San Francisco Christmas

Christmas, San Francisco style!!!!!

Kendra and Ryan have arrived for Christmas and so we are San Francisco tourists for a week. Our first stop was a tour of The Rock- Alcatraz! It was first a fort, the third defensive to San Francisco Bay, the first two being either side of the Golden Gate Bridge. The lighthouse was built first, during the Gold Rush days in 1847, to protect the harbour and the increased ship traffic and population. In two years, San Francisco ceased to be a "sleepy outpost of 300" to a "bawdy, glittering home to 20 000". When Civil War broke out in 1861, Alcatraz had 111 smoothbore cannons, rows of open gun emplacements carved out of the island's slopes and a fortification gateway or sally port, protecting the brick citadel that crowned the island's highest point. Military technology advanced too quickly and Alcatraz's defenses became obsolete and so the army formally decomissioned Alcatraz as a fortification in 1907.

However, during the Civil war, soldiers requiring punishment for such offenses as theft, desertion, rape, murder treason etc were confined in a dungeon of sorts in a windowless basement below the sally port. Within a year of the decomissioning, a cellhouse was constructed as the " United States Disciplinary Barracks, Pacific Branch" for objectors of WW1; during the Great Depression, the newly created Bureau of Prisons became interested in the island as a place for a high profile and maximum security facility. In 1934, Alcatraz reopened for the worst of the worst...Al Capone, "Doc" Barker, "Creepy" Karpis, "Machine Gun" Kelly and Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", all notorious convicts with escape risks and behaviours. Many stories of "escape attempts" have remained with Alcatraz, but to this day, it is believed hat no one ever succeeded. Being isolated with restricted visitations and surrounded by water with strong, cold currents made it difficult for the 14 attempts. In 1963, the prison closed due to increased operating and maintenance costs and inmates were transferred to other institutions.

For a five year period following its closing, Native Americans occupied Alcatraz, but by 1971 it became increasingly more difficult to supply food and water to this isolated community and so they were forced to leave. Thus, in 1972, Congress created the Golden Gate National Recreation Area of which Alcatraz became a part, which is now administered by the National Parks Service.
It is estimated that about one and a half million people visit Alcatraz per year of which we were four. It was a sunny, but cold and windy day today and so we were very happy to end our day with a sourdough bowl of delicious clam chowder from the famous Boudin Sourdough Bakery at Fisherman's Wharf! Do we look a little chilly??????
Merry Christmas from our house to yours! B&B