Bergenfield

During most of its nearly 300 years of existence as a community, Bergenfield bore the name Shraalenburg. In 1873 Jersey City and Albany Railroad, the first to operate through the community, decided to build a station in the southern half of Shraalenburg. It asked the residents to name the station. Several mass meetings produced frustration, but no name. The exasperated railroad officials on the day before the first trains were scheduled to run sent a ticket imprint “Bergen Fields”. When the borough was incorporated its leaders modified it to the more urban “Bergenfield”. The Borough of Bergenfield was incorporated on June 25, 1894. It is one of the 256 boroughs in New Jersey for which the state has set no standards of size, population, or other characteristics. The Bergenfield municipal government derives all its powers from state statutes and operated under title 40 of the Revised State Statutes and the New Jersey State Constitution of 1947.