The island was part of the territory of the
Steilacoom people, a
Coast Salish tribe. It was named in 1841 by
Charles Wilkes in honor of Captain
William Henry McNeill of the
Hudson's Bay Company, The
U.S. government bought land on McNeil Island in 1870 and opened a federal penitentiary there in 1875. The federal government accumulated parcels of land adjacent to the penitentiary, and by 1937, it had purchased all the land on the island and compelled its last residents to leave. The federal penitentiary's most famous inmates were probably Robert Stroud, the "
Birdman of Alcatraz", who was held there from 1909 to 1912;
Charles Manson, who before inspiring
Helter Skelter in killing
Sharon Tate and others in 1969, was an inmate from 1961 to 1966 for trying to cash a forged government check; and
Alvin Karpis, who was transferred to McNeil Island in 1962, from Alcatraz as a result of its impending closure, to complete his sentence. Karpis, who was labeled the FBI's
Public Enemy #1 at the time of his capture in 1936, was the point man for the that committed kidnappings and numerous bank robberies while operating throughout the Midwest in the early 1930s. Northwest bootlegger
Roy Olmstead was also an inmate for four years until his release on May 12, 1931. During
World War II, eighty-five Japanese Americans who had resisted the draft to protest their
wartime confinement, including civil rights activist
Gordon Hirabayashi, were sentenced to prison terms at McNeil; all were pardoned by President
Harry S. Truman in 1947. The state of Washington acquired the penitentiary from the federal government in 1981. It was called
McNeil Island Corrections Center (MICC) until 2011, when it became the
Special Commitment Center for violent sexual criminals. A post office called Bee was established in 1895 and remained in operation until 1919. Local
beekeeping operations caused the name to be selected. A post office called Gertrude was established on the island in 1900 and remained in operation until 1936. The community takes its name from nearby
Gertrude Island. A video posted to YouTube channel Vagrant Holiday in 2020 shows him exploring the island along with commentary.
McNeil Island Cemetery and Prison Land for the McNeil Island Cemetery was donated by island pioneers, Eric Nyberg and his wife Martha. The first of many burials was in October 1905. When the island's residents were forced to leave in 1936, the cemetery was closed; all remains were exhumed and reburied in cemeteries on the mainland. At the time of its closing, McNeil was the only prison left in
North America that was accessible only by boat or air. It remains the site of the state's primary
Special Commitment Center (SCC), where
sexually violent predators are indefinitely committed for treatment after completing their standard prison sentences. In addition to the main building that held the majority of inmates, an annex on the opposite side of the island housed low-risk inmates, and those who were scheduled for release. During the 1800s, it was once a military encampment as well as a military prison for a short time. At one point, the prison was almost self-sustaining in terms of agricultural products, including its dairy farm; all these elements were manned and operated by the inmates. McNeil was long threatened with closing due to the high cost of operating the prison; an announcement in late 2010 said the prison would close in 2011. The prison's remaining 500 low-risk inmates were integrated into other state prisons. The prison officially closed on April 1, 2011. ==Population==