There is a famous movie line that goes “Build it and they will come.” This quote could have been made years before when writing about the rise of the Jersey Shore and, more specifically, Atlantic City.

In 1904, Alfred Heston explained in his history of the city, “Twenty years before the railroad was thought of Dr. Jonathan Pitney, of Absecon, appreciated the physical advantages of Absecon Beach as a seaside resort for city people, but when the railway problem had been solved in his mind, and in…