Donald Trump Says Alcatraz Prison Is Unbreakable. History Says Otherwise

US President Donald Trump declared “nobody ever escaped from Alcatraz,” outlining plans to reopen the island prison. It was shut down more than six decades ago. As far as Trump’s claims are concerned, history says otherwise.

1937: The First Great Escape

On December 16, 1937, inmates Theodore Cole, 25, and Ralph Roe, 32, broke out of the island prison in a “miraculous feat.” Cole, a convicted kidnapper, and Roe, a bank robber, spent months sawing through iron bars in the prison’s mat shop.

Taking advantage of heavy fog, the pair slipped through a window and vanished into the bay on a makeshift raft fashioned from two large airtight oil cans tied together. According to reports from the San Francisco Chronicle, they had even packed civilian clothes sealed inside one of the cans, planning to change once they reached land.

While officials believed they drowned, a  San Francisco Chronicle story published four years later suggested Cole and Roe were “living comfortably” in South American hideouts.

The 1962 Escape

The most famous Alcatraz breakout came on June 11, 1962, when Frank Morris, along with brothers John and Clarence Anglin, vanished from the prison in a brilliantly executed escape. 

Frank Morris was sent to Alcatraz for his repeated prison breaks. Known for his intelligence (he reportedly had an IQ of 133), Morris was considered the mastermind behind the 1962 escape plan.

Brothers Clarence and John Anglin, originally from rural Georgia, were convicted bank robbers with long rap sheets.

On the night of June 11, 1962, Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers pulled off what remains the most famous breakout in US prison history.

The trio spent six months preparing. They used sharpened spoons, cardboard, and glue to tunnel through cell walls, covering their work with painted cardboard panels. Their escape raft was stitched from over 50 rubber raincoats, sealed using steam pipes. Dummy heads made of papier-mache and real hair were placed in their beds to deceive guards during nightly checks.

A converted vacuum cleaner motor helped them create a makeshift drill. A concertina, a musical instrument, was transformed into a bellows to inflate the raft.

On the night of the escape, the men crawled through the ventilation ducts, climbed to the roof, descended down a pipe, scaled a barbed-wire fence, and launched their homemade raft into the freezing waters of the San Francisco Bay.

They were never seen again.

The following morning, prison guards discovered the lifelike dummy heads still on the beds. A massive manhunt began, involving the FBI, Coast Guard, and military police.

Though some of their items, including oars, life jacket remnants, and sealed packets containing photos and contact details,  were later recovered, no bodies were ever found.

“Ha Ha, We Made It”

A week after the escape, Alcatraz’s warden received a postcard, “HA HA, WE MADE IT.” It was signed “Frank, Jim, Clarence.” The FBI dismissed the card as a hoax.

Still, tips poured in for years. Some claimed sightings of the escapees in South America. Others said the Anglins made contact with their family.

The FBI closed the case in 1979, declaring the men “presumed to be dead.” But the US Marshals Service never gave up. Their case file remains open to this day.

Alcatraz was officially shut down in 1963 due to high operating costs and infrastructure decay.