Cape May Inlet is 1 mile (1.6 km) long and connects Cape May Harbor with the Atlantic Ocean, and separates Two Mile Beach to the northeast from Poverty Beach to the southwest.
It has its name from a spring about 3 or 4 miles inland, which sends its tribute to the ocean by this passage.
[1]Cold Spring Inlet was described in 1878, viz., Cold Spring Inlet, at the south end of this beach, leads to Jarvis Sound and Cape Island channel and creek.
Its navigation is difficult, and attended with danger, yet it is the commercial highway to the growing and enterprising city of Cape May.
[2]Cold Spring Inlet appears on maps as early as 1700,[3] and as "Cold Spring" the inlet is labeled on a map published in 1749 by Lewis Evans.