German POWs were also held on the island, supplanting the immigration needs which were curtailed during the war years.
The army decommissioned the island in 1946, but returned to the southern point in the 1950s when a Nike missile base was constructed. However, this was decommissioned as obsolete in 1962.
Immigration station
From 1910 to 1940, the Angel Island Immigration Station processed approximately 1 million Asian immigrants entering into the US, leading to it sometimes being referred to as "The Ellis Island of the West". Due to the restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, many immigrants spent years on the island, waiting for entry. A fire destroyed the administration building in 1940, and subsequent immigration processing took place in San Francisco.
In 1962, the Chinese American community successfully lobbied the State of California to designate the immigration station as a State Landmark. Today, the Angel Island Immigration Station is a federally designated National Historic Landmark. It was renovated by the California State Parks,with a re-opening February 16, 2009.
In 1938, hearings concerning charges of membership in a proscribed political party against labor leader Harry Bridges were held on Angel Island before Dean James Landis of Harvard Law School. After eleven weeks of testimony that filled nearly 8,000 pages, Landis found in favor of Bridges. The decision was accepted by the United States Department of Labor and Bridges was freed.
In 1954, the State Park Commission authorized California State Parks to purchase 37 acres (15 ha) around Ayala Cove, marking the birth of Angel Island State Park. Additional acreage was purchased four years later, in 1958. The last federal Department of Defense personnel withdrew in 1962, turning over the entire island as a state park in December of the same year.
There is one active United States Coast Guard lighthouse on the island at Point Blunt. The
