New Jersey Trivia & Tidbits - Page 16

Looking for New Jersey trivia? Try our list New Jersey little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Lucy is the world’s largest elephant and the only one in America that’s a National Historic Landmark. Located in Margate City (pop. 8,600), she was built in 1881 by a real estate developer. Standing six stories tall and covered with sheet metal, she’s also served as a functioning building, first as a small hotel, then a tavern.

first appeared: 6/24/2001

New Jersey is America’s ninth most populous state but has more residents per square mile of territory (980) than any other.

first appeared: 6/17/2001

Two-thirds of the world’s commercial eggplant supply is grown in New Jersey.

first appeared: 6/10/2001

Band leader and jazz pianist William Basie (1904-1984) was born in Red Bank (pop. 11,000). In 1935, while his band was broadcasting, the announcer asked if Basie would mind being called “Count.” Basie, thinking the announcer was kidding, said okay, and has been called Count Basie ever since.

first appeared: 6/3/2001

The Borough of Ship Bottom (pop. 1,500) derives its name from a shipwreck in March 1817, when Capt. Stephen Willets of Tuckerton rescued a woman from the hull of a ship overturned in the shoals. The site became known as “Ship Bottom.”

first appeared: 5/27/2001

Northlandz, a commercial miniature railway setup in Flemington (pop. 4,200), has eight miles of track, hundreds of tiny bridges, some 4,000 buildings, and a half-million lichen trees. The railway’s substructure required enough lumber to build 42 houses, and several hundred tons of plaster went into the construction of its mountains.

first appeared: 5/20/2001

Taught to roar on cue, Leo the MGM Lion is best known for heralding motion pictures. After he died in the 1930s, he was buried on his owner/trainer’s farm in Gilette (pop. 17,700), directly under a pine tree planted to commemorate his spirit.

first appeared: 5/13/2001

Goliath, a 12-foot Alaskan Brown Bear, lived until 1991, when he died at age 24 (the equivalent of 96 in human years). He entertained a generation of visitors at the Space Farms Zoo & Museum in Beemersville (pop. 2,500).

first appeared: 5/6/2001

In 1938, Orson Welles gave a scare to much of the East Coast when he broadcast a radio version of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Twelve million people, including folks in Grovers Mill (pop. 3,000), where the story takes place, heard the “live news” broadcast of an attack from Mars.

first appeared: 4/29/2001

The first Indian reservation in America—3,285 acres—was established at Indian Mills (pop. 6,800) on Aug. 29, 1758.

first appeared: 4/22/2001

Lou Costello (1908-1959), the pudgier half of the comedy duo Abbott and Costello, was born in Paterson and started his career as a stunt man. He and partner Bud Abbott began their own radio show in 1941 and a TV program, The Abbott and Costello Show, in 1952.

first appeared: 4/15/2001

Though a long way from California’s Silicon Valley, New Jersey is home to at least 2,700 software and software-related companies.

first appeared: 4/8/2001

The scientific study of dinosaur fossils (paleontology) began in 1858 with the discovery of the first nearly complete skeleton of a dinosaur in Haddonfield (pop. 11,628). The Hadrosaurus, a non-meat eater, is the official New Jersey state dinosaur.

first appeared: 4/1/2001

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), working at his lab in Menlo Park, combined his phonograph technology with a doll, creating the first talking child’s toy.

first appeared: 3/25/2001

Born in Rutherford (pop. 21,000), William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was both a medical doctor and, according to some, “the father of modern poetry.” His long work, Paterson, was named after the New Jersey town where he lived.

first appeared: 3/18/2001

When Mrs. New Jersey heard her name announced as Mrs. America 1952, she passed out cold on stage. It took several minutes for the shakened pageant officials to revive her.

first appeared: 3/11/2001

Most minerals mined in the world that fluoresce (radiate visible light) come from the United States. Most of these are mined in New Jersey, including phosphorus and fluorite, and are used chiefly in fluorescent lighting.

first appeared: 3/4/2001

Elizabeth, on Newark Bay just north of Staten Island, claims to be the nation’s busiest seaport for the large number of container vessels it handles.

first appeared: 2/25/2001

Fort Dix (pop. 27,000) is named for Maj. Gen. John Adams Dix (1798-1879), a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Civil War. During his public career, he was a United States senator, secretary of the treasury, minister to France, and governor of New York.

first appeared: 2/18/2001

To meet demand for the steel wire cable he invented, John Roebling (1806-1869) opened a factory in Trenton in 1848. Roebling later built a cable suspension bridge across the Niagara River. He also formulated a proposal to build the Brooklyn Bridge using cable, a project his son, Washington Roebling, completed in 1883.

first appeared: 2/11/2001

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