Ocean’s Heritage, Fall 2018
The Eden Woolley House
Saturday and Sunday, December 1 and 2
Holiday open house and mini-exhibit premiere
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top by the Museum the first weekend in December. It’s our annual holiday open house, this year December 1 and 2, when we open the doors for extended hours and transform the Museum into the best place around to start the season. The halls are decked. Homemade goodies and handcrafted gifts fill the “Hearth and Home” Gallery. Living history interpreters entertain visitors with holiday songs and traditions. Young children hunt for hidden sleds. The Garden Club sells wreaths on the porch. We draw the winning 2018 handmade quilt raffle ticket at 3 o’clock Sunday afternoon. And, this year for the first time, we are staying open to welcome those arriving at the Museum grounds at 4:30 Sunday for the Township’s annual tree lighting festivities—complete with hot chocolate and a visit from Santa. It’s a chance to introduce a whole new audience to the Museum and its exhibits, including “Deal Test Site: 100 Years of History,” premiering that weekend.
Deal Test Site exhibit premieres The mini-exhibit opening December 1 features the story of the Township’s most historically significant site. Bounded by Deal Road, Whalepond Road, and Dow Ave., the 208 acres we know today as Joe Palaia Park were once the Deal Test Site, an internationally renowned research facility. The same buildings that park visitors pass by today once held scientists from AT&T’s Western Electric research arm (later known as Bell Labs) working on telecommunication breakthroughs that made history. Later in those same buildings, the U.S. Army Signal Corps ran satellite tracking operations that attracted scientists from around the world.
Holiday Weekend 11 to 4, Saturday, December 1 11 to 5:30, Sunday, December 2 Eden Woolley House
The exhibit traces the site’s history from prehistoric times to today, focusing on the 100 years since AT&T chose rural Ocean Township as an ideal spot to conduct its experiments in wireless communications.
wave communication and radar followed. In the early 1920s, Deal Test Site’s experimental radio station is believed to have broadcast music for entertainment for the first time anywhere. As part of the research, wicker push-chairs on the Asbury Park boardwalk were equipped with receivers to pick up signals. In the winter of 1920-1921, Deal Test Site completed another first. A ship in the Atlantic connected by radio to Deal, and by wire from Deal to California, and by radio again to Catalina Island in the Pacific. In the mid-1920s, the world’s first highpower short-wave amplifiers were built on the site. A transmitter at Deal was used in the first commercial short-wave radio tele—Continued on page 2
The AT&T years As World War I ended, AT&T looked to extend telephone service beyond the reach of its telephone wires, specifically to ships at sea. It searched for and found the perfect location for a research laboratory. In 1919, it purchased the 63-acre Foxhurst Farm along Whalepond Road in Ocean. By the end of the year, three 165’ towers were in place and the experiments in wireless communications began. Landmark work in radio, short-wave, and micro-
Deal Test Site, looking southwest from Whalepond Road. Stucile Farm (site of today’s Museum and Library) and its tower are visible at the top of this aerial shot. Judging from the cars in the lot and the absence of satellite dishes, it was probably taken in the mid-1950s. Notice how dry and treeless the site was 60 years ago.
