{"id":393,"date":"2010-05-10T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T18:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/?p=393"},"modified":"2010-08-16T09:41:29","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T14:41:29","slug":"ellis-island-eleven-fascinating-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/393\/ellis-island-eleven-fascinating-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellis Island: Eleven Fascinating Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"147322a129097e1fa44d6732c925fd6d\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-8134560547846945\";\r\n\/* 468x60 tha *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"1487607395\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"body\">\n<p>Ellis Island is famous as that little island off of New York City  where immigrants to the United States were processed. It has a very  interesting and rather unique history.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the Revolutionary  War, the island had many different names &#8211; including Kioshk (Gull)  Island, Oyster Island, Dyre&#8217;s Island and Bucking Island. And after a  group of pirates were hung on the island, it became known as Gigget  Island.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Shortly before the Revolutionary War, the island was  acquired by Samuel Ellis, a New York merchant. He ran a small tavern on  the island to cater to all the folks &#8211; primarily fishermen &#8211; who made  their living on the waters in and around the island. In 1808, the heirs  of Samuel Ellis sold the island to New York State. New York State sold  it to the federal government later that year. Through these transfers  and up to the present, it has maintained the name Ellis Island.<\/p>\n<p>As  an interesting bit of lore, Ellis Island (and Liberty Island &#8211; which  was formerly known as Bedloe&#8217;s Island) resided on the New Jersey side of  the shipping lanes in the 1800s and it took an interstate agreement  forged in 1834 to get them formally declared as part of New York State.<\/p>\n<p>From  the mid 1800s until 1890, Ellis Island was used as a military arsenal.  But in 1890, the United States Congress allocated $75,000 to build the  first Federal Immigration station on Ellis Island. (Prior to this, all  immigration was handled by the individual states.) While Ellis Island&#8217;s  immigration station was being built, the island was also growing  physically. All the waste from building New York City subway tunnels was  dumped at Ellis Island, growing it from its original three acres to six  acres in size.<\/p>\n<p>The Ellis Island Immigration Station was  officially opened on January 1, 1892. The first immigrant to pass  through the gates of Ellis Island was Annie Moore, a 15 year old from  Cork County, Ireland. In fact that first day, 700 immigrants were  processed and in its first year, it processed almost 450,000 immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>On  June 15, 1897 disaster struck and the wood constructed Immigration  Station burned down. Fortunately no one died but millions of immigration  records were destroyed as the records room became engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n<p>The  Station reopened on December 17, 1900. This new station was built with  red brick and limestone for a cost of $1.5 million and was built to be  fireproof. In rebuilding it, they built it larger than before so that it  could handle a volume of 5,000 new immigrants every day &#8211; an amount  that was highly stressed during the immigration surge prior to World War  I. In fact, in 1907, Ellis Island handled a record number of immigrants  &#8211; a record that stands for all time. It processed 1,004,756 immigrants &#8211;  with its peak day record being 11,747 immigrants on April 17, 1907.<\/p>\n<p>During  World War I, Ellis Island became a dual purpose location. Since  immigration was severely curtailed during the war, much of the facility  was used by the Army and Navy as a way station and a facility to take  care of sick American servicemen. Once the war was over, immigration  again rapidly ramped up and by 1921, 560,971 immigrants passed through  its doors &#8211; as compared to a low of 28,867 in 1918.<\/p>\n<p>1921 also was  the year that spelled the death knell for Ellis Island. That was the  year that the United States Congress passed the first of several  Immigration Quota laws that severely restricted the number of immigrants  allowed entry into the United States. By 1924, Ellis Island went from  being the place where immigrants were welcomed to America to the place  where illegal immigrants were held until they could be deported back to  their home countries.After being used as a holding center for illegal  immigrants and various detention and service activities during World War  II, Ellis Island was eventually decommissioned from all use in November  of 1954.<\/p>\n<p>In 1976, it was opened for tours under the auspices of  the National Park Service and on September 10, 1990, the Ellis Island  Immigration Museum opened. To date, over 20 million people have visited  and toured the exhibits &#8211; almost as many as the estimated 25 million  immigrants who passed through its doors from 1892 to 1924.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"sig\">\n<p>The story of Ellis Island is quite fascinating and is explored  in great detail in the award winning DVD <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/products\/a715.html\">Island of  Hope &#8211; Island of Tears<\/a>. Directed  by Charles Guggenheim, it won several major awards, including:<\/p>\n<p>CINE  &#8211; Golden Eagle Award 1990<br \/>\nColumbus International Film and Video  Festival &#8211; Chris Award 1990<br \/>\nEarthwatch Institute Film Award &#8211; 1991<br \/>\nNational Educational Film &amp; Video Festival &#8211; Bronze Apple 1991<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehistoricalarchive.com%2Fhappenings%2F393%2Fellis-island-eleven-fascinating-facts%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px;margin-top:5px;\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ellis Island is famous as that little island off of New York City where immigrants to the United States were processed. It has a very interesting and rather unique history. Prior to the Revolutionary War, the island had many different names &#8211; including Kioshk (Gull) Island, Oyster Island, Dyre&#8217;s Island and Bucking Island. And after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}