LOWER TOWNSHIP, NJ – The Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum here at the Cape May Airport suffers from a little bit of an identity crisis.
“We are at the Cape May Airport, which is not in Cape May, and called Naval Air Station Wildwood, but not in Wildwood,” said Bruce Fournier, deputy director of the museum located in the World War II era hangar there. “Sometimes people who live and work here get confused about where we are.”
Even the Delaware River and Bay Authority (DRBA), which operates the airport where the museum is located, can’t seem to pinpoint the location. According to the DRBA maintained website for the Cape May Airport, “this well-maintained 1,000-acre general aviation airport” is located in Rio Grande, New Jersey, approximately five miles from Cape May. The site does list the airport’s address as being in Erma.
Rio Grande is part of Middle Township and Erma is in Lower Township.
The air station was originally called NAS Rio Grande when it was established during World War II, but that created confusion with a large air station out of Rio Grande, Texas, so the Wildwood moniker was attached.
“You know this happens to us all the time,” Fournier said. “We’ve got a lot to offer and have trouble getting our name on anything.”
Fournier and his marketing committee hosted some 70 local accommodation business owners and operators at a hospitality night last Wednesday, April 17 to help get the word out about the air station, said Fournier.
“The event went well, for the first year,” he said. “Next year, I think we will hold it just after Memorial Day, so that more of the Wildwood businesses can be represented.”
The two hour event informed local motel, hotel and innkeepers what the NAS Wildwood Museum has to offer for visitors, and told them how to point them there.
Air museum looks to solve identity crisis