Several Life-Saving Service and Coast Guard station structures served the Hereford Inlet area. An original 1849 Life-Saving Station assisted stranded steamers and coal traders using the coastal waterways, then was moved farther inland in 1882 when erosion threatened it. In 1888, a new structure was built adjoining the lighthouse, Anglesea, that marked the entrance to the inlet. In 1938, the Works Progress Administration funded construction of a new Coast Guard building. The station closed for a time in 1964 and later reopened for use by the New Jersey Marine Police. Along the Jersey Shore in the late 1800s, life-saving stations were often little more than shacks stocked with equipment for volunteers salvaging property and saving lives, but by the turn of the century the Life-Saving Service had grown into a fully staffed organization on the east and west coasts and the Great Lakes. By about 1915, approximately 178,000 shipwrecked people owed their lives to the rescues of these surfmen. From the first federally funded life-saving station built on Sandy Hook in 1849, the history of the U.S. Coast Guard can be traced along the New Jersey coast, and in 1915 the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Marine Service were combined to form the U.S. Coast Guard.