Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States during the first decade of the 20th century, a time that is known as the Progressive Era for its social activism and political reform.

In Cape May there was progress too for a while at the turn of the century, or so its advocates thought, although not necessarily the kind of progress stressed in the national effort. Seeking to return Cape May to its glory days of tourism, a group of promoters, some within the municipality and others outside it, came forth with a mammoth plan to reinvigorate Cape May. Their vision of what they called the oldest seashore resort in the nation was to make it as popular if not more so than the socially elite Newport in Rhode Island, which in Cape May’s earlier days was often considered a tourist rival of the New Jersey resort with a southern flavor.

Whether in Cape May or Newport, whether rich or poor, the builders here recognized that all classes of people needed sewer facilities, so they built a disposal plant. They extended the Boardwalk, acquired and sold land for housing and brought in dredges to create a new harbor they claimed would match those of New York and Philadelphia.

And right near the top of their agenda was to build the biggest hotel in the nation or, better still, the biggest hotel in the world. It could be inferred from their statements that this was to be the biggest construction job since the Pyramids were built in Egypt.

Except perhaps the Egyptians didn’t have to contend with saboteurs (today called terrorists) or workers who went on strike.

This hotel was to contain 350 rooms, a marbled lobby and an ocean front dining room, the total cost to soar to $1 million dollars, twice the estimated figure.

But to get the hotel finished on time was another matter. In 1906 the workmen went on strike. There were racial problems that delayed the construction and in one case a trolley transporting African-American workers was “sabotaged” by a spiked board on the tracks and only the skill of the conductor saved the accident from becoming more serious. Then there were the thieves who kept stealing the building supplies.

With some fanfare, however, the giant hotel finally opened at a ceremony in April 1908, two years later than scheduled. John Franklin Fort, the 33rd New Jersey governor who preceded the more famous Woodrow Wilson, showed up and bestowed accolades on the new Hotel Cape May. He also awarded a trophy cup to the winner of an automobile race from Philadelphia to Cape May. Heralding a new era of transportation, some 40 automobiles competed in that race.

The newspapers were euphoric about the new hotel and the rest of the development.

“No sane person now has any doubt of Cape May becoming a great and popular seashore resort,” one newspaper enthused. The hotel, it was predicted, would “stand in all future time as the beginning of a Greater Cape May which will make all past history of the resort pale and insignificant.”

Well, not quite

By October of 1908, barely six months after the big hoopla at its opening, the hotel closed allegedly for repairs. Never fear, the hotel is here, seemed to be the battle cry of the times.

“If there is anybody in Cape May disposed to hinder its progress they are not friends of the resort,” contended the Cape May Star and Wave.

Indeed the hotel was there in all its seashore splendor, but the money was not. Peter Shields, after whom an upscale restaurant is now named in Cape May, resigned then as president of the founding corporation. Other activities, once proudly pushed as the future of Cape May, came to a halt.

The immediate future was the courtroom where architect Frederick J. Osterling launched and won a suit to recover $45,000 in unpaid fees from the Cape May Hotel Company. Next into this rise and fall story of comeback and failure entered a man with the unusual name of Nelson Zuinglius Graves who owned a home in Cape May. He is said to have been the largest property owner in Cape May and Lower Township and was an activist in municipal affairs.

At that time there was a movement to establish a commission form of government, its proponents claiming that this new form would streamline government and would make it less susceptible to manipulation by the bosses of politics. That argument still exists today as several municipalities in the state including Wildwood and Wildwood Crest maintain that type of government. Opponents, however, say that form is outmoded and does not accommodate the modern needs of this century.

Graves was among those who did not think a commission form of government was all that great. So opposed was he that he advertised on the front page of a newspaper in September of 1911 that he was opposed to a change in the form of government. Many were on his side as they rejected in a referendum the attempt to establish the new form that was being pushed by Governor Woodrow Wilson.

But in that same year of 1911, when the Cape May Hotel project was beginning to worry some people, Graves stepped in and gave some hope that Cape May indeed would become the “New Jersey Newport.” For openers he purchased the Cape May Power and Light Company, then bought a trolley line and started an amusement park facility known as the “fun factory” at Sewell’s Point. The city, worried about the shaky project, gave it a boost when it approved some tax advantages.

But alas, Graves didn’t have the magic touch either. His development company entered bankruptcy, the remaining lots, for which there had been so much hope, were sold to pay delinquent taxes. As the dark clouds of World War I hovered, the United States Navy came to the rescue and built a base on the vacant grounds.

The Cape May Hotel? It never regained its short lived glory. During the two world wars it was used by the Navy and later by the Admiral Hotel Company which tried to restore it as a hotel. That didn’t work either as back taxes mounted once more.

A Philadelphia real estate company wanted to develop it into a senior citizens home, but instead it fell into the hands of the controversial Rev. Carl McIntire and his Christian Beacon Press. From 1962 to 1991 it functioned as a Bible Conference facility, but its maintenance and safety demands were often questioned by officials and eventually the building was closed and torn down to be replaced by huge costly houses.

Perhaps symbolic of the attempt to revitalize Cape May was the scene on a Sunday morning on the sidewalk on Beach Avenue outside what was then the Christian Admiral Hotel. Banned from the decrepit hotel because of safety reasons, McIntire and a few of his followers gathered on the sidewalk to hold their Sunday morning services while seagulls circled the gathering. They sang hymns and prayed, a fitting and sad climax to what was meant to be, but never quite made it.

(Some of the information for this article was researched at the reference department of the Cape May County Library and in the publication, “The Summer City By The Sea,” by Emil R. Salvini.)