The Statue of Liberty was declared a National Monument in 1924. President Calvin Coolidge used authority under the Antiquities Act to place the statue under that federal protective designation.
The designation came 38 years after the statue’s dedication on October 28, 1886. At the time, the statue stood on Bedloe’s Island, the name later changed by Congress to Liberty Island in 1956. The national-monument designation recognized the site’s historic and symbolic importance.
A common mix-up is 1965. That was the year President Lyndon B. Johnson added Ellis Island to the Statue of Liberty National Monument; it was not the year the statue itself first received national-monument status. Another later milestone came in 1984, when UNESCO designated the Statue of Liberty a World Heritage Site.
The National Park Service has managed the monument since 1933. Today, the national-monument complex includes Liberty Island and Ellis Island, although the statue and its museum are located on Liberty Island.