As I was walking,

that Ribbino Highway,

I saw above me,

Endless Skyway I saw below me in the Golden Valley.

This land was made for you and me. In the United States government seized control of California from the Republic of Mexico, a consequence of the Mexican-American War, and immediately went to work on protecting the new

land. Located in the middle of the new land.

Located in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, an island called Alcatraz,

was identified as a place of exceptional military utility. Its position nearly surrounded on all sides

would make it easily defensible and ideally positioned to protect the entrance to the bay.

You may know Alcatraz as the so-called inescapable prison which housed

Al Capone and machine-gun Kelly and then was immortalized in the film Escape from Al-Katraz.

But its history began long before. in the Alcatraz Island and its role during the Civil War.

Here's Abigail Trebue. I'm going to Construction of America's third generation of Seaports during the mid 1800s involved cutting the site down to sea level and then building a multi-tiered

Embattlement of thick stone and brick. The characteristics of Alcatraz Islands geology made such a fort

impossible, but its natural height was already a great start towards fortification. Instead of cutting the rock and soil down to sea level,

the Army Corps of Engineers included Alcatraz's rugged stone into its design.

Construction commenced in 1853.

Laborers created steep walls around the island by blasting rock and laying stone.

The army encircled the island with 111 cannons to attack incoming ships,

along with smaller guns to protect the sides of the island itself.

Any ship entering the bay would have to pass within one mile of Alcatraz's impressive battery.

A lighthouse was built, the first on the Pacific coast, and near it a guarded barracks called the

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