I shot this picture of the famous prison from FishermanŽs Warf.  Alcatraz is a surprisingly small prison, only holding a couple of hundred prisoners.

Alcatraz, which means šPelicanšin Spanish, was established as a U.S. military fort in 1859.  It became a maximum security prison in 1934, and remained open until 1963.   It was unoccupied until 1969 when a group of American Indians seized the island and held it until they were forced off the island by the Army in 1971.