The name derives from Samuel Ellis, a Welshman who bought the island in 1774. In the 19th century, Ellis Island was the site of Fort Gibson and later became a naval magazine. The first inspection station opened in 1892 and was destroyed by fire in 1897. The second station opened in 1900 and housed facilities for medical quarantines and processing immigrants. After 1924, Ellis Island was used primarily as a detention center for migrants. During both World War I and World War II, its facilities were also used by the US military to detain prisoners of war. After the immigration station's closure, the buildings languished for several years until they were partially reopened in 1976. The main building and adjacent structures were completely renovated into a museum in 1990.
The 27.5-acre (11.1 ha) island was expanded by land reclamation between the late 1890s and the 1930s and, at one point, consisted of three islands numbered 1, 2, and 3. Jurisdictional disputes between the states of New Jersey and New York persisted until the 1998 U.S. Supreme Court ruling New Jersey v. New York. The Supreme Court ruled that, while most of the island is in New Jersey, a portion of the northern end is an exclave of New York. The northern half of Ellis Island comprises the former Island 1 and includes the main building, several ancillary structures, and the Wall of Honor. The hospital structures on the island's southern half occupy the former sites of islands 2 and 3, and there is a ferry building between Ellis Island's northern and southern halves. Historically, immigrants were subjected to medical and primary inspections, and they could be detained or deported. The island is commemorated through the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and it has received several federal, state, and municipal landmark designations.
First immigration station: The Army had unsuccessfully attempted to use Ellis Island "for the convalescence for immigrants" as early as 1847. Across New York Harbor, Castle Clinton had been used as an immigration station since 1855, processing more than eight million immigrants during that time. The individual states had their own varying immigration laws until 1875, but the federal government regarded Castle Clinton as having "varied charges of mismanagement, abuse of immigrants, and evasion of the laws", and as such, wanted it to be completely replaced. The federal government assumed control of immigration in early 1890 and commissioned a study to determine the best place for the new immigration station in New York Harbor. Among members of the United States Congress, there were disputes about whether to build the station on Ellis, Governors, or Liberty Islands. Initially, Liberty Island was selected as the site for the immigration station, but due to opposition for immigration stations on both Liberty and Governors Islands, the committee eventually decided to build the station on Ellis Island. Since Castle Clinton's lease was about to expire, Congress approved a bill to build an immigration station on Ellis Island.
On April 11, 1890, the federal government ordered the magazine at Ellis Island be torn down to make way for the U.S.'s first federal immigration station at the site. The Department of the Treasury, which was in charge of constructing federal buildings in the U.S., officially took control of the island that May 24. Congress initially allotted $75,000 (equivalent to $2,543,000 in 2023) to construct the station and later doubled that appropriation. While the building was under construction, the Barge Office at the Battery was used for immigrant processing. During construction, most of the old Battery Gibson buildings were demolished, and Ellis Island's land size was almost doubled to 6 acres (2.4 ha). The main structure was a two-story structure of Georgia Pine, which was described in Harper's Weekly as "a latterday watering place hotel" measuring 400 by 150 ft (122 by 46 m). Its outbuildings included a hospital, detention building, laundry building, and utility plant that were all made of wood. Some of the former stone magazine structures were reused for utilities and offices. Additionally, a ferry slip with breakwater was built to the south of Ellis Island. Following further expansion, the island measured 11 acres (4.5 ha) by the end of 1892.
The station opened on January 1, 1892, and its first immigrant was Annie Moore, a 17-year-old girl from Cork, Ireland, who was traveling with her two brothers to meet their parents in the U.S. On the first day, almost 700 immigrants passed over the docks. Over the next year, over 400,000 immigrants were processed at the station. The processing procedure included a series of medical and mental inspection lines, and through this process, some 1% of potential immigrants were deported. Additional building improvements took place throughout the mid-1890s, and Ellis Island was expanded to 14 acres (5.7 ha) by 1896. The last improvements, which entailed the installation of underwater telephone and telegraph cables to Governors Island, were completed in early June 1897. On June 15, 1897, the wooden structures on Ellis Island were razed in a fire of unknown origin. While there were no casualties, the wooden buildings had completely burned down after two hours, and all immigration records from 1855 had been destroyed. Over five years of operation, the station had processed 1.5 million immigrants.
Second immigration station: Following the fire, passenger arrivals were again processed at the Barge Office, which was soon unable to handle the large volume of immigrants.Within three days of the fire, the federal government made plans to build a new, fireproof immigration station. Legislation to rebuild the station was approved on June 30, 1897, and appropriations were made in mid-July. By September, the Treasury's Supervising Architect, James Knox Taylor, opened an architecture competition to rebuild the immigration station. The competition was the second to be conducted under the Tarsney Act of 1893, which had permitted private architects to design federal buildings, rather than government architects in the Supervising Architect's office. The contest rules specified that a "main building with annexes" and a "hospital building", both made of fireproof materials, should be part of each nomination. Furthermore, the buildings had to be able to host a daily average of 1,000 and maximum of 4,000 immigrants.
