Called Island of the Pelicans by the Spanish explorer who named it in 1775, Alcatraz today is better known as The Rock or Devil’s Island. A barren piece of land in the middle of cold, foggy San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz is surrounded by swift currents and bloody legends of deprivation and torture.

Native Americans believed the island to be inhabited by evil spirits, and banished to its shores those who violated tribal law. Alcatraz later became a military fort and, in 1934, was turned into the nation’s toughest federal penitentiary.

Infamous gangsters like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly ended up here. Stories grew of horrid beatings, rigid disciplinary measures, and extreme isolation. The rule of silence led one inmate, Rufe Persful, to take a hatchet and chop off the fingers of one hand while working in a prison shop. No wonder Alcatraz seems like a portal to hell.