Which military department managed the statue after 1901?

The Department of War managed the Statue of Liberty after 1901.

Before that transfer, the United States Lighthouse Board administered the monument because its torch was intended to function as a navigational beacon. In practice, the light was weak and the statue proved ineffective as a lighthouse. President Theodore Roosevelt therefore ordered its transfer to the Department of War in 1901.

The Army Signal Corps maintained a presence on the island, and military police remained after the Signal Corps unit left in 1923. This period is sometimes confused with the statue’s later National Park Service administration. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt transferred the statue to the National Park Service, which still manages it as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument.

Another common mix-up concerns the island itself: it was called Bedloe’s Island until Congress officially renamed it Liberty Island in 1956. The statue was dedicated in 1886 and became a national monument in 1924.