Frank Lucas Bolt. Little has been documented about Alcatraz's LGBTQ+ prisoners, but gay men did play a role in the infamous prison. In fact, it was a queer man, Frank Lucas Bolt, who served as the prison's first official inmate.
In June 1962, inmates Clarence Anglin, John Anglin, and Frank Morris escaped from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.
Frank Morris, John Anglin, and his brother, Clarence Anglin have never been located since escaping the facility — which was at some point home to criminals like Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and Robert Stroud.
The 1962 escape is probably the most famous prison break in American history, and the three men involved have never been located, dead or alive.
A fourth man, Allen West, who also participated in the escape plot, was serving his second term at the Rock. Left behind on the night of the escape, West later told the authorities much of what is now known about the complicated scheme, and even claimed to have been the mastermind himself.
In 1959 he was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Missouri, where he would die that year. Although Alcatraz may have closed as a prison many decades ago, there are still former Alcatraz inmates alive today - including convited murderer and Irish American mafia boss James "Whitey" Bulger.
While awaiting the results of appeals, Capone was confined to the Cook County Jail. Upon denial of appeals, he entered the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, serving his sentence there and at Alcatraz.
Robert Franklin Stroud (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963), known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz", was a convicted murderer, American federal prisoner and author who has been cited as one of the most notorious criminals in the United States.
What is this? The biography of Al Capone continues in January of 1939, when he was transferred out of Alcatraz. He was moved to another facility and then paroled at the end of the year.
Clarence Victor Carnes (January 14, 1927 – October 3, 1988), known as The Choctaw Kid, was a Choctaw man best known as the youngest inmate incarcerated at Alcatraz and for his participation in the bloody escape attempt known as the "Battle of Alcatraz".
Missing. On June 12, 1962, the routine early morning bed check turned out to be anything but. Three convicts were not in their cells: John Anglin, his brother Clarence, and Frank Morris.
The Anglin Brothers Escape is one of the most infamous disappearances in American history. Their alleged escape from Alcatraz in 1975 has long baffled authorities. The brothers and their uncles have been missing since.
Eventually, they killed the three remaining men, Cretzer, Hubbard and Coy, the ringleader. Two prison guards were killed in the battle, with 14 more wounded. Two of the prisoners who gave up after the lock to the yard door was broken, Shockley and Thompson, were executed in a gas chamber for their role in the attempt.
1) ADX Florence Supermax Facility – Florence, Colorado
In 1963, ADX was built to replace the infamous Alcatraz Prison, and in many ways it's even worse than its predecessor. This prison is based on isolation and seclusion. Prisoners are only allowed out of their 100% concrete cells for nine hours each week.
Only one group has managed to successfully break out of Alcatraz in its 30-year history. Out of 36 men who attempted to escape, 23 were caught, six were shot and killed, and the others drowned.
How many people died while at Alcatraz? There were eight people murdered by inmates on Alcatraz. Five men committed suicide, and fifteen died from natural illnesses. The Island also boasted it's own morgue but no autopsies were performed there.
The prison officially closed down because it was too expensive to maintain. It would have required about $3 million to $5 million for further maintenance and restoration work to keep it open. This was not even taking into account the operating costs that were required daily.
Al Capone died of cardiac arrest in 1947, but his decline began earlier.
In January 1947, the 48-year-old Capone suffered a stroke then came down with pneumonia; he died at his Florida home on January 25. Capone was buried at Chicago's Mount Olivet Cemetery, near the graves of his father and one of his brothers.
The sexually transmitted infection had caused neurosyphilis, an infection of the central nervous system, which eventually led to dementia. Since there was no cure for syphilis in the 1930s, Capone's illness worsened and led to his death at the age of just 48.
John Anglin, Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris had escaped. On their pillows were papier-mâché replicas of their own heads, meant to mask their absence and throw guards off their scent. What happened to them remains a mystery to this day.
And for 29 years, it was the most secure federal prison in the country -- surrounded by the cold, rough waters of the Pacific. But brothers John and Clarence Anglin and Frank Morris disappeared into the night and have never been found.
On June 11, 1962 the trio successfully escaped the maximum security prison after posing fake heads in their beds that were pushed through holes of a concrete wall. The fugitives made inflated vests and a raft from prison raincoats.