Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

An Open Invitation to Visit the Library

Last week on NPR's Morning Edition they did a fascinating story on the only unsolved prison escape from Alcatraz.  On June 12, 1962, Frank Morris, and the brothers John and Clarence Anglin, escaped from the Rock never to be seen or heard from again.  I have to say, I love this stuff!  The idea that these three guys may have gotten away with what was said to be impossible, and that they could still be around today, living their lives - it's thrilling!  I grew up in the Bay Area, but it wasn't until I was home on summer vacation from college that I actually toured Alcatraz.  It was a dreary place and when it came to the part of the tour where they lock you in a cell, I refused.  Looking back on that day, I can imagine the desperate need to escape that place, spending months painstakingly digging a way out.   

If you want to learn more about Morris and the Anglin brothers, and other attempts to escape Alcatraz, you have to check out the classic text Escape from Alcatraz by J. Campbell Bruce.  This book was originally published the same year Alcatraz was shut down as a federal prison, 1963, and it reads like a movie script.  Frankly, I'm not sure how he figures the last thing Frank Morris said before leaving the island was "Where the hell's the other oar?...Never mind, let's shove".  But I don't care because it's fun to read.  You can also watch the 1979 movie based on his book with the same name, Escape from Alcatraz, directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood as Frank Morris. 

Morris and the Anglin brothers are famous for their escape, and we all know about Al Capone's stay on the Rock and about the Birdman of Alcatraz, but there were many other men imprisoned there during its 29 years as a federal prison.  Thomas E. Gaddis highlights some of the less prominent inmates of Alcatraz in his book Unknown Men of Alcatraz.  Gaddis' is obviously on the side of the ex-cons he interviews for his book and very much against Alcatraz and all that it stood for.  This is made clear with his over-the-top writing style and lines like, "Over in San Francisco Bay sits the evil stone, Alcatraz.  It's a gem of a ruin.  Its name is the blare of a trumpet.  The late slammer wears its hornet's nest of memories like something alive." But this book is a quick and interesting read, and the illustrations at the beginning of each chapter are priceless.

Another aspect of Alcatraz that I find intriguing is that even while it was a federal prison, entire families lived together on the island.  It's hard to picture children playing and going to school with Machine Gun Kelly as their neighbor, but it happened. Claire Rudolph Murphy talks about two centuries of children living on the Rock in her book, Children of Alcatraz.  This book is nice because it discusses what was there both before and after Alcatraz was a federal penitentiary.  She highlights the multiple times it was inhabited by Native Americans, its use as a lighthouse and its role today as a historic national park and museum.  Furthermore, Murphy's Children of Alcatraz is written for kids, which means the great stories are accompanied by pictures, maps and photographs including one of a young Frank Morris, in reform school at age 14.

So, Morris and brothers Anglin, if you're out there somewhere and want to take a trip down memory lane, stop by the Central Library and ask to see the March 1962 Popular Mechanics' article on flotation devices titled "Your Life Preserver: How Will It Behave if You Need It".  We have it here on microfilm and we understand it was a helpful article to you when you needed it...and that's what the library is all about, getting folks the information they need, when they need it!