San Quentin State Prison is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men located in unincorporated San Quentin, Marin County, California, United States. Opened in July 1852, it is the oldest prison in the state. California's only death row for male inmates, the largest in the United States, is located at the prison. It has a gas chamber, but since 1996, executions at the prison have been carried out by lethal injection. The prison has been featured on film, video, and television; is the subject of many books; has hosted concerts; and has housed many notorious inmates.

The correctional complex sits on Point San Quentin, which comprises 432 acres (175 ha) of desirable waterfront real estate overlooking the north side of San Francisco Bay. The prison complex itself occupies 275 acres (111 ha), valued in a 2001 study at between $129 million and $664 million.

The prison complex has its own ZIP code for mail sent to inmates, 94974; the ZIP code of the adjacent community of Point San Quentin Village is 94964. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay to the south and west and by Interstate 580 to the north and east, near the northern terminus of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

This is a list of U.S. State prisons (not including federal prisons or county jails in the United States or prisons in U.S. territories):

John R. "Johnny" Cash (February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003), was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Although he is primarily remembered as a country music icon, his songs and sound spanned many other genres including rockabilly and rock and roll—especially early in his career—as well as blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal led to Cash being inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Cash was known for his deep, distinctive bass-baritone voice; for the "boom-chicka-boom" sound of his Tennessee Three backing band; for his rebelliousness, coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor; for providing free concerts inside prison walls; and for his dark performance clothing, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black". He traditionally started his concerts by saying, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." and usually following it up with his standard "Folsom Prison Blues".

Scott Lee Peterson (born October 24, 1972) is an American murderer convicted of killing his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son in Modesto, California, in 2002. Peterson's arrest and subsequent trial received significant American news media coverage until 2005, when he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. He remains on death row in San Quentin State Prison while his case is on appeal to the Supreme Court of California. He maintains his innocence.

Peterson was born in San Diego, California, to Lee Arthur Peterson (born May 9, 1939) and his wife, the former Jacqueline Helen Latham (born September 16, 1943). Peterson's father worked for a trucking company, and later owned a crate-packaging business. His mother owned a boutique in La Jolla, California, called The Put On.

Peterson attended the University of San Diego High School (now Cathedral Catholic High School) and studied briefly at Arizona State University and Cuesta College before transferring to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he graduated with a B.A. in agricultural business in 1997. He worked in a San Luis Obispo cafe as a waiter while attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, when he met Laci Denise Rocha. The couple married in August 1997.

Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American systems theorist, architect, engineer, author, designer, inventor, and futurist.

Fuller published more than 30 books, inventing and popularizing terms such as "Spaceship Earth", ephemeralization, and synergetic. He also developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, the best known of which is the geodesic dome. Carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their resemblance to geodesic spheres.

Fuller was born on July 12, 1895, in Milton, Massachusetts, the son of Richard Buckminster Fuller and Caroline Wolcott Andrews, and also the grandnephew of the American Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller. He attended Froebelian Kindergarten. Spending much of his youth on Bear Island, in Penobscot Bay off the coast of Maine, he had trouble with geometry, being unable to understand the abstraction necessary to imagine that a chalk dot on the blackboard represented a mathematical point, or that an imperfectly drawn line with an arrow on the end was meant to stretch off to infinity. He often made items from materials he brought home from the woods, and sometimes made his own tools. He experimented with designing a new apparatus for human propulsion of small boats.