The first batch of 137 prisoners arrives at Alcatraz, arriving by railroad from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Venetia, California. In 1850, a presidential order set aside the island for possible use as a United States military reservation and the U.S. Army had used the island for more than 80 years. In 1933, the island was transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice for use by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to open a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary to deal with the most incorrigible inmates in Federal prisons. More
