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
Legends of Alcatraz occurred in the area that Henri Young had murdered Rufus McCain, stabbing him in the neck. Despite former guards and park rangers revealing their paranormal experiences at Alcatraz, officials for Alcatraz have publicly dismissed the reports of ghosts at Alcatraz as nonsense and deny their existence; an official for Alcatraz said in 1994, "These ridiculous ghost stories will stop tourists from visiting. And how can these people say they heard canaries? We don't have any birds in here." Mary Forgione of the "Los Angeles Times" also stated that "The National Park Service, which operates the island as a tourist site,