Alcatraz Citadel island and replaced the lower prison, with a capacity of 307 inmates. Alcatraz was renamed as the "Pacific Branch, U.S. Military Prison” in 1907, and as the importance of the Island citadel became less and less obvious due to modernization of the naval facilities, infantry soldiers were shifted and prison guards brought in their place. It developed a reputation for its brutal methods of torturing prisoners, placing prisoners in pitch black cells for up two weeks. Alcatraz was barely affected by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake which devastated the city, and the prison population dramatically increased as prisoners were temporarily
Alcatraz Library Federal Bureau of Prisons booklet in 1960: "These men read more serious literature than does the ordinary person in the community. Philosophers such as Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, etc. are especially popular." Other authors include Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, Washington Irving, Zane Grey, Hamilton Garland, Alexandre Dumas, Daniel Defoe, Joseph Conrad, Cervantes and magazines such as "Adventure to Time", "Better Homes and Gardens" and "Library Digest". A law library was later added to A-Block. A library scene in Alcatraz appeared in the 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from Alcatraz" in which Eastwood's character of Frank Morris converses with another inmate. Alcatraz