When Robert Stroud murdered local bartender F.K. "Charlie" Von Dahmer in Juneau in 1909 over the love of a local prostitute, not even he could foresee a future that would make him prison history's most famous "birdman."

After Kittie O'Brien claimed Dahmer struck her in the face, Stroud shot him, pleaded guilty, and was sent to prison in Washington state. He was transferred to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, where he discovered a nest of three baby sparrows in the exercise yard. His careful study of these birds and many more throughout the remainder of his time in Leavenworth earned him the "Birdman" moniker. He was later sent to Alcatraz, where he could no longer keep birds, but he did keep his nickname.

Stroud died in 1963 in a minimum-security prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, never seeing the movie that made him famous - "The Birdman of Alcatraz."

Juneau's days of gunfights and prostitution are gone, but its place in the Birdman of Alcatraz' history remains.

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