May 29, 1937: The borough of Jersey Homesteads was officially created by the New Jersey legislature in Monmouth County’s Millstone Township, although construction on the site had actually begun in 1936. The town’s housing, designed by architect Louis Kahn, followed the functional German Bauhaus style. The community, a New Deal experiment supported by Albert Einstein and artist Ben Shahn, was planned as a refuge for unemployed urban Jewish garment workers from New York City in a place where they would own a cooperative farm and factory. The cooperatives failed, but the town did not and was renamed Roosevelt in honor of the late president Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 9, 1945.
May 29, 1964: Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall formally dedicated the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Morris County. The land had been declared a refuge by Congress in 1960, in order to preempt possible airport construction. At the time of the dedication the Refuge contained 2,600 privately purchased and donated acres. Today it contains 7,800 acres. In 1966 the Great Swamp was declared a US National Natural Landmark.
