Alcatraz federal penitentiary

In 1934 the US government turned the old army prison on Alcatraz Island into a maximum-security federal penitentiary for inmates such as Al Capone whom other prisons could not hold. Cold currents and the bay made escape all but impossible; the 1962 escape of Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers remains unsolved. Costly to run and crumbling in the salt air, it closed in 1963.