For some time, this photo was on the NPS Alcatraz website labeled, “Alcatraz mess hall and kitchen with the Christmas menu, date unknown”. Brian Bechtel, an NPS interpretive volunteer at Alcatraz set out to figure out what year this Christmas dinner was served.
To many, this photo seems straight forward. A cage frames an individual in white, we wonder if he could be a prisoner, might not be. He doesn’t smile and seems to be preparing to hand out trays for food. There is sadness, whether prisoner or cook, because of being there on Christmas day. Above him, we get lost in reading the menu, and think “if I was there, would I like this meal”? Then most of us would have clicked to the next photo never realizing there was no date.
Brian points out that we all were missing an important detail. He explained, “when looking at the chalk writing above and to the right of the cook in the cage you can see someone has written a score. It reads ‘Browns 30-28’”.
With this knowledge, he found a website with old Cleveland Browns football scores. While looking at this historical record of games played, he realized that only one game fit: Sunday, December 24, 1950, an NFL championship game against the Los Angeles Rams. The final score was Browns 30 and Rams 28.
Therefore, Brian was able to date this photo of Christmas Dinner in the Alcatraz mess hall to December 25th, 1950. The scanned image on the NPS website was updated with this new information showing that there is almost always a new way to look at a piece of history, further details to discover, and more information to share.