Last updated: March 2, 2021
Place
The Guardhouse Prison: Seven Prisons
Kirke Wrench NPS
The Guardhouse is the oldest building still standing on Alcatraz Island and the site of the first prison. In 1859, eleven soldiers of Captain Joseph Stewart’s Company H Third Artillery, the first soldiers to occupy Fort Alcatraz, were sent down a metal ladder to be confined in the prison room below. This bare stone room with its wooden floor and rifle-slit windows remained a military prison for soldiers who broke Army rules and laws through the end of the Civil War in 1865.
Was locking soldiers in a stone room an effective punishment for breaking the rules?