You may know where to find the best boardwalk pizza, quietest beaches and tallest amusement rides, but even longtime visitors may be surprised by some of the history hidden along the Jersey Shore.

New Jersey’s coastline is filled with pirates, shipwrecks, baseball legends, music history and landmarks that inspired everything from Monopoly to the E Street Band.

How many of these Jersey Shore facts do you already know?

In 1943, the New York Yankees held spring training in Asbury Park instead of traveling to Florida.

Wartime travel restrictions kept the team closer to home, so players trained on a newly constructed field at Asbury Park High School. The defending World Series champions would go on to win another title that year.

Margate City is best known as the home of Lucy the Elephant, the six-story landmark built in 1881.

Before becoming Margate, however, the community was known as South Atlantic City. Its name was changed to Margate in 1909, reportedly in honor of the English seaside resort.

According to local legend, pirate Captain William Kidd buried treasure somewhere near Cape May.

No one has uncovered a confirmed stash of pirate gold, but the story lives on through Cape May’s family-friendly Captain Kidd Treasure Hunt and other pirate-themed activities.

In 2005, Fox aired a short-lived television drama titled Point Pleasant.

The series was set in the New Jersey beach town and followed a mysterious teenage girl whose arrival was accompanied by a series of supernatural events.

The show lasted only one season, but Point Pleasant remains much better known for Jenkinson’s Boardwalk, its aquarium, beaches and family attractions.

Avalon’s longtime slogan, “Cooler by a Mile,” is not just a playful reference to the weather.

The Seven Mile Island community extends about a mile farther into the Atlantic Ocean than neighboring barrier islands. Its name comes from Avalon, the mythical island associated with the legend of King Arthur.

Sara the Turtle is the official mascot of Sea Isle City.

The shore town is surrounded by marshlands where diamondback terrapins emerge during nesting season. Turtle-crossing signs remind drivers to watch for the animals as they travel across local roads.

Cape May was named for Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, a Dutch sea captain who explored the region during the 1600s.

According to local lore, the spelling changed from “Mey” to “May” because of an error in early paperwork — creating the name used by the famous Victorian resort town today.

Brigantine shares its name with the brigantine, a type of sailing vessel commonly used beginning in the 1600s.

The waters surrounding the island were once known for shipwrecks, including vessels of that type, helping give the coastal community its nautical name.

Boardwalk, Park Place, Baltic Avenue and many other properties on the traditional Monopoly board take their names from real streets in and around Atlantic City.

The game itself evolved from an earlier creation called The Landlord’s Game. Atlantic City street names were incorporated into a homemade version during the late 1920s before Monopoly became a commercial hit.

One famous exception is Marvin Gardens, which was based on Marven Gardens, a neighborhood in neighboring Margate and Ventnor — with the spelling changed on the game board.

The original Ron Jon Surf Shop opened on Long Beach Island in 1961.

Founder Ron DiMenna began by selling surfboards from a small shop after taking up board shaping as a hobby. The business eventually grew into one of the best-known surf retail brands in the country.

The Wildwoods are home to one of the country’s largest concentrations of midcentury “Doo-Wop” resort architecture.

The colorful motels, neon signs, sweeping roofs, plastic palms and space-age details reflect the exuberant design of the 1950s and 1960s. Many visitors now tour the buildings as an outdoor museum of American pop culture.

The first Miss America competition was held in Atlantic City in 1921.

Originally known as the Inter-City Beauty Contest, the event was created to extend the tourism season beyond Labor Day. Sixteen-year-old Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C., became the first winner.

Before it became known as “America’s Greatest Family Resort,” Ocean City was called Peck’s Beach.

The barrier island was once used primarily for fishing, hunting and cattle grazing. Methodist ministers later purchased land there and developed the community as a Christian seaside retreat.

The remains of the S.S. Atlantus can still be spotted offshore from Sunset Beach in Lower Township near Cape May Point.

Atlantus was one of a small number of experimental concrete ships placed into service during the World War I era, when steel was scarce. The vessel broke free from its moorings during a 1926 storm and ran aground, where its deteriorating remains became a Jersey Shore landmark.

Sunset Beach is also known for “Cape May diamonds,” smooth quartz pebbles polished by the water and collected along the shoreline.

Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band took its name from E Street in Belmar.

Before the group became famous, its musicians rehearsed at the home of keyboardist David Sancious, whose family lived on E Street.

The road is now a destination for Springsteen fans looking for another piece of Jersey music history.

From a World Series-winning baseball team and a six-story elephant to a concrete ship, pirate legends and real-life Monopoly streets, the Jersey Shore has no shortage of unusual history.

The next time you head down the Shore, look beyond the beach chair. You may be standing near a place that helped shape a board game, a rock band or one of America’s most famous seaside traditions.