military and penitentiary years, Alcatraz was much like a small town. Keeping the town going – and the convicts under control – depended on the uninterrupted service of the power plant to your left and the warehouse straight ahead. Because of the vital nature of these facilities, they were strictly off-limits to prisoners, unlike some operations on the island that relied on inmate labor.  

Completed in 1912, the power plant generated the island’s electricity and powered the pumps that provided fresh and salt water for all needs, including cooking, drinking, bathing, producing steam heat, irrigating the gardens, and fighting fires. The warehouse, built in 1921, stored essential supplies and equipment brought from the mainland, and provided workshop space. Today, both buildings serve many of the same functions.  

SECOND COLUMN:  

DESCRIPTION #1: Black and white image of the power plant engine room. There are multiple large engines in the background and a man sits at a desk in the foreground, looking towards the camera.  

CAPTION: Chief Engineer William Elliot managed the power plant’s transition when the military _____ became a federal penitentiary.  

DESCRIPTION #2: Black and white photograph of the exterior of the warehouse. There are three floors and across the roof is the word ALCATRAZ in giant capital letters.  

CAPTION: The warehouse’s rooftop was used as a navigational aid for aviators. 

QUOTE: “The operation of all activities within the institution relies wholly upon 24-hour services furnished by the power plant.... No outside services are available.” Thomas Butterworth, Chief Mechanical Inspector, _________