9 - Lower Military Prison

WAYSIDE LAYOUT: Cream colored, horizontally 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 followed by an image. The second column features two images with captions.  

FIRST COLUMN: 

TEXT: Lower Military Prison: From fort to prison.  

During the Civil War, Confederate sympathizers, political prisoners, deserters, and other army convicts were sent to Alcatraz. This marked the beginning of the island’s evolution from fort to prison. After the war’s end, the post was pressed to take an increasing number of military prisoners, forcing construction of temporary cellhouses and other facilities. A cluster of structures alongside this road was called the “Lower Prison.” 

After the army officially renamed Alcatraz “Pacific Branch, Military Prison” in 1907, most of the makeshift buildings were demolished and work began on the cellhouse that stands on the island’s summit today.  

DESCRIPTION: Black and white image of a group of Hopi prisoners arranged in two rows, the first row of men squatting and the second standing behind them.  

CAPTION: During the last three decades of the 19th century, Native Americans were incarcerated in the Lower Prison. The Hopi men pictured here were imprisoned for refusing to send their children to government boarding schools.  

SECOND COLUMN:  

DESCRIPTION #1: Black and white photographs of the Lower Prison and Guardhouse, with a guardhouse atop a small cliff on the left and the lower prison building on the right.  

CAPTION: The Lower Prison (above, right) built on top of and beside the 1850’s guardhouse, featured dungeon cells for solitary confinement, a chapel, library, and mess hall.  

DESCRIPTION #2: Black and white image of a row of cells within the Lower Prison building.  

CAPTION: Soldiers charged with crimes, including drunkenness and theft, were confined in closet-sized cells with strap-iron doors.