Walker Lake Bulletin

WHERE IMMIGRANTS LAND.

Extensive Quarters Being Built on Ellis Island, New York.

Early next year the immigrant who arrives in New York Bay will make his first landing on free soil in one of a set of spacious buildings which are now in course of erection on Ellis Island, New York Bay. The new immigrant station, when completed, will consist of the large examination and office building, a restaurant, laundry and bath-house, a power-house and a hospital and a physician's house. All of these are to be fireproof. The government does not intend that the catastrophe which destroyed the old station on the night of June 15, 1897, and threatened the lives of between 200 and 300 immigrants, shall be repeated. No wood has been used in the construction of the main building except in the floors of the offices on the second story and in the trimmings.

The architects have adopted a color scheme in red brick, Indiana limestone and Maine granite. The design is picked out in the light stones and accentuated by the contrasting tints. The big building is further accentuated to the distant passer-by on the water by four towers. The exterior in some respects suggests an exhibition hall. Owing to the absence of any buildings not in harmony with it in dimensions and design, the eye does not convey to the mind an idea of its size. It covers one and one-half acres of ground and is 165x400 feet.

In order to provide greater isolation for the hospital and furnish a basin for the anchorage of the steamers used in transporting the immigrants, a new island, about three acres in extent, has been made southwest of the main island and parallel to it. The two are connected on the Jersey City side by a crib. The hospital is being built on the Jersey City end of this new rectangle of land. The physician's house is to stand on the southwestern extremity. The other buildings are on the main island, the restaurant, laundry and bathhouse adjoining the main building on the northwest end and the power-house occupying the north side of the island.

All of the buildings and the landing piers and ferry slip are to be connected with covered passageways, so that from the moment he lands on the island until he leaves it the immigrant is not once in the open air unless he is permitted to walk upon the broad promenade on the roof. There are no loopholes by which he may leave without the consent of the officials.

Ellis Island has been used as an immigration station since 1891. Shortly after Congress relieved New York State of the supervision of the European immigrants entering through this port a wooden building 750x250 feet was erected on Ellis Island as a station at an expense of between $500,000 and $600,000. It was opened on New Year's Day, 1891. On the night of June 15, 1897, the big nondescript building, described at the time as a veritable tinderbox, was burned to the ground, fortunately without the loss of a life. The immigration office was moved back to its original home in the barge office and preparations were made for the construction of a series of fireproof buildings to replace the old buildings. The cost of these is over $1,000,000.