Alcatraz warden's notebook page for James Ryan, No. 189
Bureau of Prisons notebook page with the identification photograph of James Ryan, No. 189, received at Alcatraz from Leavenworth on 4 September 1934 under a 20-year sentence and $10,000 fine for post-office (mail) robbery (District of Minnesota); stamped transferred to Leavenworth on 28 April 1942. A copy is stored here.
- Date
- 1934-09-04
- Kind
- photograph
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- NAID
- 236734919
- Rights
- A Bureau of Prisons record, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. Series "Warden's Notebook Pages" (NAID 296686), Records of the Bureau of Prisons (Record Group 129), National Archives at San Francisco. The National Archives catalog marks the item "Use Restriction: Unrestricted." The series note says that some information on the pages is incorrect when compared with the fuller inmate files, and that clippings in the series may be copyrighted; this page is a prison form. The copy stored here is a downsample of the first digitized image.
The National Archives catalog titles this page “RYAN, JAMES VINCENT “SILENT JIM” - Alcatraz Number 189 - Warden’s Notebook.” It is a Bureau of Prisons notebook form with an identification photograph at the upper right; the placard in the photograph reads 189. It belongs to the series Warden’s Notebook Pages (NAID 296686).
The typed entries, as printed: name “James Ryan,” No. 189, received 9-4-34 from Leavenworth, age 42, date of birth 2/13/92. Offense “P.O. Robbery,” dated March 28, 1934; sentence “20 years & $10,000 fine”; minimum expiration Aug. 31, 1947; maximum March 27, 1954; district sentenced “D- Minn.” A stamp at the top reads “TRANSFERRED APR 28 1942” with a handwritten “U S P. Leav.” A red note describes the mail robbery and says “THIS PRISONER HAS BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH WHAT WAS KNOWN AS THE TOUGHY GANG FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS” (spelled so on the page). That is a staff statement, not a finding. The “Reason for Transfer” box is staff opinion and is not repeated; the criminal-history column is not transcribed.
Catalog data, labelled as such: offense “POSTAL LAWS: ROBBERY OF MAILS”; received at Alcatraz 09/04/1934 from US Penitentiary, Leavenworth; transferred 04/28/1942 to US Penitentiary, Leavenworth; birth date 02/13/1892; no death date. The catalog remark prints “MEMBER OF TOUHY GANG; ASSAULTED BY CAPONE.” This archive has not matched the second part of that remark to any dated incident record and does not repeat it as fact; the National Park Service names a different inmate, James Lucas, as the man who attacked Capone on 23 June 1936.
