Alcatraz, America's most feared prison, officially shut on 21 March 1963, bringing an end to nearly three decades of housing the country's most dangerous criminals.
Perched on a rocky island in San Francisco Bay, the maximum-security penitentiary gained a fearsome reputation for holding infamous figures such as Al Capone, George 'Machine Gun' Kelly, and Robert Stroud, the so-called Birdman of Alcatraz. Isolated, heavily guarded, and considered escape-proof, the prison symbolised ultimate confinement. Yet despite its notoriety, spiralling operational costs and crumbling infrastructure ultimately sealed its fate.
