Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 40 Disaster Reversed in 1931 Starting in 1930, a year-long effort began to reopen the Inlet. The Army Corps of Engineers put up two tempo- rary piers and began building jetties. The corps also constructed a tempo- rary wooden bridge across the sands to truck in boulders and equipment. The rocks for the jetties came from excavation for the Second Avenue sub- way in Manhattan and were shipped two at a time on flatbed railroad cars to Sea Girt and trucked to the Inlet. The project reached its climax on a snowy February 10, 1931 when a large crowd gathered to see the last scoops of sand lifted by a power shovel as the waters of the Manasquan River again merged with the sea. Dredging and other work continued well into the summer. The project cost an impressive $600,000 in 1930-31. The commu- nities of Point Pleasant Beach, Point Pleasant, Brielle, and Manasquan as well as Ocean and Monmouth Counties each contributed $25,000. The state matched the money and the federal government matched that total. On August 29, 1931 the area cel- ebrated the reopening of the Inlet with a water parade. With New Jersey Governor Morgan F. Larson as the guest of honor, boats from all over sailed together from the Bay Head Yacht Club through the Canal and Inlet and back. Thousands watched along the banks. The Inlet's reopening returned tidal currents to the Canal, bringing back the erosion, shoaling, and bridge undermining problems. In 1935, Federal officials began building wood- en bulkheads along the Canal to end the erosion, a task that took until 1947 to finish. Around 1960, the bulkheads themselves began to erode at their bases. To stabilize them and the aging bridges, the Army Corps of Engineers began dropping boulders into the Canal. But this made some sections shallower and, with the same amount of water rushing through, those sec- tions developed extremely hazardous currents. One section by the Route 88 Bridge became a series of rapids. The situation improved as both original bridges were replaced (Lovelandtown in 1972 and Route 88 in 1986), the wooden bulkheads were replaced with steel, and the rocks were removed. Today, the Point Pleasant Canal and Manasquan Inlet stand as the most unique man-made features of northern Ocean County. u Editor's Note: Jeff Heim and Jerry Woolley are members of the Point Pleasant Historical Society and Mr. Wooley is the town historian. The Point Pleasant Historical Society and Museum is located in the Point Pleasant Borough Hall at 416 New Jersey Avenue in Point Pleasant Beach. For more information, call (732) 892-3091 or visit www.pphsm.org. Arthur Johnson (1904-1989), the son of Point Pleasant Hardware Company founder Joseph W. Johnson, made a 16 millimeter film record of the Manasquan Inlet con- struction project and opening parade. The Point Pleasant Historical Society restored the original 98-year-old film. It is part of the video "Yesterday On Film," which also preserves other films Mr. Johnson made of the local rescue efforts following the Morro Castle ship fire disaster, steam trains in Point Pleasant, and other local scenes. Heading out to sea through the Manasquan Inlet. JERSEY SHORE HISTORY POINT PLEASANT CANAL AND MANASQUAN INLET, continued from page 39 Tom Lynch / AngryFishGallery.com

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