Prospertown: then and now

                Chances are you’ve passed this particular forgotten town as it sits in the shadows of

Kingda-Ka as you head out to spend the day at Great Adventure.  This town’s proximity to one of the

 largest theme parks in North America might be enough to make the name Prospertown seem familiar

 to you.  In the first Forgotten Towns book Beck visits Prospertown in a three city set along with

 Archer’s Corner and Collier’s Mill, two other small towns in Southern Jersey.  Looking at

Prospertown through Beck’s eyes there is a vision of a town who’s legacy is long since passed; a

town that houses only a single hotel, a small cluster of homes, and a gristmill.  The homes were only

 painted on one side (the front I assume), and to Beck Prospertown was a place of: “neglect,

loneliness, and desolation”.

Surrender?  We don’t know the meaning of the word!

                One of the lines Beck writes in reference to Prospertown is that it was (at the time he wrote it) “pursuing their memories of prosperous times”.  Considering during his visit that the town was in a tailspin toward nonexistence it seems that it is still in hot pursuit of those prosperous times.  For starters the Six Flags franchise has expanded from their park’s location in Jackson into Prospertown housing their employment center and administration building there.  The residents of Prospertown, through the decades since Beck’s book, have not given up on their prosperous pursuits, at the very least keeping their town alive.

Quaint, if you can find it

                Prospertown’s life in Kingda-Ka’s shadow is a double-edge sword in the sense that (1) it may draw more attention because of its’ proximity to Six Flags, but (2) might also dip more into obscurity because “Six Flags” is all most people think about being in this corner of Ocean County.  Truthfully most of the people who frequent small Prospertown are a select group of anglers, and you know how secretive that lot is about their fishing spots!