| Seaside Heights is one of the beach
communities on the Barnegat Peninsula. Its land area is about
a half square mile and it is located between Seaside Park to
the south and the Ortley Beach of Dover Township to the north.
In the early years of the 1900s, a land development
company envisioned Seaside Heights as a resort and promoted
it to Philadelphia area residents as an ideal location to
build summer homes. So that prospective buyers could see the
lots available (a 40-foot beachfront lot cost only $100.00)
as well as breathe the cool, refreshing ocean air, the development
company began running train excursions in 1909 and continued
them seasonally for several years.
In 1913, Seaside Heights was incorporated
as a borough formed from sections of Berkeley and Dover townships.
Investor and manufacturer Christian Hiering
played a key role in nourishing this newborn borough. In 1913,
Hiering started the Barnegat Power and Cold Storage Company
bringing electricity to Seaside Heights for the first time.
On December 1, 1915, the first toll bridge
was opened across Barnegat Bay, linking Seaside Heights with
Toms River and the mainland. The bridge was built by the Island
Heights and Seaside Heights Bridge Company at a cost of $153,477.90.
The tolls varied; a horse and buggy was 25¢ - with extra
persons an additional 10¢, a car and driver cost 40¢
- with additional persons an additional 15¢, horses,
cattle, pigs and sheep cost 10¢ each. Children under
5 were allowed to cross free of charge.
Now visitors had more convenient access without
having to take a boat or travel by train on the railroad bridge
built in 1881.
By this time, there were now two new hotels
in Seaside Heights: the Sheridan Inn and the Sumner Hotel.
The Seaside Heights Amusement Company announced plans to build
a theater and carousel along with billiard, pool and shuffleboard
rooms.
Before World War I, an amusement park opened
between Seaside Heights and Seaside Park. The two communities
were to share the benefits for the remainder of the 1900s.
So the seeds were planted that would flourish
into New Jersey's "Family Fun and Sun Resort," claiming
Seaside Heights as the greatest concentration of games and
amusement rides in the world!
But it took a lot of persistence. The first
three blocks of boardwalk took four years to build back in
1917. Four decades later, in 1955, a major boardwalk fire
destroyed a substantial number of amusements including the
original carousel that dated back to 1917. Today's 17-block,
mile-long boardwalk is enjoyed by the tens of thousands who
visit each week in season.
Strolling along the boardwalk was a success
from the beginning. It's reported that in 1917 the Pennsylvania
Railroad had to send a special 12-car train to get Philadelphia
visitors back home.
Today's day-trippers flood in from North
Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania via freeways and toll roads
all feeding into the $6 million Thomas A. Mathis Bridge, which
replaced the narrow wooden bridge back in 1950. The efforts
to get the new bridge were spearheaded by determined Seaside
Heights residents, including Joseph Stanley Tunney who served
the community as mayor for nearly 25 years. (It is for Tunney
that a second bridge, one that now carries visitors from the
shore back to the mainland, was named.)
It was also Tunney who led the fight for
boardwalk expansion back in the 1940s. He knew it was the
key to community growth. As a result of lengthening the boardwalk
along the entire oceanfront, new homes, hotels and motels
were built. Summer residents, renters and vacationers followed.
Fun-seeking visitors come from beyond the
metropolitan NY-NJ and Philadelphia areas to spend a day,
week or more enjoying the entertainment-filled boardwalk,
the amusement piers, water park and the spectrum of ocean
and bay swimming, boating, fishing, crabbing and other water
sports. And of course, the hand-held foods as well as the
fine restaurants. It's all centered in Seaside Heights. | 
HOME
