<P> A myth persists that government officials on Ellis Island compelled immigrants to take new names against their wishes . In fact, no historical records bear this out . Immigration inspectors used the passenger lists given to them by the steamship companies to process each foreigner . These were the sole immigration records for entering the country and were prepared not by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration but by steamship companies such as the Cunard Line, the White Star Line, the North German Lloyd Line, the Hamburg - Amerika Line, the Italian Steam Navigation Company, the Red Star Line, the Holland America Line, and the Austro - American Line . The Americanization of many immigrant families' surnames was for the most part adopted by the family after the immigration process, or by the second or third generation of the family after some assimilation into American culture . However, many last names were altered slightly because of the disparity between English and other languages in the pronunciation of certain letters of the alphabet . </P> <P> The first immigrant to pass through Ellis Island was Annie Moore, a 17 - year - old girl from Cork, Ireland, who arrived on the ship Nevada on January 1, 1892 . She and her two brothers were coming to America to meet their parents, who had moved to New York two years prior . She received a greeting from officials and a $10 gold coin . It was the largest sum of money she had ever owned . </P> <P> The last person to pass through Ellis Island was Norwegian merchant seaman Arne Peterssen in 1954 . </P> <P> The wooden structure built in 1892 to house the immigration station burned down after five years . The station's new Main Building, which now houses the Immigration Museum, was opened in 1900 . Architects Edward Lippincott Tilton and William Alciphron Boring received a gold medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition for the building's design and constructed the building at a cost of $1.5 million . The architecture competition was the second under the Tarsney Act, which had permitted private architects rather than government architects in the Treasury Department's Office of the Supervising Architect to design federal buildings . </P>

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