Community & Lifestyle in Surf City, New Jersey
Surf City is a 1.32-square-mile borough on Long Beach Island in Ocean County, New Jersey, with a 2020 census population of 1,243 year-round residents. Its immediate neighbor to the south, Ship Bottom, has its own name-origin story tied to an 1817 shipwreck rescue. Surf City's community identity is built from different material entirely: a borough that changed its name at least four times before 1899 settled the matter, and a single family that held the mayor's office and, for over two decades, a New Jersey State Senate seat at the same time, for nearly half a century running. This page covers that political dynasty, the borough's shifting names, and the small-scale government structure that still runs the town today, without embellishing any of it beyond what the historical record actually documents.
Great Swamp, Buzby’s Place, Old Mansion, Long Beach City: A Town That Renamed Itself Four Times
Before it was Surf City, this stretch of Long Beach Island did not have a settled name at all. Before 1875, the area was informally known as "Great Swamp," and also referred to as "Buzby's Place," after Hudson Buzby, an owner of the Mansion of Health boarding hotel. Another informal name, "Old Mansion," was also in use before the community incorporated. None of these were official designations; they were the kind of names a small, thinly settled barrier-island community picks up informally before it becomes a town with paperwork.
That changed on September 19, 1894, when the community was formally incorporated as Long Beach City, carved from portions of Stafford Township. The "Surf City" name that stuck came afterward, and sources genuinely disagree on exactly when and why. Per one account, the US Postal Service rejected "Long Beach City" as a mail designation in 1894 because it was too easily confused with Long Branch, NJ, further up the Jersey Shore. Per another account, sourced to Wikipedia, it was the Borough Council itself that adopted a resolution renaming the town from Long Beach City to Surf City on May 26, 1899, explicitly to avoid the same kind of place-name confusion. This page presents both dates honestly rather than picking one as definitive: it is entirely possible the postal rejection happened around 1894 and the formal council renaming followed five years later in 1899, but that exact sequence was not independently confirmed. What is not in dispute is that a town on this small, quiet stretch of LBI went through four names, Great Swamp, Buzby's Place, Old Mansion, and Long Beach City, before "Surf City" became permanent.
A Real Claim to the "Surf City" Name, Decades Before California
Surf City, New Jersey has held its USPS-recognized name since 1894 or 1899, depending on which source's date is used, which is more than a century of continuous use. California's Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz, by contrast, only began using "Surf City" as a nickname starting in the 1960s, and later fought their own public and legal dispute over each other's use of the trademark "Surf City USA." Local reporting has pointed to the New Jersey borough's much earlier, officially recognized use of the name as a real claim to naming precedence.
This page presents that claim honestly and no further: it is a real, reported point of local pride, not an adjudicated legal ruling. No formal trademark decision naming Surf City, NJ as the "original" Surf City was independently confirmed in researching this page, and none is asserted here. What is confirmed is the timeline itself, an official New Jersey place name in continuous use since the 1890s, decades before the California nickname existed at all.
Leonard T. Connors Sr.: 49 Years as Mayor, 26 of Them Also as State Senator
The single strongest thread running through Surf City's modern identity is the tenure of Leonard T. Connors Sr. Born April 11, 1929, in Jersey City, Connors graduated from Wood-Ridge High School and served in the US Air Force from 1947 to 1949. He was elected Surf City's mayor and took office on January 1, 1966, and he did not leave that office until December 31, 2015, a run of 49 consecutive years, one of the longest mayoral tenures of any municipality in New Jersey.
What makes Connors's tenure genuinely extraordinary is not just its length but its overlap with a second office. From January 12, 1982, to January 8, 2008, twenty-six years, Connors simultaneously represented New Jersey's 9th Legislative District in the State Senate, having succeeded John F. Russo in that seat. For more than two decades, one man held both the mayor's office of a barrier-island borough of roughly a thousand year-round residents and a seat in the state's upper legislative chamber, at the same time. He was a Republican, and he announced his Senate retirement in January 2007, formally leaving that seat the following January. Connors died on December 4, 2016, at age 87, at a nursing home in Little Egg Harbor Township. No specific policy accomplishment, controversy, or scandal tied to his tenure was confirmed in researching this page, and none is invented here; the tenure itself, in both length and dual-office scope, is the documented story.
A Dynasty That Continued: Son in the Senate, Successor at Borough Hall
The Connors name did not leave New Jersey politics when Leonard retired. His son, Christopher J. Connors, born in 1956, succeeded his father in the State Senate's 9th District seat in 2008, and per available reporting he still held that seat as of recent coverage; because the most recent confirmation point in the source material for this page is not dated to the present year, this page hedges that as a likely-current but unconfirmed-as-of-2026 fact rather than asserting it outright.
At Borough Hall, Leonard Connors was succeeded as Surf City's mayor by Francis R. Hodgson Sr., who had himself already served 46 years on the borough council before stepping into the mayor's office, an apprenticeship almost as long as most towns' entire recorded political history. Per one source, noting his age as 92 as of 2025, Hodgson was reported to still be serving as mayor in recent years; again, this page treats that as a dated figure rather than a confirmed-current 2026 fact. Between one family that held the mayor's office and a state senate seat concurrently for decades, and a successor who had already logged 46 years on the council before becoming mayor himself, Surf City's civic life has been defined, for the entirety of its modern history, by remarkably few hands, and remarkably long ones.
Borough Government on a 1.32-Square-Mile Island
Surf City operates under New Jersey's Borough form of government, with a mayor and a six-member council. Per source material, that council has been all-Republican since the early 1960s, a period of political continuity that lines up with, and helps explain, the long, uninterrupted tenures described above. Council members named in the source material reviewed for this page include John H. Klose, Peter M. Hartney, William D. Hodgson, John D. McMenamin, James B. Russell, and Jacqueline L. Siciliano; this page hedges that this specific roster may not remain current. The borough sits within New Jersey's 2nd Congressional District and the 9th Legislative District, the same legislative district Leonard and Christopher Connors represented in the State Senate.
The scale of the town shapes how that government actually functions day to day. At 1.32 square miles total, 0.74 square miles land and 0.58 square miles water, Surf City is genuinely small, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, sitting immediately north of Ship Bottom and south of Long Beach Township. Its 2020 census population of 1,243 year-round residents (up 38 from 1,205 in 2010) means a six-member council and a mayor are governing a community small enough that a single long-serving family, and a single long-serving successor, could plausibly account for most of the borough's leadership across sixty-plus years. County Route 607, Long Beach Boulevard, is the town's main road; no Interstate, US, or state highway serves the borough directly.
What This Adds Up To, and What We Will Not Invent
Taken together, what is confirmed and real about Surf City's community identity is this: a town that went through at least four informal and formal names, Great Swamp, Buzby's Place, Old Mansion, and Long Beach City, before "Surf City" became permanent around 1894 to 1899; a real, reported claim to naming precedence over the California towns that only adopted "Surf City" as a nickname in the 1960s; a documented 49-year mayoral tenure by Leonard T. Connors Sr. (1966-2015) that overlapped for 26 years with his simultaneous service as a New Jersey State Senator (1982-2008); a son, Christopher J. Connors, who succeeded him in that Senate seat in 2008; a successor mayor, Francis R. Hodgson Sr., who had already served 46 years on the borough council before taking the office; and a borough government, mayor plus six-member council, all-Republican since the early 1960s, running a 1.32-square-mile town of 1,243 year-round residents.
What this page will not do is invent a current 2026 status for Christopher J. Connors's Senate seat or Francis R. Hodgson Sr.'s mayoral tenure beyond the dated figures above, invent a specific policy accomplishment or controversy tied to either Connors or Hodgson, assert a single definitive date for the Long Beach City-to-Surf City renaming where sources genuinely disagree, or claim a formal legal ruling on the "Surf City USA" naming dispute that was never independently confirmed. Surf City's community identity does not need inflating. A documented half-century of concentrated local leadership, a name that changed four times before it stuck, and a real, if informal, claim to being the original Surf City are enough on their own.
Ready to talk to a local Surf City, LBI agent?
Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data drawn from research on Surf City, New Jersey, including the borough's pre-incorporation informal names (Great Swamp and Buzby's Place, after innkeeper Hudson Buzby, and Old Mansion); its September 19, 1894 incorporation as Long Beach City from portions of Stafford Township; conflicting source accounts of the renaming to Surf City, one citing a 1894 US Postal Service rejection of "Long Beach City" over confusion with Long Branch, NJ, and one (per Wikipedia) citing a Borough Council resolution adopted May 26, 1899; the reported, unadjudicated naming-precedence claim over California's Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz, which began using "Surf City" as a nickname only in the 1960s; the documented tenure of Leonard T. Connors Sr. (born April 11, 1929, in Jersey City; died December 4, 2016, at 87, in Little Egg Harbor Township), Surf City mayor from January 1, 1966, to December 31, 2015 (49 consecutive years) and concurrently a Republican New Jersey State Senator for the 9th Legislative District from January 12, 1982 to January 8, 2008 (26 years), preceded in that Senate seat by John F. Russo; his son Christopher J. Connors (born 1956), who succeeded him in the Senate seat in 2008; his mayoral successor Francis R. Hodgson Sr., who had served 46 years on the borough council before becoming mayor and was reported, per a source noting his age as 92 as of 2025, to still be serving in recent years; the Borough form of government with a mayor and six-member council, all-Republican since the early 1960s, with council members named in source material as John H. Klose, Peter M. Hartney, William D. Hodgson, John D. McMenamin, James B. Russell, and Jacqueline L. Siciliano; the borough's location in Ocean County bordering the Atlantic Ocean, immediately north of Ship Bottom and south of Long Beach Township, within New Jersey's 2nd Congressional District and 9th Legislative District; total area of 1.32 square miles (0.74 land, 0.58 water); and 2020 census population of 1,243 (up 38 from 1,205 in 2010). This is a New Jersey market, and New Jersey's tax and municipal-government structure is treated as distinct from other states covered on this site rather than assumed to carry over. No current 2026 confirmation of Christopher J. Connors's Senate seat or Francis R. Hodgson Sr.'s mayoral status, and no specific policy accomplishment, controversy, or scandal tied to either Connors or Hodgson, was confirmed this research pass, and none is invented here. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.