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Top Ten Stories This Week
This Week’s Top 10 Posts
Latest News Updates & Research
- Westfield’s Rialto Theater History and Next Chapter
Views: 56 UPDATE: A New Life for Westfield’s Rialto After sitting largely dormant since closing as a movie theater in 2019, Westfield’s historic Rialto is now headed toward a major rebirth. In July 2026, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved a $43.38 million tax credit award through its Cultural Arts Facilities Expansion (CAFE) Program… Read More »Westfield’s Rialto Theater History and Next Chapter - Celebrating 100 Years of the Cranford Theater
Views: 361 As Cranford prepares to celebrate the theater’s 100th birthday on November 29, 2026, we’re taking a look back at the little movie house that became a Cranford institution, and the generations of people who have kept coming through its doors. SIGN THE CARD IN THE COMMENTS SECTION AT THE END OF THIS POST… Read More »Celebrating 100 Years of the Cranford Theater - NJ Cinemas Honored in Exclusive Miniature Wooden Collection
Views: 8,050 Remembering classic movie theaters that not only showed first-rate films, but anchored our towns and kept us full of memories. Three of the last remaining old-time, downtown movie theaters in New Jersey, each with over a century of service, the Mr. Local History Project 501 (c) nonprofit honors the Cranford Theater, the Rialto… Read More »NJ Cinemas Honored in Exclusive Miniature Wooden Collection - History Remembers Lost Swim Clubs – Now It’s Your Turn
Views: 320 For many families growing up in the Somerset Hills and surrounding communities, summer meant one thing: the local swim club. From the 1950s through the 1980s, private clubs, lakes, beaches, and municipal pools became summertime gathering places where generations of kids learned to swim, competed on swim teams, played tennis, worked their first… Read More »History Remembers Lost Swim Clubs – Now It’s Your Turn - Looking Back at Millington’s Clover Hill Swim Club
Views: 1,162 Clover Hill Swimming ClubA Beloved Summer Retreat That Changed New Jersey History PREVIEW RELEASE: For those who subscribe to early releases of Mr Local History Research. Additional updates will be provided as we receive answers to our research requests from our sources. For thousands of New Jersey families, summer officially began the moment… Read More »Looking Back at Millington’s Clover Hill Swim Club - Reggie’s Playland Farm: Forgotten Jazz Club That Became Millridge Swim Club in Millington, NJ
Views: 1,234 Our story begins as we were researching another story tied to swim clubs in New Jersey’s Basking Ridge area, and we were preparing a story about Millington’s Clover Hill Swim Club. A fun story you can read later, but what we uncovered had us all say, “stop that work, as we found another… Read More »Reggie’s Playland Farm: Forgotten Jazz Club That Became Millridge Swim Club in Millington, NJ - Windsurfing On the Columbia River Gorge in the 80s
Views: 828 Before kiteboarding, before wing foiling, and before extreme sports filled television screens, there was windsurfing, and nowhere captured its spirit quite like the Columbia River Gorge. Throughout the 1980s, this remarkable corridor between Oregon and Washington became the epicenter of the sport, where legendary sailors, iconic beaches, and legendary locations like the Wind… Read More »Windsurfing On the Columbia River Gorge in the 80s - Remembering the Columbia River Gorge’s Wind Ranch in the 80s
Views: 1,664 Ah, who remembers the Wind Ranch in Bingen, Washington? Just across the bridge from Hood River was a place, no, an iconic place, that remains now only in my memory. This post is more of a community plea to help us who traveled from all over the world to windsurf on the Columbia… Read More »Remembering the Columbia River Gorge’s Wind Ranch in the 80s - 1780: The Missing Cemetery at the Basking Ridge Continental Army Hospital
Views: 243 For decades, visitors to Jockey Hollow believed they were standing beside the burial ground of Continental soldiers who died during the terrible winter of 1779–1780. However, archaeological investigations found no human remains, and the National Park Service now believes that soldiers who died in camp were generally buried near their individual brigade parade… Read More »1780: The Missing Cemetery at the Basking Ridge Continental Army Hospital - History Helps Realtors Sell Real Estate
Views: 4,156 Realtors’ History Guide to Selling Basking Ridge, Bernardsville, Bedminster and the Rest of the Somerset Hills, New Jersey It probably comes as no surprise that realtors have a fairly easy time selling homes in Bernards Township and the surrounding Somerset Hills area. With its top-ranked schools, highway access to the rest of the… Read More »History Helps Realtors Sell Real Estate - Homer’s The Odyssey & The Gods Told This Time By Christopher Nolan
Views: 560 At Mr. Local History, we believe history is at its best when it connects people. That’s why our motto is “History with a social twist.” Every place has a story, every family has a connection, and every generation sees the past through a slightly different lens. History isn’t just a collection of dates… Read More »Homer’s The Odyssey & The Gods Told This Time By Christopher Nolan - A Tiny Roadside Cemetery in Basking Ridge
Views: 555 Isn’t it strange that you might drive by something 1,000s of times and never notice something….until you do. This is one of those stories. Just to the south of the former Millington quarry entrance on Stonehouse Road sits a tiny roadside cemetery that honors one of the original families of Basking Ridge. The… Read More »A Tiny Roadside Cemetery in Basking Ridge - The Wedding Heard Round the Colonies: Lord Stirling, Washington & New Jersey’s Most Famous Revolutionary War Wedding
Views: 578 Commemorating the 247th Anniversary of the Wedding Heard ‘Round the ColoniesJuly 27, 1779 – July 27, 2026 July 27, 1779Basking Ridge’s Biggest Event – Kitty Stirling’s Wedding On July 27, 1779, the Revolutionary War was entering one of its most uncertain periods. Although no major battle was taking place at Basking Ridge itself,… Read More »The Wedding Heard Round the Colonies: Lord Stirling, Washington & New Jersey’s Most Famous Revolutionary War Wedding - MLH Housing Development History Series
Views: 170 Every neighborhood, subdivision, shopping center, office park, and apartment complex has a story long before the first shovel ever touched the ground. The Development History Series explores how today’s communities came to be, tracing the land from its earliest farms, estates, and industries through decades of planning board hearings, zoning battles, changing ownership,… Read More »MLH Housing Development History Series - History of Housing Developments in Bernards Township
Views: 14,753 Bernards Township has a long history of being a sleepy rural town. Then, the US built the Lyons VA, and everything changed as the population grew. Then AT&T came to town in the 1970s, and everything AGAIN started to change. Demand for housing increased as people worldwide chose Bernards Township as a place… Read More »History of Housing Developments in Bernards Township - Bernardsville’s Affordable Housing Dilemma – They’re Not Alone
Views: 395 While we at the Mr. Local History Project prefer to write about history and not try to make it, sometimes history and perspective from other areas serve as indicators of what not to do, or at least give perspective to those who live in town who have to make decisions that impact the… Read More »Bernardsville’s Affordable Housing Dilemma – They’re Not Alone - Meandering Basking Ridge’s Largest Lake – The Millington Quarry
Views: 1,966 The Millington Quarry property in the Millington section of Bernards Township is one of the largest former industrial sites in Somerset County and has been the focus of redevelopment discussions for more than a decade. Covering approximately 180 acres along Stonehouse Road, the site operated for many years as a trap rock quarry… Read More »Meandering Basking Ridge’s Largest Lake – The Millington Quarry - 1717 John Harrison Purchases What Becomes Basking Ridge
Views: 358 For the first time ever, our readers can see and read the original 1717 deed in which John Harrison purchased the land that later became Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Researchers at the Mr. Local History Project are so proud to have published the first ever share of this historic document. The Mr. Local… Read More »1717 John Harrison Purchases What Becomes Basking Ridge
Recent Comments
Our family loved it here. Many happy memories of summer and also winter skating!
Millridge is where a lot of us went. Ridge Class of 1966 after-graduation party was at Millridge. Bill Friars was…
Spent almost every day there in the summers, packing up a lunch picnic and staying until late afternoon. Scrounging for…
Growing up in Basking Ridge, if you were lucky you either belonged to Clover Hill or Pennbrook. My mom hated…
Clover Hill: red frog, blue frog, green fish, gold fish, red shark, maroon shark, silver dolphin, golden dolphin. IYKYK
We lived to the west in Homestead Village and the planes would take off right over our house. Saw many…
Very interesting article and information. It’s a shame that none of the historical remnants exists anymore. There should at least…
Extremely thorough explanation, appreciate the effort put into this.
I remember when Robbie Naish won the pro-am one year, and it was sponsored by Yamaha (88 or 89 maybe?).…
Facebook Post 2019 – BINGEN BART’S WIND REPORT – conversation #53, recorded in Bart’s Vervloet’s office. Columbia Gorge Wind &…
Thanks for writing. All of our magazines have been in a “digital-only” format since we started creating the online magazine…
I’ve spent some recent hours reading your Middlebrook and Morristown sections. I enjoyed them very much and would like to…
Meryl Streep indeed also lived in Madison, New Jersey on Valley Rd, as shown by the 1950 census, for apparently…
Good morning! On the Westfield lost businesses list there seem to be two missing 🙂 same building next to team…
Thanks for sharing this. I always pass that Cemetery and didn’t realize someone was actually buried there. I thought it…
The Vail family was scattered all around the Morristown/Plainfield/Somerville area, and we are all related. When I was a kid,…
My grandfather set the stone for Schmid Park on Pond Hill Road. He worked at the quarry when they had…
I grew up in Summit. We went to the Springfield WD. I graduated Summit HS in 1975. Before they tore…
All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Millington was built from Millington Quarry trap rock, donated by Frederick Schmidt. Until the quarry…
I was young , but I remember learning how to swim at Copper Hill! They’re we’re frogs there too—right? I…