Cherry Hill (Then and Now)

Long before shopping centers and housing communities were developed in Cherry Hill, farmers earned their livelihood working the rich soil that stretched between the Cooper River and Pennsauken Creek. Small hamlets such as Ellisburg, Colestown, and Batesville contained thriving businesses. A real estate boom triggered by the opening of the Delaware River Bridge (now the Ben Franklin Bridge) and the end of World War II led to the development of the township's first suburban neighborhoods. New homes, hotels, nightclubs, corporate parks, and one of the nation's first shopping malls appeared where tomatoes, peaches, and corn had grown just a few years earlier.

Then & Now: Cherry Hill documents the monumental changes that have occurred in South Jersey's largest suburban municipality over the last 100 years. This book reflects on a time when Chapel Avenue was a dirt lane, when the children of farmers were educated in one-room schoolhouses, when cows grazed on the grounds of the present Cherry Hill Mall, and when stately old houses dominated the rural landscape. Then & Now: Cherry Hill also features long-gone attractions such as the Latin Casino, the Camden County Music Fair, the original Garden State Park, Cinelli's, the Hawaiian Cottage, and the Rustic Inn.

Mike Mathis is a journalist, the author of Cherry Hill and Marple and Newtown Township, and a coauthor of Burlington with Martha Esposito Shea. He is a member of the Cherry Hill Historical Commission.