When the town you grew up in celebrates its centennial, it’s always fun to look back on its founding.

The story of how Ship Bottom got its name is well known; how it became a town is not. Long Beach Island historian John Bailey Lloyd in his book Six Miles at Sea explained, “Until 1900 parts of the island and its southern extension of Tucker’s Beach had no separate political identity. Each section of the island fell within the jurisdiction of the closest township across the bay on the mainland.