Fortress Alcatraz: Guardian of the Golden Gate

Guns Magazine, Jan, 2005

The U.S. Army originally designed the famous prison of Alcatraz as a fort to protect the Bay of San Francisco, California after the state was taken from Mexico in 1848. Alcatraz was ideally situated to defend the bay but building the fort proved a daunting engineering challenge due to the island's limited access. Alcatraz took on more importance during our Civil War when it was fortified to protect the bay from Confederate raiders.

Fortress Alcatraz is profusely illustrated with period photographs of the fort including the 15-inch Rodman guns and their emplacements. Its conversion to a military prison and then a federal prison is covered and well illustrated along with its use to defend the bay from Japanese submarines during WWII. Eight of the Civil War photos were long considered lost until the author uncovered them mis-labeled in a Sacramento museum. The Federal prison era is covered and the book winds down with the takeover of the island by activist Indians and the eventual inclusion in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area run by the National Park Service. The paper on which the book is printed is not the greatest and the clarity of the photos suffer because of it, but the writing is clear and interesting and the military historian will relish these little seen views of a coastal fort.

ISBN: 1-58008-626-8, $13.95, paperback from Ten Speed Press, P.O. Box 7123, Berkeley, CA 94707, (510) 559-1600, www.tenspeed.com.

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