In 1853, Alcatraz became home to the first lighthouse on the West Coast. Because fog often rendered the light ineffective, the lighthouse originally had a fog bell, which would have been rung by hand. One hundred and ten years later, in 1963, the light was automated. The Fog Bell House survives to this day; the light is still operational.

Nowadays we think of Alcatraz as a former federal prison, but there are records dating to around 1861 showing that it held Civil War prisoners. The first official jailhouse was built there in 1867. It was originally a military prison, but in the aftermath of the great earthquake in 1906, it temporarily housed inmates from the mainland. Alcatraz remained a military prison until 1933, when it became a federal prison. Most of the legends surrounding the Rock and its notorious inhabitants-including Al Capone, who was incarcerated there from 1932 to 1939-date from this time. Alcatraz was a federal prison for only thirty years, before it finally closed in 1963.

Six years later, a party of eighty Native Americans representing more than twenty different tribes landed on the abandoned and decaying island and attempted to reclaim it for the native peoples. In a political statement, the group, who called themselves Indians of All Tribes, offered to purchase the island from the American government for “$24 in glass beads and red cloth.” The ironic offer was meant to convey the tribes’ conviction that the island had been stolen from them. They wanted to take back what they saw as Indian land and to establish a Center for Native American Studies and a Great Indian Training School. The Native American occupation of Alcatraz lasted nineteen months, and while it ultimately failed and the occupiers were removed, it successfully drew attention to the plight of Native Americans across the United States. Graffiti evidence of this period can be found around the buildings on the island today, most noticeably on the wall behind the large sign on the dock. Around the official United States Penitentiary sign, the words Indians Welcome and Indian Land have been daubed in red paint.

In 1972, Alcatraz became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and every year more than a million people visit the island.

When I began to develop the idea that became the series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, I needed a location that fulfilled several requirements. It had to be close to a major city and yet relatively inaccessible. It had to be big enough to hold a vast army of creatures, and, of course, it had to be firmly rooted in history. Over a number of years, I looked at abandoned mining towns in California, particularly Bodie; ghost towns in the Old West; deserted homesteads along the Boston Post Road; and some of the forts on the Sante Fe Trail. Each one offered interesting possibilities, but none was quite right.