Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 38 JERSEY SHORE HISTORY POINT PLEASANT CANAL AND MANASQUAN INLET, continued from page 37 small appropriations each year and costs climbed. The stop-and-go nature of the funding resulted in new bidding and frequently changing contractors. The LeChard Dredging Company of Point Pleasant took over the project for a while. The original Route 88 Bridge, the first to cross the Canal, was con- structed while it was still dry. There are varying accounts of exactly when the Canal became navigable in 1926, but a climactic moment came at 3:15 PM on December 15, 1925 when a scoop dredge lifted a shovel full of dirt and allowed the waters of the Manasquan River and Barnegat Bay to intermingle. A second crossing, the Lovelandtown Bridge, was built in 1929 at Bridge Avenue, several years after the opening. Problems and Controversies The Point Pleasant Canal has always been a source of controversy, problems, or ambivalent emotions. Citing the fact that the waterway is entirely within Point Pleasant Borough's boundaries, and wanting to be more closely identified with the Canal, Point Pleasant officials in 1964 successfully petitioned Congress to change the name from the Bay Head - Manasquan Canal to the Point Pleasant Canal. The town's slogan became "Home of the Canal." In the 1990s, some town officials, who wanted to show there was more to the town than just a ditch dividing the community in half, made an unsuccessful proposal to find a new slogan for Point Pleasant. The old slogan is rarely used today. The first Canal debate involved the nature of upper Barnegat Bay and the Metedeconk River, which would change from a fresh water to salt water environment if the waterway were dug. Many residents of that upper bay area opposed its building because the intrusion of salt water would bring tides and currents to the still waters and destroy bass, courtesy of the Point Pleasant Historical Society courtesy of the Point Pleasant Historical Society Heading north through the Point Pleasant Canal under the original Route 88 drawbridge. This vintage Tichnor Brothers postcard was produced sometime between 1930 and 1945. A parade of boats head north out of Bay Head in the new Point Pleasant Canal, circa 1930. The banks of the Canal had yet to be bulkheaded.

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