History: Buttonwood Manor Opens in Matawan (1933)

The Buttonwood Manor was to open for business on 1 July 1933, according to this advertisement appearing in the 30 June 1933 edition of The Matawan Journal.

There are two things I can point out in this ad that you might find surprising:

1) In July 1933, the Buttonwood was not on State Highway Route 34, which ended at Main Street in Matawan  until 1953. No, the restaurant was on State Highway Route 4, which was established by the NJ State Assembly in 1927 as a north-south route running through the state from Cape May all the way to Fort Lee, where the George Washington Bridge was still under construction. (Some consideration was actually given to calling the Garden State Parkway the Route 4 Parkway because it was going to be a bypass of Route 4.)

2) Five years before the Buttonwood was established in 1933, the "banks of Lake Lefferts" didn't exist. Matawan Creek was only dammed to form this man-made lake in 1928.