The opening of Devil's Creek Brewery awakened a decades-old local legend about Collingswood's history.
COLLINGSWOOD -- Every town has its stories. And as for the question of whether those stories are true, well, sometimes it takes a break in tradition for the truth to come out.
When word got around that Devil's Creek, Collingswood's first brewery, would be opening its doors, NJ Advance Media encountered several readers who wondered how the brewery could be allowed to open -- not because of an opposition to beer, but because of an old story that has floated around town for decades.
Collingswood has been a dry town since the 19th century. Local lore held that the iconic Knight Park, a triangular piece of land given to the borough by prominent landowner Edward C. Knight, was founded on the stipulation that the park could only exist as long as Collingswood forbade the sale of alcohol. The opening of a brewery, then, would mean the town would have to forfeit one of its crown jewels.
"Wait a second here. What happens to the park?" asked one reader. "The park was gifted to Collingswood under strict guidelines that if the town ever went wet, the citizens would lose the park."
Knight Park has long been one of Collingswood's favorite places to gather. Its dedication ceremony in the summer of 1888 attracted hundreds according to quotes from the West Jersey Press newspaper posted on the park's website. Since then, it has become perhaps the best-known place in town.
But the story linking the park to prohibition, as that reader found out through correspondence with park trustees, is bunk. In 2015, borough officials announced that following a 2012 state law relaxing restrictions on breweries, they would introduce an ordinance that would allow microbreweries in town.
"That's an old wives' tale. I've heard it, but not so much in the last 10 years or so," said Mayor Jim Maley of the Knight Park story.
The confusion, he added, seems to stem from one of the conditions that came with the park's founding -- namely, that alcohol could not be sold or consumed on the property.
Maley couldn't say exactly how long the story had been around, but said he first heard it when he came to town more than 30 years ago.
"We got here in 1982," he said. "And I've heard it every once in awhile since then."
Andy Polhamus may be reached at apolhamus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajpolhamus. Find NJ.com on Facebook.