Paul Joseph Madigan (March 13, 1897 – December 25, 1974) was the third

warden A warden is a custodian, defender, or guardian. Warden is often used in the sense of a watchman or guardian, as in a prison warden. It can also refer to a chief or head official, as in the Warden of the Mint. ''Warden'' is etymologically identic ...

Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, also known simply as Alcatraz (, ''"the gannet"'') or The Rock was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States, the site of a for ...

, which was situated on

Alcatraz Island Alcatraz Island () is a small island in San Francisco Bay, offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military pris ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, US. He was born in

Maple Lake, Minnesota Maple Lake is a city in Wright County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 2,159 at the 2020 census. Minnesota State Highway 55 serves as a main route in the city. History Maple Lake was laid out in 1886, and named for its location i ...

in 1897. Madigan served as the warden of Alcatraz from 1955 to 1961. He had earlier served as the last Associate Warden during the term of

James A. Johnston James Aloysius Johnston (September 15, 1874 – September 7, 1954) was an American politician and prison warden who served as the first and longest-serving warden of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, serving from 1934 to 1948. He had earlier served ...

, the first Warden of Alcatraz. He has been cited as the only warden who had worked his way up from the bottom of the ranks of the prison staff hierarchy, having worked originally as a Correctional Officer on Alcatraz from the 1930s. On May 21, 1941, Madigan was important in quashing an escape attempt after being held hostage in the

Model Industries Building The Model Industries building or Industries Building is a three/four-story building on the northwest corner of Alcatraz Island off the coast of San Francisco, USA. This building was originally built by the U.S. military and was used as a laundry bu ...

, which later led to a promotion to associate warden. He was a stout, ruddy-faced, pipe-smoking, devout

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the British ...

. Unlike his predecessors, Madigan was known for being more lenient and softer in his approach to administering the prison and was better liked by the prison staff. During his term as warden from January 1955, there was a movement underway headed by the likes of James V. Bennett to close Alcatraz and replace it with a new centralized penitentiary. The decision was finalized in 1961, the year Madigan's term ended, and Alcatraz was closed two years later. In 1958-9 he was involved in a legal case against John Lee.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madigan, Paul American prison wardens Wardens of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary 1897 births 1974 deaths People from Maple Lake, Minnesota Catholics from Minnesota Catholics from California