New Jersey Facts: Little known fun truths about NJ

Barnegat Lighthouse

This collection of New Jersey facts is about the amazing events that have changed the world we live in.

Some of the facts include where the first college football game was played, why New Jersey is called the "Garden State", and what are the many inventions that have occurred in New Jersey that have changed the world. .

Did you know that......

New Jersey with over 300 miles of coastline and riverfront is a peninsula.

The highest elevation along the entire eastern coast from Maine to Florida is in Highlands, NJ.

The highest point in New Jersey is 1,497 feet in High Point, NJ

New Jersey with 7,420 square miles ranks 46th in land area in the U.S.

Native Americans first inhabited the New Jersey area about 15,000 years ago. That's long before Columbus ever set out to find the New World.

New Jersey was also home to the first Native American reservation in Evesham Township, which was created in 1758 and sold to the state by the inhabitants in 1801.

Between 1611 and 1614, part of New Jersey was known as New Netherlands. The three Dutchmen who first surveyed it named it after their homeland.

In 1638, part of New Jersey became New Sweden, when it was settled by Swedes.

When New Jersey did get its current name, it was named for Jersey Island, off the coast of the United Kingdom.

Newark, established in 1666, is the nation's third-oldest city, behind only New York and Boston.

New Jersey was the 3rd state to enter the union on December 18, 1787.

New Jersey has more racehorses than Kentucky.

More Cubans live in Union City, NJ (1 sq. mi.) than in Havana, Cuba.

New Jersey has the most diners in the world and is sometimes referred to as the "Diner Capital of the World."

North Jersey has the most densely placed shopping malls in the world, with seven major shopping malls in reach of 25 miles.

The most populated zip code is 08701, Lakewood, NJ with a 93, 320. The least populated zip code is 08556, Rosemount, NJ with 13 inhabitants.

New Jersey is home to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The Passaic River in Paterson was the site of the first submarine ride in 1878 by its inventor John P. Holland.

New Jersey has over 50 resort cities & towns. The most popular are Asbury Park, Atlantic City, Long Branch, Ocean City, Point Pleasant, Seaside Heights, Long Beach Island, Wildwood, and Cape May.

New Jersey is a leading industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation when you include pharmaceuticals.

The Lambert Castle Museum in Paterson has a spoon exhibit with over 5,400 spoons from every state and almost every country in the world.

In 1937, Manchester, New Jersey was the site of the Hindenburg tragedy, when the airship suddenly caught fire.

and did you know that......

New Jersey known as the "Garden State" is a leading grower of produce. In the United States, New Jersey ranks 5th in blueberry production, 3rd in cranberry production, 3rd in spinach, 3rd in bell peppers, and 4th in peach production.

Jersey tomatoes are known the world over as being the tastiest you can buy.

In 1642, the first brewery in America opened in Hoboken.

Vineland, NJ was once a Temperance Town, where the sale of alcohol was prohibited, and later discovered soil was well-suited for growing grapes (hence the name)? This is where Thomas Bramwell Welch founded Welch's Grape Juice, after having acquired land and purchased locally grown grapes to make "unfermented wine" (or grape juice).

The first solid body electric guitar was invented by Les Paul in Mahwah in 1940.

The world's largest kite festival in the world is held annually in Wildwood, NJ.

George Washington slept here. He also led several key Revolutionary War battles in New Jersey.

During the Revolutionary war, New Jersey was the site of more than 100 battles, and it became known as the Crossroads of the Revolution.

The light bulb, the motion picture projector, and the phonograph -record player was invented by Thomas Edison in Menlo Park, NJ.

The transistor was invented in Murray Hill, NJ at Bell Laboratories.

Bell Lab engineers in Holmdel, NJ were the first to detect the background radiation of the Big Bang.

The first seaplane was built in Keyport, NJ.

The first airmail (to Chicago) was started from Keyport, NJ in 1927.

The Jersey Shore became a major attraction in the 1920s, around the same time the state became the first to ratify prohibition. Bootlegging and gangsters seen in shows like Boardwalk Empire are based on fact from the era!

The game Monopoly, played all over the world, named the streets on their playing board after the actual streets in Atlantic City.

The Atlantic City boardwalk isn't only the longest in the world (at six miles), but it's also the oldest, having been constructed in 1870. It was originally built to keep sand from being tracked into beachfront buildings.

Saltwater taffy, that chewy, stringy candy delight, was invented on the Atlantic City boardwalk in the 1880s.

Cape May is the oldest seashore resort city in the United States and was declared a National Historic Landmark City in 1976. It is named for the Dutch sea captain Cornelius Jacobsen Mey.

The Sandy Hook, NJ Lighthouse is the oldest (1764) existing lighthouse in America. It was never rebuilt and is still in operation.

Union, NJ has the tallest water-tower in the world.

New Jersey is the only state where all its counties are classified as metropolitan areas.

New Jersey had the first Medical Center, in Jersey City.

The first sky-highway in the world, The Pulaski Sky Way, from Jersey City to Newark, was built in New Jersey.

Even though New Jersey is one of the smallest states in the Union, it has five distinct climate regions – Northern, Central, Pine Barrens, Southwest, and Coastal.

More than two-fifths of the land in New Jersey is forested. The state has 28 state parks and 11 state forests.

The Holland Tunnel, which connects New York with New Jersey and plunges to depths of up to 93 feet below the Hudson River, was opened in 1927 and became the world's first mechanically ventilated underwater tunnel!

The first professional baseball game was played in Hoboken in 1846.

The first college football game (Princeton and Rutgers) was played in New Brunswick in 1889.

The first Drive-in Movie theater was opened in Camden, NJ.

The first traffic circle built was in Camden County in 1925. by 1996 only thirty of the original 67 circles remained.

New Jersey is home to both of the New York pro Football Teams! The Jets and the Giants!

The first radio station and broadcast were in Paterson, NJ.

In 1858, in Haddonfield, New Jersey, William Parker Foulke unearthed the first complete dinosaur skeleton found in North America. In 1868, Hadrosaurus Foulkii (which had already proven that dinosaurs were real and could be bipedal) was also the first to be mounted for public display.

During the Great Depression which hit New Jersey in 1933, the state issued begging licenses to destitute residents!

The Cohansey Aqua filter in the Pine Barrens contains 17 trillion gallons of water or enough to cover new Jersey with 10 feet of water.

Charles A. Lindbergh, also known as The Lindbergh Baby, was abducted around this time from his home in Hopewell, New Jersey.

Some well-known people attended Princeton University, including Aaron Burr, David Duchovny, Donald Rumsfeld, Charles Schwab, Brooke Shields, Michelle Obama, and Woodrow Wilson.

The huge rock jutting out on Goat Hill overlooking Lambertville and New Hope is called Washington's Rock. It was used as a lookout spot a few weeks before Washington's Christmas night crossing of the Delaware.

Bradley Beach, NJ was the first location in the United States to charge sea bathers for beach access when it began minting its own tin badges starting in 1929.

NJ played a key role in the Underground Railroad helping slaves escape during the mid-19th century. Crossing over Delaware Bay to NJ, they were aided by the Lenape Native Americans who lead them on foot from Cumberland County to Cape May County through swamps and bogs to avoid slave catchers.

In Salem County, N.J. adjoining Pennsville, a small chunk of land that abuts the Delaware River, known as Killcohook, is in the state of Delaware. Technically, if a crime were to be committed in Killcohook, authorities in Delaware would have to be notified. With nothing but grass and sand dunes, kids have been enjoying this section of land for drinking beer and running dirt bikes, without any body bothering them.