Welcome to the Mr. Local History Project
“A 501c3 Non-Profit Dedicated to Preserving and Promoting Jersey History with a Social Twist”
The Mr. Local History Project is about bringing New Jersey’s past into the present through the stories of real places, real people, and real communities. Focused especially on New Jersey history, the project celebrates local history in a way that feels personal, engaging, and relevant, not something locked away in textbooks, but history that lives where we live. As we head into 2026, the 250th anniversary of the United States, Mr. Local History is turning history into a shared experience. With a social twist, this is about connecting online and in the community, sharing memories, spotlighting hometown stories, and honoring New Jersey’s outsized role in America’s founding. It is history you can explore, share, and be part of together.
Today in America’s History (We Update Every Day)
- 1929: Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.
- 1972: Vietnam War: The last United States ground combat unit leaves South Vietnam.
- 1973: At the 1520 Sedgwick Avenue apartment building in The Bronx, New York, DJ Kool Herc hosts a house party widely considered to mark the birthplace of hip-hop culture and music. DJ Kool Herc demonstrates a new technique of beat juggling and Coke La Rock performs a new style of vocal performance called rapping.
- 1984: "We begin bombing in five minutes": United States President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, jokes while preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio.
- 1992: The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota opens. At the time the largest shopping mall in the United States.
What Can You Do Today to Celebrate America’s 250th?
Our Readers’ Top 10 MLH Posts this Week
Latest Posts
Celebrating 100 Years of the Cranford Theater
Views: 309 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…
NJ Cinemas Honored in Exclusive Miniature Wooden Collection
Views: 8,046 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…
History Remembers Lost Swim Clubs – Now It’s Your Turn
Views: 306 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…
Looking Back at Millington’s Clover Hill Swim Club
Views: 1,129 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…
Reggie’s Playland Farm: Forgotten Jazz Club That Became Millridge Swim Club in Millington, NJ
Views: 1,197 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,…
Windsurfing On the Columbia River Gorge in the 80s
Views: 824 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…
Remembering the Columbia River Gorge’s Wind Ranch in the 80s
Views: 1,646 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…
1780: The Missing Cemetery at the Basking Ridge Continental Army Hospital
Views: 240 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…
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…
Homer’s The Odyssey & The Gods Told This Time By Christopher Nolan
Views: 558 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…
A Tiny Roadside Cemetery in Basking Ridge
Views: 554 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…
MLH Loves To See The Public Engaged….. The Latest 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?).…
Our Summer 2026 Magazine is HERE!
Full of great local Jersey History to keep you on the edge of your history seat.
Special Edition – America’s 250th The SEMI-QUIN-CENTENNIAL is HERE!
See our special digital magazine. Full of great local Jersey History.
I was young , but I remember learning how to swim at Copper Hill! They’re we’re frogs there too—right? I…