Mount Freedom, New Jersey

History

For much of the 20th century, Mount Freedom was a resort community appealing to Jewish vacationers, with as many as 10,000 visitors from New York City flocking to the many hotels and dozens of bungalow colonies in the area. With the increasing ease of highway travel to the larger resorts in the Catskill Mountains and the declining cost of air travel, most of the hotels closed down by the end of the 1970s.

Mount Freedom appeared as an unincorporated place in the 1960 U.S. census (pop. 1,328) and the 1970 U.S. census (pop. 1,621).

References

References

1. {{cite gnis. 0878536. Mount Freedom. 2012-09-24
2. [https://www.nj.gov/infobank/localnames.txt Locality Search], State of [[New Jersey]]. Accessed June 8, 2016.
3. [https://www.newjerseyhills.com/the-rise-of-the-resorts-in-randolph-twp/article_c1fcb375-d552-578e-9622-43edc487f9cf.html "The rise of the resorts in Randolph Twp."], New Jersey Hills, October 6, 2005. Accessed August 20, 2024. "One of Randolph's main sources of income for about eight decades in the last century was the resorts, the hotels and bungalow colonies located mainly in the Mount Freedom section of town.... Shortly after the postwar heyday of the resorts, vacationers, by the 1960s, were lured away by affordable airline fares to the Caribbean, and the opening of the New York Thruway made it easy for motorists to go up to the huge hotels in the Catskills. Through the decade of the 1960s, as the resort business began to decline, some of the hotel owners put on a brave front, announcing grand plans to renovate and improve their properties."
4. [https://www.randolphnj.org/456/Our-Grand-Hotels Our Grand Hotels], [[Randolph, New Jersey]]. Accessed August 20, 2024. "During the early part of the 20th century, Randolph became a vacation haven for people from urban areas, particularly New York City and Brooklyn.... The Mount Freedom section of the township became known as the 'Borscht Belt' and eventually was home to 11 hotels, 45 bungalow colonies, summer camps and swim clubs. At its peak, the summer time brought upwards of 10,000 visitors to Mount Freedom."
5. "1960 Census of Population - Number of Inhabitants - New Jersey".
6. "1970 Census of Population - Charecteristics of the Population - New Jersey".