McNeil Island is an island in Puget Sound, located just west of Steilacoom, Washington at 47°12'42" North, 122°41'14" West3. It was named in 1841 by the Wilkes Expedition after Captain William Henry McNeill of the Hudson's Bay Company, founder of Victoria, British Columbia. The Robert A. Inskip expedition of 1846 named the island Duntze, after Captain John A. Duntze of the Royal Navy, but it is the earlier name that stuck.
The United States government bought land on McNeil Island in 1870 and opened a prison for Washington Territory there in 1875. It became a federal penitentiary when Washington became a state in 1889. Its most famous inmate was probably Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz," who was held there from 1909 to 1912. By 1937 the federal government, which had been accumulating parcels adjacent to the penitentiary, had purchased all the land on the island and compelled its last residents to leave.
Washington state took over the penitentiary from the federal government in 1981. It is now called the McNeil Island Corrections Center. According to the state, it is the only facility in the U.S. to have been a territorial, federal, and state prison, and is the only prison left in North America that is only accessible by boat or air.
The Robert A. Inskip expedition of 1846 named the island Duntze, after Captain John A. Duntze of the Royal Navy, but it is the earlier name that stuck.
The United States government bought land on McNeilIsland in 1870 and opened a prison for Washington Territory there in 1875.
By 1937 the federal government, which had been accumulating parcels adjacent to the penitentiary, had purchased all the land on the island and compelled its last residents to leave.
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