African Americans were given this beach to segregate them from whites during the first half of the 20th Century. There is quite a bit about it on the Web, and in the Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/7/15 at p. D2, is an article about an exhibit called Jet Black, Brown and Tan at the Arts Garage in Philadelphia that addresses the beach's history. On the Web I saw that blacks were given the area in front of Boardwalk Hall because there was no hotel nearby, and that there is a historic marker at Missouri Avenue, http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=36900. There is a Chicken Bone Beach Historical Foundation.