If the Elizabethtown & Somerville Railroad had not laid tracks through the area in 1840, Dunellen would not exist today. In 1867, the Central New Jersey Land Improvement Company founded Dunellen from a small slice of Piscataway. Their vision was to create a bedroom community for New York City that offered stores and services to support residents; in 1887, Dunellen was incorporated as a borough. Called the "Emerald of the Plain," Dunellen was promoted as a resort with stagecoaches taking tourists from the Railroad Depot to Washington Rock and other resort locations several times a day. By the...