Atlantic City

Atlantic City is a seaside resort city located in Atlantic County, New Jersey, situated on Absecon Island along the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., the city is a Jersey Shore destination that draws visitors from across the northeastern United States. Known for its casinos, nightlife, boardwalk, and beaches, the city is prominently known as the "Las Vegas of the East Coast" and inspired the U.S. version of the board game Monopoly, which uses various Atlantic City street names and destinations in the game. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,497. Atlantic City hosts over 27 million visitors a year, making it one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States.

Early History and Indigenous Peoples

Long before Atlantic City was founded, the island where it would be developed, thick with woods and lined with dunes, was the summer home of the Lenni Lenape Indians, an Algonquian-speaking people. These original summer residents named the island Absegami, meaning "little water," a term for the bay denoting that the opposite shore was in sight. Over time the name was transformed into the present-day Absecon Island.

Early colonial settlers in South Jersey largely ignored the island because it could only be reached by boat. While the exact date of the first permanent settlement has never been determined, it is generally agreed that Jeremiah Leeds was the first to build and occupy a year-round residence on the island, building his home in 1783. Jeremiah and his family were the first official residents of Atlantic City. Their home and farm was called Leeds Plantation, and Leeds grew corn and rye and raised cattle.

A year after Leeds's death in 1838, his second wife Millicent received a license to operate a tavern called Aunt Millie's Boarding House, located at Baltic and Massachusetts Avenue — the first business in Atlantic City. A descendant, Chalkey S. Leeds, born in Atlantic City in 1824, became the city's first mayor in 1854.

Dr. Jonathan Pitney, a prominent physician who lived in Absecon, felt that the island had much to offer and had ideas of making it a health resort, but access to the island had to be improved. Pitney, along with a civil engineer from Philadelphia, Richard Osborne, had the idea to bring the railroad to the island. In 1852, construction began on the Camden–Atlantic City Railroad. On July 5, 1854, the first train arrived from Camden after a grueling two-and-a-half hour trip, and the arrival of tourists began in earnest.

The city was incorporated on May 1, 1854, from portions of Egg Harbor Township and Galloway Township. Osborne has been given credit with naming the city, while his friend Dr. Pitney devised the plan for the names and placements of the city streets. Streets running parallel to the ocean would be named after the world's great bodies of water — Pacific, Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Arctic — while the streets running east to west would be named after the states.

The Rise of a Resort Town

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, beach resorts like Cape May and Newport, Rhode Island, steadily grew, catering to the affluent. Looking to capitalize on the emerging tourist trade, in 1854 a pair of Philadelphia developers pulled out a map and drew a straight line between the city and the shore, landing sixty-two miles away on a spot on the northern end of Absecon Island, which became Atlantic City.

By 1874, almost 500,000 passengers a year were coming to Atlantic City by rail. The city rapidly developed a full resort infrastructure. Its famous Boardwalk, initially 8 feet wide and 1 mile long, was built in 1870; it was later extended to a width of 60 feet and a length of 5 miles. In 1870, a conductor on the Atlantic City–Camden Railroad and a hotel owner petitioned the city council for $5,000 — half the city's 1870 tax revenue — to build an 8-foot-wide, one-mile-long boardwalk from the beach to the town. It was built to be removable, and was taken apart at the end of each season until it was replaced in 1880.

The Atlantic City Boardwalk became the first and longest boardwalk in the United States and the city's most iconic landmark. Other innovations enhancing the resort's reputation included the rolling chair in 1884, in which guests were wheeled about, the introduction from Germany of the picture postcard in 1895, and saltwater taffy. Amusement piers jutting from the Boardwalk into the ocean brought a carnival atmosphere with their vendors, shows, and exhibits.

The Absecon Lighthouse, first lit in 1857, stands 171 feet tall and is New Jersey's tallest lighthouse. It is also the only lighthouse in New Jersey with its original Fresnel Lens in place.

By 1930, Atlantic City reached its all-time population peak of 66,000 residents, and African Americans — mostly migrants from the South — made up a quarter of city residents, the largest proportion of any New Jersey city at the time. Beginning in the 1930s and continuing over the next three decades, Kentucky Avenue was renowned for its nightlife, with Club Harlem and other venues attracting the biggest stars from the world of jazz.

Built in 1929 to host Atlantic City's growing convention industry, Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall — originally Atlantic City Convention Hall — was celebrated as an architectural marvel with a 137-foot-high barrel vault ceiling. Boardwalk Hall hosted many historic moments, including the nation's first indoor college football game, the Miss America Pageant, Army Air Forces headquarters during World War II, the 1964 Democratic National Convention, and the country's first indoor helicopter flight. The venue was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

Prohibition, Political Machines, and World War II

The history of gambling in Atlantic City traces back to Prohibition and the 1920s, with racketeer Louis Kuehnle running an underground hotel and casino. Enoch "Nucky" Johnson followed and furthered Atlantic City's rise through the Roaring Twenties as a destination for drinking, gambling, and nightlife. The political machine that Johnson helped build became one of the most powerful in New Jersey history, and his story later inspired the HBO television series Boardwalk Empire.

The city hosted the 1964 Democratic National Convention, which nominated Lyndon Johnson for president and Hubert Humphrey as vice president. The convention and the press coverage it generated cast a harsh light on Atlantic City, which by then was in the midst of a long period of economic decline.

During World War II, the city offered much more than entertainment distractions, as it served as a training site for military recruits and a recovery and rehabilitation center for wounded soldiers. In the 1950s, as air travel to vacation spots in Florida and the Caribbean became more widely available, Atlantic City's popularity as a resort destination began to decline. By the 1960s, the city was beset with the economic and social problems common to many urban centers at the time. With an economy largely dependent on tourists who were now shunning the decaying resort, the city reached its nadir.

By the late 1960s, many of the resort's once great hotels were suffering from high vacancy rates. Most of them were either shut down, converted to cheap apartments, or converted to nursing home facilities by the end of the decade. Prior to and during the advent of legalized gambling, many of these hotels were demolished. The Breakers, The Chelsea, the Brighton, the Shelburne, the Mayflower, the Traymore, and the Marlborough-Blenheim were demolished in the 1970s and 1980s.

Casino Era and Economic Transformation

As tourism declined during the 1940s and 1950s and people were drawn to new destinations such as Las Vegas and Disneyland, local leaders sought new ways to bring people back to Atlantic City. The solution was to legalize gambling in competition with Las Vegas, then the only U.S. city to allow gambling.

In 1974, New Jersey voters voted 60%–40% against legalizing casino gambling at four sites statewide, but two years later approved by 56%–44% a new referendum that legalized casinos but restricted them to Atlantic City. Resorts Atlantic City was the first casino to open, in May 1978, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring Governor of New Jersey Brendan Byrne. Opened in 1978 as the first legal casino outside Nevada, it remains an Atlantic City icon.

By 1988, a dozen casinos were operating. Visitors in 1990 exceeded 30 million, and city tax ratables had increased dramatically. In 1976, when the casino referendum was approved by New Jersey voters, the city's real estate was valued at just over $316 million. By 1988, its value had risen to more than $6 billion.

For a time, casinos brought the languishing Boardwalk back to life, but by the second decade of the twenty-first century the city's fortunes had faltered again. In 2014, four casinos closed, all located on the Boardwalk. Atlantic City is considered the "Gambling Capital of the East Coast" and currently has nine large casinos.

More than $1.7 billion in investments in recent years has enhanced Atlantic City's appeal with casino resorts and hotels, big-name restaurants featuring famous chefs, unique attractions, headline entertainment, luxurious spas, championship golf, and elite shopping.

Landmarks, Culture, and Notable Firsts

Atlantic City has a remarkable record of American cultural firsts. Over the first half of the twentieth century, as Atlantic City grew fueled by mass tourism, it became an iconic place of firsts. It was one of the nation's first convention destinations, and Atlantic City locals also invented the Miss America Pageant and saltwater taffy.

From 1921 to 2004, Atlantic City hosted the Miss America pageant, which later returned to the city from 2013 to 2018. The Miss America Pageant began in 1921 to extend summer business for a week after Labor Day. The nationally televised pageant was a look-but-you-can't-touch event for people of color, until Vanessa Williams from New York changed that in 1983.

The Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker at Kennedy Plaza honors the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's fight for equality during the 1964 Democratic National Convention. This marker, the only one outside Mississippi, commemorates Atlantic City's place in the Civil Rights Movement and underscores its connection to a defining moment in American history.

On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall at the New Jersey shore, causing extensive damage; in Atlantic City, it destroyed large portions of the Boardwalk, severely eroded the beach, and inundated some four-fifths of the city.

In 2022, the CASA MAR project was announced, a $3 billion plan to redevelop the former Bader Field airport into a mixed-use complex that includes housing and employment opportunities. The city continues to look toward new development and economic diversification as it navigates its future as both a resort destination and a permanent community of nearly 40,000 residents.