In the 19th century, when the land of California offered a new paradise, the lost ways of its scoundrels and villains would find only torment in the prison near the Golden Gate.
It appears like a fortress... hateful... indispensable.... San Quentin, one of the most famous and notorious prisons in the world.
For over a century and a half this monument of concrete and steel has endured the worst of mankind.
Known as the Big House, The Joint and Q, San Quentin has also been touched by measured moments of sacrifice and courage and passed into legend.
Jack London wrote about its abuse and terror. Johnny Cash challenged its authority when he performed there.
Hollywood also played a role in shaping its reputation from Humprhey Bogart to Clint Eastwood.
The real San Quentin is the oldest prison in California. Located on more than four hundred acres, its history has been long and tortured, incarcerating thousands of assorted gangsters and felons, male and female alike.
Elizabeth Duncan was the last woman to be executed at San Quentin in the 20th century.
In the late 1960's cult leader Charles Manson was the mastermind behind a series of grisly Hollywood murders.
Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of killing presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy.
Civil War hero and gentleman bandit Black Bart was celebrated for robbing stagecoaches, then leaving his poetry.
Some of the wardens of San Quentin were benign. Some were not.
Martin Aguirre introduced the curse of the straight jacket. Clinton Duffy offered redemption in the darkness of the prison's soul.
Though its present day rhythms can appear mundane, even routine, San Quentin is never far from its savage past where rebellion, Death Row and the gas chamber live as common allies in this land of exile... Good and Evil.
