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Atlantic City's boardwalk was the first recreational coastal boardwalk in the US.

"There were beautiful hotels, elegant restaurants, and convenient transportation, but the businessmen of Atlantic City had one big problem to contend with...SAND. It was everywhere, from the train cars to the hotel lobbies. In 1870, Alexander Boardman, a conductor on the Atlantic City-Camden Railroad, was asked to think up a way to keep the sand out of the hotels and rail cars. Boardman, along with a hotel owner Jacob Keim, presented an idea to City Council. In 1870, and costing half the towns tax revenue that year, an eight foot wide wooden foot walk was built from the beach into town. This first Boardwalk, which was taken up during the winter, was replaced with another larger structure in 1880. On Sunday September 9, 1889, a devastating hurricane hit the island, destroying the boardwalk. Most of the city was under 6 feet of water, and the ocean met the bay at Georgia Ave. The Boardwalk of today is 60 feet wide, and 6 miles long. Its planks, placed in a herringbone pattern, are laid on a substructure of concrete and steel. Steel railings are in place to keep visitors from falling off to the beach below, and in accordance with an old City Council ordinance, hotels, restaurants and shops are kept on one side of the boards, with amusement piers on the other."

— Barbara Kozek, Atlantic City History, Atlantic City On-line


Then, there's the other 'history'. Atlantic City's wooden boardwalk has played a role in the detruction of forests across the US and now into the Amazon. The boardwalk was first built of Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides), a tree native to the New Jersey's Pine Barrens. Atlantic white cedar (actually, an arborvitae, not a cedar),

"Heavy cutting for many commercial uses during this century has considerably reduced even the largest stands…"


http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=96

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/silvics_manual/Volume_1/chamaecyparis/thyoides.htm