Alcatraz the island has a history much longer than the years its famous prison was in operation, and this 48-page book traces more than a hundred years of island history -- as a fort, as a military prison, and finally as the inescapable federal penitentiary that housed such notorious criminals as Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, and Robert Birdman Stroud. The island is now part of a national park and visited by nearly one million curious people each year.