Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1908-10-16
An Appreciation OF wildwood
Crest

I'M O1b va kALQ aChAhk WIN nAAA
the Stygian darkness which was upon
the face of the deep.n Harmony as
we know it, is a perfected and pleasant
blending of any number of sounds,
things or interests which may arise
from a purpose or condition. Mozart's
Twelfth Mass' or Wagner's ''Tanne-
hauser" are reputed the perfection of
musical harmony; Franklin's kite
flying is an harmonious exposition of
the theory of electricity; Baker Bro
Tiers utilization of elementary condi-
tons to mold out of the crude raw, the
perfect blend as 1t is represented in
Wildwood Crest, is a symphony in
modern resort building, the chromatic
chord of seaboard progress. Merely a
matter of two years and behold the
modern Athens of watering places, a
Venus sprung from the sea over night,
a new city with a rock foundation in
the world of finance, hemmed In with
a seawall and character of adamant,
and with a future and purpose as
roseate and lofty as the spires and
minarets of a Rome which gazed down
over two thousand refulgent years of
power, use and glory ! Dignity snatch
ed from the ocean and piled into SUBJ
stantial streets and buildings; this is
Wildwood Crest in trenchant, Hub
bardesque, American lingo. l saw the
| otto Of pNhn- plaza 1Nhat TcD r1o,. -
vas pristine; when the laughing tides
of the hollow of the Creators hand
rumbled In boisterous madness towards
it, and when its onrush was met by
the green-hashing sabres of the rank
and file of the meadow sedge, tossing
and glinting, clustered and swaying
in rythmatic unison like the sun-fash-
ing bayonets of Grants legiOns. l saw
the "City-That-W as-To-Be" when the
rugged and uncouth outer edge of
Holly Beach reached down to a dreary,
wind-bitlen winter waste awaiting the
vibrant touch of the master mind
which was even then bidding the in
animate burst forth spring-like, aud
arise like a visitation of the famed
lost Atlantis from out of the sea
And thus it was planned for the
Baker Brothers to come, see and con-
quer the tangled web hat bound old
Five Mile Beach into a glorious in
harmonious and riotious tumble, and
out of it assemble aud weld together
the innumerable sections which go to
make the complete and marvelou US
Twentieth century machinery of a
modern seashore resort.
The coming and seeing were COM
paratively easy; the conquering called
for the ultimate b0ne ana sfnew OF
executive minds of finance and per-
severance.
Truly a Herculean task which called
for hat stamp of men which could
battle and ~out-general the elements
which consorted against them.
In their minds eye these men saw
the vision of Wildwood twenty years
ahead of its actual carnival"
Over the stretches of time, as over
the rugged sand dunes of the beach,
they looked still further ahead and be-
held the enhancing apparition of the
Crest on the skyline of their ambition,
even as the mirage of the calm and
beautiful summer sea.
But who shall say which of the two
visions are lasting, the faint gentle
dissolution of the magic ships with a
ball of puffy clouds for a sail, or the
majestic reality of the Crest city with
its battlements and fair domiciles, TO
which even the gentlest summer
zephyr and the fiercest winter winds
only lend additional lustre and reality?
The Crest is founded on facts, and |
cannot easily drop from the beauty
and poetry of it all into the dry prose
of actual figures. Leave that for the
sturdy statistician and business man.
But theory is done with in having thus
outlined, with a tinge of sentiment,
the foregoing humble sketch of some
thing that is not without its beautiful
as well as its s%terner, practical side.
The line of demarcation where pro-
gress stepped in and poetry stepped
out in the annals of the beautiful Crest
is not entirely o~bliterated, as L know
from association, as well as from the
determined chins of my friends, the
Senator, as the good guide and eoun-
%sellor, the accomplished J. Thompson,
the orator and the seer and Latimer
r the persistent tireless man.
They have builded well and earnestly
and have set up on the golden sands
of Jersey a thing not only of beauty
but of perpetual joy.
The Creator tumbled the raw material