Alcatraz Island Lighthouse and passed suitable acts in the years 1851 and 1852 to build seven lighthouses on the West Coast to guide navigation. The Baltimore firm of Gibbons and Kelly was awarded the contract to build seven lighthouses in California, at Alcatraz Island, Fort Point, Point Pinos, Point Loma, Farallon Island, and Humboldt Bay, and one at Cape Disappointment in Washington State. Equipment were shipped on Oriole, reached San Francisco on January 29, 1853. The Alcatraz Lighthouse was the first to be completed in July 1853, making it the oldest major navigational light on the West Coast. However, the foundation for building
Alcatraz Gang strangers in our own country, and we didn't like a lot of what we saw". Many still have throbbing in joints from the rope torture and Coker's wife says, "In his sleep, he holds up 'the wall'". Coker also said, "If you're never tested, you don't know (what you can do)". Three of the ten out of eleven surviving "Alcatraz Gang" POWs including Stockdale (he was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1976), had died by November 2008. Denton died in 2014. The others keep in close touch. Alcatraz Gang The Alcatraz Gang was a group of eleven American prisoners