Eugene V. Mori (1898 – October 8, 1975) was an American racetrack owner and real estate developer, known for his ownership of Garden State Racetrack, Hialeah Park Race Track and the Tanforan Racetrack, as well as a number of businesses that led to the growth and eventually the name of Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Early life
Mori, the son of Italian immigrants from Poviglio, was born in 1898 and raised in Vineland, New Jersey, as part of a poor family that had to make do with purchasing broken spaghetti in order to save money.[1]
Business career
Mori sought a state license for a race track and raised the million dollars in 1939 by soliciting stock sales to individuals in person, one at a time. He was granted the approval and built Garden State Racetrack on a 268-acre (108 ha) site in what was then known as Delaware Township, New Jersey.[2]
Mori bought additional tracts of land near the track and branded several properties in Delaware Township using the Cherry Hill name, starting with the Cherry Hill Inn and Cherry Hill Lodge hotels. Cherry Hill Shopping Center (since renamed as Cherry Hill Mall) opened in 1961 opposite the old Cherry Hill Farm site, featuring 75 stores in a single enclosed space. It was these businesses that helped lead the suburban growth in the area and ultimately became the community's namesake when it was renamed as Cherry Hill Township.[1]
When the community tried to get a post office of its own starting in 1959, the existence of another municipality that shared the same name—Delaware Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey—meant that a new name had to be chosen. Among other proposed names, Deltown was the most likely choice and was almost officially chosen, until Mori had his public relations person push for the name Cherry Hill, as part of an effort to promote Mori's businesses. It worked, and voters approved the name change in November 1961.[3]
Death
A longtime resident of Moorestown, New Jersey,[1] Mori died at a nursing facility in Medford, New Jersey, on October 8, 1975.[2]
References
- Janson, Donald. "Eugene V. Mori: Jersey Entrepreneur With Connections—and Growing Problems", The New York Times, April 23, 1973. Accessed May 29, 2026. "Eugene V. Mori paid $10‐Million last week to re‐establish his control of the Garden State Race Track here. The stocky, 75‐year‐old entrepreneur will have to put up another $10‐million July 16, and the same amount Oct. 15 to buy out dissident stockholders.... By the time he was 10, he was paying rent to his father, Eugenio, who worked in a rug mill in Vineland, N. J., after emigrating from Poviglio, Italy, with his wife and their first five children in 1889. When Eugene was born in 1898 his mother, Teresa, was 42 years old and the big family was tightly squeezed into a modest frame house on the wrong side of Vineland's tracks. The Moris were so poor that when Eugene's mother sent him to d'Ippolito's Grocery for spaghetti she always reminded him to get the broken kind, which sold for 2½ cents a pound, rather than the 6‐cent unbroken variety."
- Cady, Steve. "Eugene Mori, 77 Track's Founder", The New York Times, October 9, 1975. Accessed May 29, 2026. "Eugene V. Mori, a promoter who parlayed racetrack revenues into a multimillion‐dollar business empire, died yesterday after a long illness at a nursing home in Medford, N. J. He was 77 years old. Mr. Mori, the founder and owner of the Garden State Park race track in Cherry Hill, N. J., also had controlling interests in the Tanforan race track, in California, and in Hialeah Park, at Miami."
- Shea, Jana. "How Cherry Hill got its name If you grew up in South Jersey, you probably already know that Cherry Hill, New Jersey, got its name from the Cherry Hill Farm.", WHYY-FM, December 14, 2016. Accessed May 31, 2026. "Championed by Republican congressman, William T. Cahill, the township resolved to get a post office of its own in 1959. But there was a hitch. A post office named Delaware Township already existed in Hunterdon County. So the Post Office Department insisted that the Camden County township pick a new name. Several names were considered (Barclay, Colestown and Moriville among them), but Cahill threw his support behind the name suggested by the Post Office Department – Deltown. And Deltown was very nearly approved by the township board until Eugene Mori and his publicity director Tommy Roberts went all out to lobby for Cherry Hill.... Roberts who did PR for the race track said he came up with the name Cherry Hill for a simple reason; to publicize the name of the Cherry Hill Inn."