1. Wildwood is one of only a few beaches that is actually expanding instead of receding. It’s also home to the largest kite-flying event in the world.
2. Everybody knows the Jersey Devil is said to live in the
New Jersey Pine Barrens. But a lesser known fact is that many organizations have offered a reward for the capture of the creature. The Philadelphia Zoo has offered $10,000 and the Hunt Brothers Circus has offered $100,000!
3. Over the past 275 years, over 2,000 witnesses have reported seeing the Jersey Devil.
4. In 1642, the first brewery in America opened in Hoboken.
5. The famous Hindenburg crash happened while trying to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township in 1937, leaving 36 people dead.
6. With the most expensive auto insurance and highest property taxes in the nation, New Jersey ranks as the state with the highest cost of living.
7. Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s son was notoriously kidnapped in East Amwell Township in 1932.
8. Leo the MGM Lion, Cheetah the Chimp and Elsie the Borden Cow are all buried in NJ.
9. Camden’s Automobile Theater opened in 1933 as the first drive-in movie theater.
10. Although Cooperstown, NY trademarked the phrase “The Birthplace Of Baseball,” the first recorded baseball game played with codified rules was in Hoboken, NJ in 1846.
11. Everyone knows Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi hail from New Jersey, but was also the home of a slew of famous entertainers including Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Tom Cruise, Lauryn Hill, Shaq, John Travolta, Kevin Spacey, Queen Latifah, Ice-T, Bruce Willis, and Jason Alexander to name a few.
12. Jack Nicholson was raised by his grandparents in Neptune Park and voted the Class Clown of Manasquan High School in 1954.
13. Although he’s from Winthrop, Mass., Steve Van Zandt gets to claim membership in two legendary Jersey clans – the E Street Band and The Sopranos.
14. New Jersey’s State House is the second oldest one still in use, just behind Maryland’s.
15. New Jersey has more horses per square mile than any other state. The United States Equestrian Team is headquartered in Gladstone, NJ.
16. So naturally, New Jersey also hosts more horse races than Kentucky does.
17. New Jersey was the first state to sign the Bill of Rights.
18. The first professional basketball game was played in Trenton, NJ in 1896.
19. Influencing everyone from Eddie Van Halen to Jimmy Page, legendary guitarist Les Paul invented the first solid body electric guitar in his home in Mahwah, NJ where he continued to work in his basement workshop until his death in 2009.
20. New Jersey was known as the Pathway of the Revolution, with over 100 battles fought on its soil.
21. New Jersey is one of only two states (along with Oregon) where it’s actually illegal to pump your own gas.
22. New Jersey has 127 miles of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, with more than 50 resort cities including Asbury Park, Cape May, Seaside Heights, and Atlantic City.
23. Later in his life, Einstein received an honorary degree from Princeton University where he worked until his death until 1955.
24. Although New York and New Jersey continue to fight over who actually gets to claim the Statue of Liberty, NJ stands firm on its claim that Lady Liberty stands in New Jersey waters.
25. The first Indian reservation was in the Watchung Mountains.
26. Built in 1881, Lucy the six-story elephant is the most popular non-gaming attraction in the Atlantic City region and is registered as a National Historic Landmark.
27. New Jersey is home to more than 9,800 farms covering 790,000 acres of farmland. Hence the name The Garden State.
28. Hadrosaurus Foulkii is the dinosaur excavated by William Parker Foulke in Haddonfield in 1858.
29. Though the Giants and Jets are both New York teams in name, both teams train and play their games on New Jersey turf at the MetLife field. So who do they really belong to?
30. Every August, Rutgers University hosts the Cockroach Derby, with buggy politicians and political candidate racers. So what, right? Well, the Cockroach Derby winner reportedly has a 75 percent rate in predicting presidential elections.
31. The Weird US and States books are a product of the success of the original Weird NJ book which began as a biannual newsletter in 1989 and published as a book in 2003.
32. New Jersey has the densest system of highways and railroads in the country. No kidding.
33. The Atlantic City Boardwalk was the first in the country and is the longest in the world.
34. The Miss America pageant started in Atlantic City, but was eventually moved only to return again to its home turf in recent years.
35. The properties in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly are named after streets in Atlantic City.
36. The first salt water taffy in the world was created and distributed in Atlantic City in the 1870s by David Bradley.
37. The Popcorn Park Zoo in the Pine Barrens is the only federally licensed zoo to treat sick and abused animals.
38. Popcorn Park Zoo’s own Princess the Camel has accurately picked five out of the past six Super Bowl wins correctly, according to her publicist.
39. The Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer lies beneath the Pine Barrens, and contains 17 trillion gallons of some of the purest water to be found in the country.
40. The Buddy Christ statue from the Kevin Smith-native film “Dogma” stands in Jay and Silent Bob’s Comic Book store in Red Bank.
41. New Jersey has the most diners of anyplace in the world.
42. The first robot worker to replace a human was used in Ewing Township by General Motors in 1961. When Judgment Day comes, remember it all started in Jersey.
43. Most of the cast of “Jersey Shore” are actually from NYC boroughs like Staten Island, not New Jersey, thank you very much.
44. The light bulb, phonograph and motion picture projector were all invented by Thomas Edison in his Menlo Park, NJ laboratory.
45. The world’s largest light bulb sits on top of the Thomas Edison Memorial Tower in Edison at 13 feet tall—currently under restoration construction.
46. Students and staff at The Lawrenceville School in central Jersey broke the Guinness World Record for the biggest custard pie fight in November 2010, with 671 active participants.
47. North Jersey has seven major shopping malls in a 25 square mile radius, the most in one area in the world.
48. New Jersey is one of the top contributors of cranberries in the world.
49. Cheerleading started with the Princeton Tigers way back in 1869.
50. One of the most popular rumors about the whereabouts of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa after his infamous disappearance in 1975 is that he's buried under the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. Who knows?
What's your favorite fun New Jersey fact? Let us know in the comments below!
