Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1909-01-29
TRANSFERRING WILD
LAND INTO A BOROUGH
What the Founders of Wildwood
Have Done for Five Mile
Beach In a few Short
Years. Great Increase
In Real Estate
Values
MANY NEW BUILDINGS BEING ERECTED

Hardly as great and beneficial a
change has been made in equal area in
this Country as has been wrought on
this island since Baker Brothers, Foun-
ders of Wildwood and Wildwood
Crest, came here. 1t was then a will
derness, a jungle, penetrated only by
wild animals and visited by a few fish
ermen and woodmen. Its great fea-
lures were its incom parable ocean beach,
the profusion and variety of its wild
flowers and the extent and size of its
forests of cedar, holly, oak and pine
trees. 1t had not felt the hand of man
and was a thrilling panorama of the
spontaneous productions of a semi
tropical cline. 1t was beautiful; it was
glorious, but in this utilitarian age it
seemed reasonable and obligatory to
conform it to to the uses of man. Geo
graphically located within easy access
by ten millions of people, the contribu-
ton it could make to health and pleas
ure if converted to habitation was
manifest.
The transformation of the wilderness
into a place of human residence has
gone on so rapidly that where there
was then a trackless jungle, today are
fifty miles of graded and gravelled, or
macadamized, streets and avenues
with cement curbs and pavements on
each side of them, and underlaid with
free sewers, pipes for distribution of
,artesian water to every building, gas
mains, electric light and power lines
and underground telephone system,
over three miles of boardwalk along the
most delightful of bathing beaches,
thousands of handsome, commodious,
moderp dwelling houses, nine churches,
three 4saded schools. approYed high
school, Suited States light house and
two life saving stations, four efficient
fire companies, National bank, three
newspapers, three broad and deep
canals, three yacht clubs, auto garages,
department stores, two ice plants, three
ocean piers, skating Kinks, moving PIC
ture halls, five fishing clubs, three gun
clubs, Masons, Jr. o. U. A. NJ, Red
Men, Daughters OF Pocahontas, Shep-
herds of Bethlehem, and other secret
societies, deep sea and sound fishing
and grabbing, sailing and cunning on
lakes and sounds, beautiful groves and
parks, three hundred hotels and board
ing houses, electric trolley line from
end to end of the island, auto race
course, boat lines to Cape May and At
lantie City, many trains daily from
Philadelphia, thousands of permanent
residents and hundreds of thousands of
annual visitors seeking health and
pleasure. The value of the landed area
has been multiplied a thousand fold.
The pace of modern progress and the
prompt response to the demand for
modern facilities are wildly illustrated
by the mere recitation of what has been
done here in the few years since the
founders began the work of develop
ment. There are good reasons for the
doing SO quickly what has been done
so well; and those same reasons make
it certain that what has been done here
is only the beginning of what will be
done on a much greater and progressive
scale. The capacity of this island for
the entertainment of the pleasure seeker
and the healing of the afflicted is not
yet even suspected, let alone employed.
The good fortune of Five Mile Beach
next to it's natural advantages, lies in
thebroad conceptions and liberal policy
of those who planned its conversion
from a waste where few could enjoy its
solitude and IMMIGRATION, into a city of
homes by the sea where many thous-
ands can breathe the saline atmosphere,
revel in the delights of the ocean surf
and yet have all the domestic comforts
and conveniences attainable in the old
est community.
The sure gauge of a great and rapid
development was set and fixed for this
island when it became known as a fact
that the men who added their ability,
their toll and their substance to the in
-calculable natural advantages of Five
Mile Beach, in the great work, invited
all to invest on a basis upon which
every n would be benefited by the
certain incease in the value of all prop
erty.
The strength and happiness ola COM
munity are assured when all are doing
well. Progress and facilities are the
watch words which have led the people
of Five Mile Beach in the wonders they