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NEW JERSEY
A Guide To Its Present And Past
Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of New Jersey
American Guide Series

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 2002

Tour 29C

South Dennis-Rio Grande-Wildwood; State S49.
South Dennis to Wildwood, 18.3 m.
Two-lane concrete roadbed.

Running southeast, the road skirts tidal marshes and travels through a sandy scrub-pine area. Signs of habitation are few except in the small farming and fishing villages. Numerous muskrat houses, rough piles of sticks' and mud in marshy ground, are easily seen in autumn when the screening growth of summer vegetation dies.

State S49 branches south fro State 49 (see Tour 29) at SOUTH DENNIS, 0 m. (115 alt., 310 pop.) (see Tour 29).

GOSHEN, 3.5 m. (10 alt.), is a center for surrounding farmers and fishermen. Most of its homes are small and weather-beaten.

South of Goshen there are fewer houses. Swampy woodlands (L) and salt marshes (R) draw closer. Farms are narrow strips beside the roads, and most farmers gain some income from the bay. Tidal streams and marshes penetrate the upland (L).

At 6.1 m. is the junction with a dirt road.

Right on this road is REED'S BEACH, 1 m. (5 alt.), a fishing center for amateurs, with a few summer cottages.

At 6.6 m. (R) is C.C.C. Camp MC-73. The letters stand for "mosquito control" ; the 300 youths here have been ditching and draining the marshes.

DIAS CREEK, 8.7 m. (15 alt., 126 pop.), is the site of an unusual industry-the king crab business. Locally called horseshoe crabs because of their shape, they are a survival of a distant geologic age. Near Dias Creek they are caught in large pounds or traps, brought to the shore, and boiled. The cooked meat is sold for chicken feed and the remnant is ground up for fertilizer. Originally known as Dyer's Creek, the community's name was changed many years ago when phonetic spelling was used in an application for a post office.

GREEN CREEK, 10.8 m. (15 alt.), serves summer guests. It is the gateway to several small vacation resorts on the bay shore. Southward the highway turns from the bay shore and enters farming country.

At 13 m. is the junction with a dirt road.

Right on this road is NUMMYTOWN, 0.6 m. (15 alt.). It bears the name of the last local chief of the Unalachtigo Indians, King Nummy, who sold the remaining 16 miles of land along the bay shore prior to 1700. The Indians then moved to the less desirable Atlantic shore. Nummy spent the rest of his days on an island at the mouth of Hereford Inlet, that is still called Nummy's Island. Opposite the junction in a field on the Locke farm 0.2 miles east of the road is (L) an unmarked INDIAN BURIAL GROUND. Bones are plowed up almost every spring; according to legend, King Nummy was buried here. A rude gravestone found years ago is in the museum at Cape May Coca House (see Tour 18), along with Indian implements and ornaments, most of them from Nummy's Island.

RIO GRANDE, 13.8 m. (20 alt., 375 pop.) (see Tour 18), is at a junction with US 9 (see Tour 18).

State S49 follows Rio Grande Ave. across the flat sand of Cape May and crosses the Intracoastal Waterway.

WILDWOOD, 18.3 m. (5 alt., 5,330 pop.), is a summer resort and port of call for the Atlantic fishing fleet. The shipments of cod, mackerel, and other fish are among the largest on the coast. Built around two small villages in 1912, the city shares a 5-mile ocean frontage with North Wildwood, West Wildwood, and Wildwood Crest, and embraces the business

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