Auguste Bartholdi was chosen as sculptor and sent to America in 1871 to propose the monument to President Ulysses S. Grant and to choose a site. Bartholdi saw that New York Harbor, as a major entry point to America for immigrants, had the right symbolic value.
Liberty Island, one of a group of islands in New York Harbor near the mouth of the Hudson River, was the site chosen in 1877. It was then known as Bedloe's Island. Bedloe's Island flew the flags of Holland, England, and the United States; and for a brief time it was lent to the French Government to be used as an isolation station in 1793-96.
Lady Liberty was transported from France to America in 1885 and erected on the Island in the center of a star-shaped fort with eleven points. She now stands some 300 feet above the Harbor. Liberty Island is only 12 acres in size.
