The Birdman of Alcatraz

What is the true story?

Alcatraz

Alcatraz prison in California, built on a small, rocky island in the Bay of San Francisco, operated from the time of the US Civil War in the 1860s until it was closed in 1963. The island’s remote location made it the perfect site for a prison, but this location also made it expensive to maintain, and the cost of maintenance finally led to its closure. During the years it operated, Alcatraz housed many infamous prisoners including Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly, but the one prisoner whose nickname is synonymous with the prison is The Birdman of Alcatraz.

You might not associate Stroud with Alaska, but he was originally incarcerated for a murder he committed in Juneau. Robert Stroud spent 54 years in prison, and he was in solitary confinement for 42 of those years. He is one of Alaska’s most famous criminals, and his story is fascinating.

Stories often change, and with the distance of time, historical characters often appear more benevolent and likable than they were in real life. I would love to tell you a tale about a man who received too harsh a sentence for manslaughter and was then mistreated in prison, and while this version of the story has been told by some biographers, other historians do not paint Robert Stroud in such a favorable light. I’ll try to relay both sides of his story, and you can decide if Robert Stroud should have been released from prison at some point in his life, or if Robert Stroud was a dangerous psychopath who belonged behind bars. Some of you may even feel Stroud should have been hanged when gallows were built outside his prison cell in Leavenworth. What has not been debated over the years, though, is that Robert Stroud had a near-genius IQ, and his research and writings advanced the field of ornithology.

Robert Stroud was born in 1890 in Seattle. His father was violent and abusive, and he removed Robert from school when he was only in the third grade. At age thirteen, Robert ran away to become a hobo, riding freight trains around the country. He returned to Seattle when he was sixteen and worked installing electrical fixtures. He dreamed of Alaska and freedom from his abusive father, and in 1908, at age 18, he signed on with a section gang headed to Katalla, Alaska to build a railroad. In a saloon in Cordova…