Is the island honeycombed with tunnels and dungeons?
A. Sort of. The extensive network of tunnel shown in the movie “The Rock” are fictional and only existed on a Hollywood soundstage. The tunnels on the island are much less impressive. The prison building sits atop the remains of a 19th century soldier barracks built in 1857 by the military as part of the original fort on Alcatraz. When the army completed the prison in 1912, they converted several of these old rooms into underground solitary confinement cells officially designated “dungeons.” The army continued to use these underground cells until they closed the Disciplinary Barracks in 1934. The Bureau of Prisons continued using them as late as 1938. Warden James Johnston ordered the dungeons abandoned when the modern solitary confinement unit (“D Block”) was completed in 1941.
