Alcatraz Myth in Gifts

In June 1846 Alcatraz was a property of the Mexicans and had a lighthouse built on it. This year John Fremont, the leader of the Bear Flag Republic (the name settlers who revolted against Mexican rule gave California) bought the island in the name of the United States for the amount of $5000.

In 1850, after California was acquired from the Mexicans as a result of the American-Mexican war, the president of the United States decided that Alcatraz would be a military facility. Fremont expected this initiative to bring him a fortune but he received nothing from the USA.

During the Civil War, Alcatraz became a military prison especially due to the fact that it was secluded from the mainland. To that contributed the fact that military technological advancement was rendering obsolete most of the Alcatraz leverages. It continued to be a prison for the military until October 1933, when the Federal Bureau of Prisons acquired it and turned it into a federal prison.

Though it served as federal prison for a few decades only, it made quite a name for itself out of its unbreachable security level. In June 1962, however, Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarance Anglin managed to escape at the end of one of the most industrious escape plans ever conceived. It was the most famous prison break in Alcatraz history. In fact it even generated a movie.

The most notorious inmates at Alcatraz were: Al Capone, Robert Stroud (The Alcatraz Bird), George “Machine Gun” (who spent 17 years and Alcatraz and then was transferred to Leavenworth, where he died of a heart attack), James Bulger (he spent a little time here then he escaped and is still in Fugitive Most Wanted List), Alvin Karpis (who served the longest term in Alcatraz ever).

It is only natural that a place like this attracts so many tourists and has a gift shop that can offer you a T-shirt with an escape plan on it for instance which is  apparently very easy to carry out: “Dig, Dive & Run”. Or if you don’t want to get out of Alcatraz you may buy a simple T-Shirt with the image of the prison on it. There are cups with the prison image engraved on them and post cards that can be bought and constitute a very nice gift. The gift shops sell ingenious and funny cartoons representing life in Alcatraz prison.

A very interesting and most wanted type of T-shirts Alcatraz fans can buy is the “Alcatraz Psycho Ward” T-shirt. You may even find a shirt that imitates perfectly the one Alcatraz inmates were wearing. Even though Alcatraz is something children shouldn’t be told about at least until they turn 18, gift shops sell puzzle-like games that help them build brick by brick the famous prison.