Local history is filled with failed real estate schemes, whether it’s selling building lots on Tuckers Island or a supersonic jet port in the Pines, to a bridge to nowhere in a Manahawkin marsh but one of the most interesting is acknowledged by a sign on the Barnegat Branch Rail Trail.

“Barnegat Park was laid out in 1887 by the Barnegat Park Company, a group of ex-army and navy officers, on the TR&W (Toms River & Waretown railroad), near what had been a small community of Bayville.