Once the 'Pittsburgh of New Jersey,' is Dover ready for a comeback as it turns 300?

Once a central hub for Morris County, Dover, which turned 300 years old this week, is "at a historical crossroads."

The heavily developed municipality that straddles the Rockaway River is no longer the hub of the county, said Town Alderman Eddie Correa. But what does its future look like?

"We're trying to implement an agenda of keeping tradition, while bringing it over to the 21st century as smart and responsible redevelopment," Correa said.

Founded in 1722, Dover is among the oldest communities in the region. Like many communities in western Morris County, it was born and raised alongside North Jersey's iron mining industry.

Dover's original landmark was an iron forge. Built by the town's colonial founder, John Jackson, it stood along modern-day Park Heights Avenue and fed off the nearby Dickerson Mine. The mine started production in 1713, the same year the Proprietors of West Jersey signed the Dover area's original deed over to Joseph Latham.

Latham sold that deed to Jackson on May 31, 1722, a date considered by locals the founding of the town. Jackson did not name his 527 acres Dover, however. He called the plot that stretched over Mine Hill "Old Tye."

The name Dover would come later when Jackson's forgeman, Moses Hurd, built his homestead across from what is now known as Hurd Park. Hurd named his section of Old Tye after his hometown of Dover, New Hampshire.

While Jackson's forge was a relatively unsuccessful enterprise, its succeeding competition managed better, according to 1914's "A History of Morris County, New Jersey" by the Lewis Historical Publishing Company. The Quaker Iron Works, which opened in 1745, operated under various names and owners for the next 205 years.

The iron production helped create a bustling rail-side hub, which cars, sprawl and malls would one day carve into a well-positioned working-class community that continues to welcome immigrants.

Correa said Dover officials are also looking toward the future and hope to revitalize the town by bringing in development and more cultural destinations for both residents and newcomers.

A changing community

Signs and advertisements in Spanish are common along Blackwell Street. Dover, seen as a depressed area of Morris County in the late 20th century with some crime issues, was a working-class town that had its first major influx of Latin American immigrants around 1950. They came from Puerto Rico, Colombia and other Latin American countries to work in the area's factories and iron mines.

A commercial industry that hung strong through the World Wars, the region's iron mining industry faded away in the 1960s. The massively productive Richard, Allen, and Teabo mines in Wharton closed in 1958. Scrub Oaks Mine on Mine Hill, perhaps the region's most productive mine, shuttered in 1966.

Local retail and manufacturing could not buffer Dover from the death of the mines. Dover's economy slowed. Decline set in.

Further sapping Dover was the 1977 opening of the Rockaway Townsquare mall. The sprawling mall went head to head with Dover's storefronts. It lured department stores, such as J.C. Penney, which moved from the shopping center on Bassett Highway to the mall off Interstate 80. Other retail businesses closed. While surrounding towns' populations have grown in leaps and bounds, Dover added only 3,500 residents in the last 60 years.

The population and businesses that sustained have concentrated Dover's Latino community. Local banquerias, bodegas and restaurants have sustained. They, in turn, have drawn more Latin Americans who found work in the more affluent communities that surround Dover, according to municipal records. Between 1970 and 2000, the Hispanic community grew from roughly 25% to 58% of Dover's population. In early 2022, it hovered around 67%, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Known for being a working-class town, Dover's vibrancy and cultural roots are worth preserving, say local officials. The goal is to keep "taxes low, the town safe, and provide opportunities for families, youth and everybody in town," Correa said.

"Before it was the Irish and the Dutch, then Greek and Jewish and now it became  Puerto Ricans and Colombia heavy," Correa said. "The town has many Central Americans, and so Dover will continue to be that platform for immigrants."

The heart of the community

Dover "is reflective of a lot of low-income communities" but nonetheless a safe and close-knit community, said Eva Turbiner, the president and CEO of Zufall Health Center.

Dedicated to serving low-income communities, Zufall is "the family doctor" for 25% of the 18,500 Dover residents, 50% of whom are uninsured, according to Turbiner. The nonprofit headquartered in the historic former National Union Bank building on Blackwell Street saw 41,000 patients in seven New Jersey counties last year - 18,000 were from Dover.

Though low in infant mortality, Dover brings many social determinants of health, Turbiner said. Chronic illness, diabetes, hypertension, asthma and other conditions "related to insufficient preventive care, adherence to medications and a healthy lifestyle" are concerns, she said.

"Dover had one of the highest COVID transmission rates in the county and that had a lot to do with the kind of work that people here do," Turbiner said. "They couldn't work from home on their couches. They were out doing landscaping. They were cleaning houses, cooking in restaurants, construction, whatever, bodegas and supermarkets and had a lot of interaction with the public."

The new Dover

In 2002, The New York Times dubbed the town "dowdy old Dover." Thrift shops, antique stores and Hispanic groceries stood out. Today, the drab characterization is fading.

Vacancies are fading. Storefronts are updated. Development is rampant. Victorian lamps and pear trees line Blackwell Street, where hoteliers, bankers, retailers, entertainers and doctors congregated in the 19th century.

They arrived to prosper in a town that became a transit hub when the Morris Canal came through. A transportation conduit designed to ease the transport of Pennsylvania coal to North Jersey, the canal helped power iron forges after most of the region's forests were clear-cut to make charcoal.

When it officially opened in 1831, the first canal boat launched was called The Dover of Dover, Charles Platt wrote in his bicentennial history "Dover Dates, 1722-1922." From there, the railroads came. Later, trollies were added.

Around the turn of the 20th century, trollies ran from East Blackwell Street to Succasunna or Morristown as freight trains idled on nearby tracks. The 45-acre Blackwell Street Historic District, now on the National Register of Historic Places, became a hub and a destination.

There was a L. Lehman & Co. branch on the corner of Morris and Blackwell streets. Kanouse's Bargain Store was on North Sussex Street. At Sussex and West Blackwell was the Richards Block, where first Mayor George Richards ran a grocery delivery service. It used horse-driven sleighs in winter. Later on, a J.J. Newberry Department Store would arrive to occupy the West Blackwell frontage.

Most recently renovated, then vacated by Berkeley College, the 153-year-old building is no longer slated to become Dover's next town hall. Instead, town officials are accepting proposals for future use, including one that would open the ground floor for businesses while bringing back the iconic Newberry's lunch counter. Town officials also hope to attract an "institute of higher learning" to fill the upper floors to keep an educational component downtown.

The project is one of many set to continue an ongoing transformation of downtown West Blackwell Street that launched with the opening of the Meridia Transit Plaza, a modern apartment complex just a few blocks from the railroad station.

Dover's development

The red-brick station is a much larger version of the first, built just a few hundred feet west in 1848. By 1854, the rail line would extend into Hackettstown, setting the stage for Lake Hopatcong's first hotel and the dawn of North Jersey's lake-based tourism era.

The link to lakeside resorts and iron mines ensured Dover remained a hub of activity. When it was first incorporated in 1869, the town of 3,300 provided lodging, entertainment and goods. It also boasted enough ironworks, mills and machine shops to become known as the "Pittsburgh of New Jersey," Robert Casey and William Douglas wrote in "The Lackawanna Story."

The industry and tourism wrought riches for merchant William Henry Baker. Baker set up in Dover in the 1870s to sell groceries and dry goods out of separate businesses. He later sold culture.

In 1880, he built the Baker Opera House. Designed to house vaudeville acts, it also provided a stage for Houdini in 1896. Baker abruptly closed his opera house in 1904. Within two years, however, he would open the Baker Theatre.

Both businesses still stand. The opera house is just a stone's throw from Meridia Transit Plaza, where all but a few of the 215 market-rate apartments are already occupied. More new units, 79 of them, are now open on Thompson Avenue, where preference was given to veterans and families in need of affordable housing.

Housing has historically been a vexing issue for Dover officials. The town has had to deal with the occasional spikes in illegal apartments and the social issues that stem from overcrowding as landlords converted one-family houses into multifamily dwellings.

NJ historic sites: Mired in Hackensack River muck, USS Ling makes list of most endangered NJ historic places

Dover is still largely low-income compared to the rest of Morris County. The median home value in its densely packed 2.5 square miles between 2015 and 2019 was about $190,000 less than the county average of $460,000. About half the homes are rental units, census records show. Most are in complexes. A few are in houses or above business district storefronts.

The average age of a Dover home is 80 years or older, Correa said. The need to keep residents in town and attract newcomers is a challenge, he said. Some fear an influx of new people could drive away longtime residents who have benefited from affordable rent prices. Correa said the only way to help people stay in town and provide opportunities for homeownership is to build new homes on empty properties around town.

"We believe that true rehabilitation and revitalization of these empty lots, some of which are contaminated can help our community," Correa said.

Recently completed housing projects have satisfied Dover's state-mandated quota of new affordable-housing construction, said Mayor Carolyn Blackman. Still, Blackman said Dover will continue to build.

North Jersey's oldest businesses: These 10 North Jersey businesses have withstood the test of time, some more than 100 years

"We want to see all different kinds of housing in Dover for all the residents," she said. "Right now we are working with Habitat for Humanity to see if we can work together to bring in four new homes. This way, everybody has a chance for a better place to live if they wish it."

More housing projects are planned at former commercial locations: 90 units at the former Hibachi restaurant at the corner of Route 46 and McFarland Street, 224 across two properties at the corner of Salem and Blackwell streets,19 to replace the Harry Loory furniture store building off Bassett Highway and seven across the street in the form of townhouses.

David Zimmer is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Dover NJ finds itself at crossroads at its tricentennial anniversary