History
In 1904, a storm washed away part of Steel Pier and many engineers stated that it could not be rebuilt. Future mayor of Atlantic City Edward L. Bader, and his company, accepted the challenge to rebuild it. His success with that job led to more work for him in Atlantic City.
From 1935 through 1938 Steel Pier was where Miss America was crowned. It was described as "An Amusement City at Sea" and "A Vacation in Itself." It also was once called the "Showplace of the Nation" and included such acts as the High Diving horse; Rex the Wonder Dog, a water-skiing canine in the 1930s; and musicians, Frank Sinatra and Al Jolson among others. "Rain or Shine ... There's Always a Good Show on Steel Pier" was another phrase used to describe the venue's varied entertainment. The pier used to be much longer, but a December 1969 fire six months before the opening of the 1970 season shortened its size by about a third. The original wooden pier with steel underpinnings was destroyed in a 1982 fire; the current concrete structure dates from 1993.
In June 2008 Steel Pier celebrated its 110th anniversary, having originally opened on Saturday, June 18, 1898.
In February 2012, it was announced that a diving horse act would return to the Steel Pier as part of the recently approved Tourism Master Plan, but the plan was soon scrapped after public outcry.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)