Thus, the first business in Atlantic City was born.īy the year 1850, there were seven permanent dwellings on the island, all but one which were owned by descendants of Jeremiah Leeds. A year after Leeds death in 1838, his second wife Millicent got a license to operate a tavern called Aunt Millie’s Boarding House, located at Baltic and Massachusetts Ave. The Leeds Plantation grew corn and rye, and raised cattle.

at the site of the recently demolished bus terminal as early as 1783. His grandfather had built a cedar log cabin on Baltic Ave.

Jeremiah Leeds, born in Leeds Point in 1754, was the first white man to build a permanent structure on the island in 1785. That same piece of beach front property today would be worth millions of dollars per acre.įor the next hundred years, the island would be visited by not only the Indians, but also hunters and some of the early mainland settlers. His mainland property was then valued at $ 0.40 an acre, while the beach land a mere $ 0.04 an acre. When Budd arrived at Atlantic City, he was given the island and other acreage as settlement of a claim he had against the holders of the royal grant. Thomas Budd was an Englishman who was the first recorded owner of Absecon Island. The trail, which was located approximately where Florida Avenue is today, was five miles long over in late 1670’s. The Lenni-Lenapes would travel over the Old Indian Trail from the Mainland to the island to spend the summer months. The original inhabitants of Absecon Island, on which Atlantic City rests, were the Lenni-Lenape Indians.

The island on which Atlantic City would be developed in the mid-nineteenth century. William Randolph Hearst, the FBI and Imprisonment The Boom Years: “Nucky” Johnson, the Roaring ‘20s and the Depression Growth of the Machine: Louis “the Commodore” KuehnleĮlection of 1910: Frank Hague, Woodrow Wilson and Imprisonment pdf document with full text and references.

Atlantic city new casino opening