Asbury Grove was established in 1859 to accommodate Methodist camp meetings and has been the site of the annual open-air religious revivals for the past 150 years. Asbury Grove is one of several thousand camp meeting grounds established in America in the nineteenth century and is among only about one hundred that remain intact and continue to hold regular summer meetings. Despite the loss of nearly half the buildings to a fire in 1927, the 83-acre site retains 141 historic buildings, among them numerous well-preserved Victorian cottages and a group of common buildings that includes a dining hall, bakery, library, chapel, and tabernacle. The Asbury Grove Camp Meeting Association initiated the National Register listing as part of their ongoing efforts to promote preservation of the site.