Long Branch is one of the greatest nineteenth-century American cities. For decades it was the premier summer resort in the Northeast, and a list of visitors to the area reads like a Who's Who of the nineteenth century: Presidents Arthur, Garfield, Grant, Hayes, Harrison, McKinley, and Wilson all vacationed here, as well as Diamond Jim Brady, Lillian Russell, General Winfield Scott, Henry Ward Beecher, "Buffalo" Bill Cody, Horace Greeley, and General George Meade. Leaders in fashion, finance, theater, politics, and the military flocked to Long Branch by the hundreds because of its tremendous natural beauty, Victorian mansions and hotels, and proximity to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D. C.