Lethal Injection Chamber, San Quentin State Prison, California, United States

Although numerous towns and localities in the area are named for Roman Catholic saints, and "San Quintín" is Spanish for "Saint Quentin", the prison is not in fact named after the saint. The land on which it is situated, Point Quentin, is named after a Coast Miwok warrior named Quentín, fighting under Chief Marin, who was taken prisoner at that place.
In 1851, California's first prison opened; it was a 268-ton wooden ship named The Waban, anchored in San Francisco Bay and outfitted to hold 30 inmates. After a series of speculative land transactions and a legislative scandal, inmates who were housed on the Waban constructed San Quentin which "opened in 1852 with 68 inmates." A dungeon built at San Quentin in 1854 is thought to be California's oldest surviving public work.
The prison held both male and female inmates until 1932 when the original California Institution for Women prison at Tehachapi was built. In 1941 the first prison meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous took place at San Quentin; in commemoration of this, the 25-millionth copy of the A.A. "Big Book" was presented to Jill Brown, of San Quentin, at the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.