Qualla: Avalon, New Jersey

Avalon, New Jersey: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smallbones, Public domain. Avalon is named for the place where King Arthur was supposed to die. The borough's founders, choosing a name on a barrier-island sandbar in 1892, reached past their actual geography and grabbed something out of myth. The choice fit the marketing. Avalon was being sold from the start as somewhere apart - an island within an island, a quiet retreat for Philadelphians who wanted a slightly better address than the next strip of beach over. The motto stuck: "Cooler by a Mile," because the borough juts roughly a mile farther into the Atlantic than its neighbors, which gives it a slightly stronger sea breeze. The other interpretation is that Avalon is a mile longer than Stone Harbor, which shares Seven Mile Island. Both readings are true.

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Image: Smallbones | Public domain

Avalon, New Jersey: Seven Mile Beach

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joe L, Public domain. The barrier islands of Cape May County formed roughly 14,000 years ago as the last glaciers retreated and sea levels began their long postglacial rise. Sand spits stretched, dunes built up, and the chain of long, narrow islands took shape - Seven Mile Island being one of them. Th...

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Image: Joe L | Public domain

Avalon, New Jersey: Flattening the Island

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smallbones, CC0. When the Seven Mile Beach Company formed in April 1887, the island still looked roughly the way nature had made it - juniper forest, low dunes, sandy hills, salt marsh on the back side. Within a decade most of that was gone. The developers graded the land flat. They cut the junip...

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Image: Smallbones | CC0

Avalon, New Jersey: The Commonwealth and the Coconut Oil

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smallbones, CC0. On January 4, 1890, a 197-ton sailing ship called the Commonwealth, piloted by Captain W.S. Willets and bound from New York to Philadelphia, strayed off course in rough weather and ran aground in Townsend's Inlet just north of Avalon. Her cargo was a vivid catalog of the late nin...

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Image: Smallbones | CC0

Avalon, New Jersey: The Ash Wednesday Storm

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dough4872, CC BY-SA 4.0. In March 1962 a major nor'easter sat off the New Jersey coast for five consecutive high tides and refused to move. The Ash Wednesday Storm hammered Avalon. Much of the borough sat underwater for four to five days. Streets disappeared. Beach houses were destroyed. The island's nor...

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Image: Dough4872 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Avalon, New Jersey: The Chicest Beach

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smallbones, CC0. By the 2000s Avalon was no longer just a resort but one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in the United States. Forbes ranked it 65th-most-expensive in 2007. Washingtonian magazine called it the chicest beach in the mid-Atlantic. The borough's year-round population sits at 1,243. The s...

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Image: Smallbones | CC0