@rootednewjersey: Imagine paying to watch a horse drop 40 feet off a tower into a tiny pool of water. This happened in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Home to the very first boardwalk in the U.S, built in 1870. It became so iconic that when Monopoly was created, its streets were named after Atlantic City, with Boardwalk as the most expensive property on the board. But the boardwalk's strangest piece of history happened on Steel Pier. From 1929 until the late 1970s, its biggest attraction was the "diving horse." Horses were led up a ramp to a platform about 40 feet high, often with a young woman on their back, then plunged into a 12-foot-deep pool while crowds cheered. One rider, Sonora Webster, went blind after a bad dive and kept performing for years. Today the act is widely condemned as animal cruelty, and attempts to bring it back were shut down after public outrage. Steel Pier still stands today, stretching about 1,000 feet into the ocean. Instead of diving horses, it's now packed with carnival rides, games, and even helicopter rides over the beach. 🎡🚁 #atlanticcitynj #atlanticcityboardwalk #newjersey #njhistory #atlanticcountynj

RootedNJ

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Wednesday 07 October 2026 22:07:50 GMT