Ellis Island Immigration Center - 1892 to 1954: At New York Harbor, steamships first docked in Manhattan. There the first-class and cabin-class passengers got off the ship. The immigrants in steerage waited. Then a ferryboat tied alongside and the immigrants climbed aboard. Their next stop was Ellis Island. Ellis Island was about one mile south of Manhattan. It was once used by early Dutch settlers as a picnic ground. Immigrants used to come through a center called Castle Garden at the tip of Manhattan. But after 1885, when the stream of immigrants was becoming a flood, the federal government decided to build a new center. Ellis Island opened in 1892. Before its doors were closed in 1954, more than 16 million people passed through its great hall. Many of the new immigrants found Ellis Island more frightening than the ocean crossing. One NY journalist described the first day at Ellis Island. "The day of the immigrants' arrival in New York was the nearest earthly likeness to the final day of judgment, when we have to prove our fitness to enter Heaven." When the ferryboat docked at the island, the immigrants were herded off the boat and into one of the red brick buildings. Guards shouted for the immigrants to hurry, hurry. The center at Ellis Island was built to handle 5,000 people daily. During the high tide of immigration more than twice that number passed through the main hall each day. Guards tied large tags to the immigrants' coats. Each tag had a number on it. At the end of a long hallway, these numbers were shouted out in Italian, Yiddish, Greek, Croatian, Polish, German, and other languages. After much pushing and shouting, the newcomers were separated into groups of 30. Then the bewildered immigrant were taken to the Registry Room. It was the largest room many of them had ever seen. A maze of aisles crisscrossed the room. Long lines of people stood in these aisles waiting to be examined by doctors or questioned by immigration officers. The noise inside was a din of shouts, curses, and crying children. First came the doctors. Children over the age of two were made to walk to see if they had a limp. People were checked carefully by doctors. Each doctor held a piece of chalk. If a doctor suspected a heart problem, he would write a giant "H" on the immigrant's coat. That immigrant would then be sent to another room to wait for a more thorough exam. Other letters were chalked onto coats. "F" meant facial rash. "Sc" meant scalp infectoin. "K" meant hernia. The most dreaded letter of all was "X." That meant mental problems, and people marked with an "X" were usually sent right back where they came from. After the doctors came the questions of an immigration officer. "What kind of work do you do? Can you read and write? How much money do you have? Have you ever been in prison?" Immigration laws were confusing, and they kept changing. For example, new immigrants were told by relatives who had already been through Ellis Island to say "no" when asked if they had a job waiting. "But wouldn't it sound better if I said I had a job in the United States," the immigrant wondered. The answer was no. Having a job before entering the country broke the 1885 contract labor law passed by Congress. About one in six immigrants were kept at Ellis Island for medical or other reasons. Those held were given hearings and further medical examinations. They could remain on the island for as long as four days. Most would finally be allowed to continue, but about 2% of the people were sent back to Europe. Those who were detained on the island were given simple but filling meals, such as soup or a thick stew. -- Excerpt, "Cornerstones of Freedom, The Story of Ellis Island," R. C. Stein