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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
In addition to the large group of unskilled workers there are many professional and business people. The colony supports 15 churches, a Y.M.C.A., a Y.W.C.A., a special playground, a public library branch, and The Eagle, a weekly newspaper. They have three elementary schools, and hold positions in the city and county governments. By tacit understanding the Negroes frequent certain portions of the beach at certain hours.
At the Inlet in the northeastern end of the city are several basins and harbors where pleasure craft and the fishing fleet tie up. The city's fishing industry, third largest of the State with approximately 3,000,000 pounds shipped annually, predates the amusement business. Every afternoon at about 4:30 the fleet of some two-score 50-foot boats brings in the catch An even greater income, however, is obtained from the renting of boats and crew for pleasure fishing.
The history of Atlantic City is a fabulous success story of a city that I knew what it wanted to be from its very infancy. Before 1852, when construction of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad began, Atlantic City was an island waste 5 miles off the mainland and separated from it by a series of bays, sounds, and salt meadows. It was known as Absecon (Native American, place of swans) Island or Absecon Beach where, historians say, "The frequency of shipwrecks and the undisturbed isolation of the island must have made it an attractive spot for refugees from war or justice." One historian repeats a story "that in the cupola of the first church ... was stationed a look-out during the hour of service to acquaint the congregation of a vessel drifting in, in order that the Barnegat and Brigantine Beach people should not forestall them in reaching the scene of disaster and appropriating the best of what the waves would wash in."
Once the climate and beach of the Island were appraised, it was not long before a railroad from Camden was under construction. The railroad company assigned one of its engineers, Richard B. Osborne, to lay out the city. To the streets running across from the beach to the marshes he gave the names of the States; for those paralleling the beach he borrowed the names of seven seas: Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Baltic, Adriatic, Mediterranean, Caspian. Let Mr. Osborne give his own reasons: "Its proud name is for the nation; it has made her prominent, and will, every year of her existence, prove more and more appropriate as she reaches her manifest destiny-the first, most popular, most health-giving and most inviting watering-place ..."
The year 1854 was a crowded one. The city was incorporated March 3. At the first election 18 of the 21 voters pushed their ballots through the slot of a cigar box, fastened with tape. In the same year the first train arrived from Camden, bringing 600 passengers. Many dined at a still uncompleted hotel. Other hotels were soon being built.
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