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Hometown History NJ

Hometown History NJ

De : Ryan Ross and Katie Feather
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 A podcast about the historic places and events that make a town someplace people call home.

hometownhistory.substack.comKatie Feather Sciences sociales Écritures et commentaires de voyage
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  • The Forest Gump of New Jersey Places

    The Forest Gump of New Jersey Places
    May 13 2026

    Written and produced by Ryan Ross and Katie Feather. Mixed and edited by Katie Feather. Theme music is La Danse Timide by Howard Harper-Barnes.

    Our website is hometownhistory.substack.com and hometownhistorynj.com. We’re on instagram @hometownhistorynj.

    Thanks for listening!



    To hear more, visit hometownhistory.substack.com
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    20 min
  • What happened to New Jersey's historical markers?

    What happened to New Jersey's historical markers?
    May 5 2026
    There’s a sign in Mendham that says Civil War General Abner Doubleday once lived there.For a lot of people driving through town, that sign might be the only piece of Mendham history they ever encounter. It’s a small thing — a welcome sign perched on the side of the road — but it carries a surprising amount of weight. It tells passersby: this happened here, this place matters, this town has a story.But signs are never neutral. Someone decides what goes on them and where they get placed. And in New Jersey, those decisions have become even more complicated because of one surprising fact: out of 455 official state historical markers installed over the last hundred years, about 330 are missing.So what happened to them?That’s the question at the center of the New Jersey Historical Commission’s revamped Historical Marker Program — and the reason we partnered with the Commission to explore the strange, surprisingly fragile life of these roadside pieces of history.A Century of SignsWhen people talk about historical markers, they’re usually referring to those aluminum signs mounted on poles — the ones you see in parks, downtowns, along roadsides, or outside old buildings. These are not town welcome signs or privately made plaques. They are official markers placed by the state of New Jersey.The oldest of New Jersey’s markers date back to the 1920s. There were several major eras when the state made a concerted effort to install them, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, and then again in the 1960s.But the early history of the program is murky.“The New Jersey Historical Commission was created in 1967,” Rachel Thimke of the New Jersey Historical Commission explained. “So even the markers that came in, in the 1920s and thirties, we would’ve never seen that because we didn’t exist.”Before the Commission took charge, there does not appear to have been one comprehensive historical marker program. Instead, markers were likely installed by different departments at different times, often for different reasons. Some may have been part of a public works effort during the Great Depression, others may have been tied to later commemorations.The result was a scattered paper trail — one that became harder to follow with every passing decade.Until finally, in 2009, the New Jersey state legislature formally gave the New Jersey Historical Commission responsibility for overseeing the roadside marker program.“In 2009 the state legislator passed a bill saying, ‘Historical Commission, it’s up to you to oversee these roadside markers and to continue a roadside marker program’” Thimke said.By then, hundreds of markers had already been installed across the state. But no one had a perfect record of what was still standing, what had been removed, and what had simply disappeared.What Happened to Them?The challenge the Historical Commission faced was daunting, like taking over a class project from someone who last touched it forty years ago.“The first step was to get that survey of, okay, what is the current landscape? What are we working with?” Thimke said. “When are these markers from, what information do we currently have on them? What’s still there and what isn’t?”The Commission also relied on members of the public to help crowdsource information. People went out into their communities, looked for markers, and reported back on whether they were still there.The results were startling. Of the 455 known markers, only about 125 are still standing.In many cases, the Commission does not know exactly what happened to the missing ones. There is no single dramatic culprit; no statewide historical marker thief; no grand conspiracy.Instead, the explanation seems to be more ordinary — and in some ways, more revealing.Time happened. Weather happened. Maintenance didn’t happen.Leah Baer, who helped verify which markers were still standing and which were missing, said some of the older signs simply deteriorated due to acid rain.“Especially the ones with very flimsy material were not the sturdiest,” Baer said. “So we got an image from someone who had a 1960s one, and it was very deteriorated to the point where it was not legible at all.”And once a marker became unreadable, it could become more of an eyesore than a public history tool.“So it just gets taken down and ends up in a basement somewhere,” Baer said. “And that’s the sad tale of probably a lot of these markers.”The irony here is that historical markers are supposed to preserve memory. They are designed to remind people that something important happened in a particular place. But over time, the markers themselves have become historical artifacts — objects that now need to be located, documented, replaced, and preserved. They created their own preservation problem.Why Not Just Replace Them All?Once you learn that more than 300 markers are missing, the obvious question is: why not just put them back? The answer is more ...
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    13 min
  • BONUS: Losing His Shirt to Save History

    BONUS: Losing His Shirt to Save History
    Mar 23 2026

    Written and produced by Ryan Ross and Katie Feather. Mixed and edited by Katie Feather. Theme music is La Danse Timide by Howard Harper-Barnes.

    Our website is hometownhistory.substack.com and hometownhistorynj.com. We’re on instagram @hometownhistorynj.

    Thanks for listening!



    To hear more, visit hometownhistory.substack.com
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    18 min
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