Color aerial photograph of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, with Angel Island and the Marin shoreline behind it. — Open the full imageJPG, 1800 × 1146 px, 0.3 MB

An aerial view of Alcatraz Island, 8 May 1986 (National Archives)

Military aerial photograph of Alcatraz Island dated 8 May 1986, taken more than twenty years after the penitentiary closed. It is filed as a view of the island, not of the prison years.

Date: 1986-05-08
Kind: photograph
Source: National Archives Catalog
Retrieved: 2026-10-12
NAID: 6410397
Rights: A U.S. military photograph in the Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files, Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A United States government work, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The National Archives catalog states "Release Status: Released to Public" and marks the item use "Unrestricted." The copy stored here is an 1,800-pixel downsample of a JPEG of about 2.6 MB.

The catalog’s scope note gives the base as San Francisco, the scene camera operator as PH2 Michael D.P. Flynn, and the release status as “Released to Public.” The image file name is DN-ST-86-07327. The photograph shows the island from the air in color, with buildings on its summit, Angel Island and the Marin shoreline behind.

The penitentiary closed on 21 March 1963 according to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP Alcatraz history). This photograph is used only for the island itself and says nothing about the prison years.

itemAerial view of Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, California (Highsmith, Library of Congress)Color aerial photograph of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay with the Marin shoreline behind it, dated by the Library of Congress between 1980 and 2006. Used as a view of the island only.itemAlcatraz (Federal Bureau of Prisons history page)The Bureau of Prisons' history page on Alcatraz names Al Capone among the well-known criminals who did time there, and says most of its prisoners were not well-known gangsters.item"U.S. Penitentiary Alcatraz: Federal Prison 1934-1963" (National Park Service, Alcatraz Island)National Park Service summary of the penitentiary years: the product of Attorney General Homer Cummings and Bureau Director Sanford Bates, with James A. Johnston as warden for fourteen years and a "concentration model" that later served as a blueprint for the high-security prison at Marion, Illinois.