Abandoned Places: Jails

Let's start with Alcatraz, a place I have never been even though I, basically, live right next door to it. I did try to go once, on a field trip with one of my kids, but the teacher failed to buy the correct number of passes for the ferry (which you have to purchase well in advance), so I got to stay behind. Anyway...

Meaning "Island of the Pelicans" in Spanish, the Native Americans believed it to be cursed and referred to it as the "Evil Island." Although best known as a prison, it started out as a military base. And, then, as a place to house Civil War prisoners. It is also the location of the first lighthouse built on the West Coast. The fortifications on the island officially became a prison in 1934, the final destination for prisoners that caused too much trouble in other federal prisons. Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary only operated for 29 years before it was shut down due to operating costs (more than three times the amount of other prisons) and the toxic environment caused by the sewage being released into San Francisco Bay at the time.

Photos courtesy of my wife (who did get to go on the ferry).

Other abandoned jails:

As an added bonus, here is an abandoned Japanese home:

Let's go for a walk... Part 8: The Ruins

It's been a while since we've been on a walk with my dog, so I figure it's about time to do that again, especially since I got sidetracked, last year, by A to Z and never told y'all about the ruins. Actually, I did mention them back in the post about Goblin Town, but I didn't go into too much detail.

This area was first settled by the Russians. They set up here in the early 1800's in order to hunt these guys:

The sea otter. The sea otter has the thickest fur of all other animals, so their pelts are very valuable. You know, more valuable than gold and all of that. [As a total aside, they were hunted to near extinction by 1900, at which point less than 1% of their estimated original population was left, as few as 1000 of them still in the wild (from a population that may have exceeded 300,000 in 1800). No, it wasn't just the Russians that did this, but they were (mostly) responsible for it in this area.]

What the Russians found here, though, was more than just sea otters. They found an area infested with goblins, goblins that also hunted otters but not to the extreme that humans did.

Initially, the Russians set up Fort Ross.

The fort was to defend against goblin attacks. They even joined forces with various Native American tribes to fight against the goblins that were being agitated by the swelling numbers of settlers.

Eventually, the Russian-American Company collaborated to build a stone fortress just down the creek from where I live. It must have been an impressive structure based upon the ruins that are still there. You can see the outline of how big the structure was in the remains of the foundation.

The goblins didn't take kindly to the building of a castle in the midst of their lands, so they mustered their various tribes for a large assault against the humans with the intention of driving them out of their lands. It was a terrible battle. Vicious. Bloody. The creek ran red with the blood of the fallen for weeks.

The humans lost. And the goblins tore down the castle, leaving no stone upon another.

But it came at a tremendous cost to the goblins. The survivors were forced to join together into one tribe just to survive. Retreating to their tunnels,

they have remained hidden through the years as the humans came back and completely overran lands that were once theirs.

However, of late, they have once again been growing bold and can often be seen crawling out of their tunnels at dusk to scavenge for food and other bits and pieces of things they find useful.