Atlantic Hotel Company
company · founded 1868
Also known as Atlantic Hotel Company of Berlin; Atlantic Hotel Co.
The corporation that built Ocean City — chartered not in 1875 but seven years earlier. Chapter 29 of the January session of 1868 of the Maryland General Assembly incorporated Lemuel Showell, James C. Dirickson, Henry B. Johnson and B. Jones Taylor to build a seaside hotel, 'provided the point selected be not over eight miles from the town of Berlin' — the clause that determined where Ocean City would be (the site is seven). The company sat on the licence for five years; a July 1873 meeting on the beach revived it, the land was bought in September 1873, and the 400-room Atlantic Hotel opened in the summer of 1875 on land patented as 'The Ladies' Resort to the Ocean.' Its holdings passed to the Sinepuxent Beach Company in the early 1890s.
In the record (54)
1868 · 1868-02-18
The Atlantic Hotel Company is chartered in 1868 — seven years before Ocean City — by Lemuel Showell, James C. Dirickson, Henry B. Johnson and B. Jones Taylor.
Maryland Laws of 1868, chapter 29, "An Act to incorporate the Atlantic Hotel Company, of Berlin, Worcester County," approved February 18, 1868. Section 1 names Lemuel Showell, James C. Dirickson, Henry B. Johnson and B. Jones Taylor as incorporators and empowers the company to erect "a first-class Hotel near to or in the town of Berlin; and also a first-class Hotel at some suitable point on the sea shore, to be hereafter decided by the President and Directors; provided the point selected be not over eight miles from the town of Berlin." Capital stock was authorized in shares of twenty dollars each up to five thousand shares ($100,000), with power (sec. 5) to issue bonds of not less than $25 each up to $50,000 and convert them into stock. The bill was reported favorably in the House on January 22, 1868 by the Worcester delegation and passed February 20; the charter was amended again at the 1886 session. The eight-mile clause is decisive: the sea-shore point eventually chosen, seven miles east of Berlin, is Ocean City. This corrects the 1873 research pass's working hypothesis that the company's charter would be found in the 1874 General Assembly session; it is not there. The dataset's existing founding year for org:atlantic-hotel-company (1875, the hotel's opening) and this charter year are recorded as a conflict rather than resolved.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1871 · 1871-07-26
"Berlin, Md., talks of building a hotel on the beach" — the resort idea in print, four years before the Atlantic Hotel.
Under "Maryland Items," the Smyrna Times of July 26, 1871 carries a one-line notice: "Berlin, Md., talks of building a hotel on the beach." That is the whole item — no company, no promoter, no site. But it is a contemporary 1871 record of Berlin men discussing exactly the thing they would do in 1875: put a hotel on the Sinepuxent strand. The Atlantic Hotel Company was not organized until 1875, and the Atlantic Hotel opened on 4 July 1875. In 1871 the beach the item refers to had no town, no name in common use, and no way to reach it but by boat across the bay.
Ten words in a Delaware weekly, and the whole town is in them. Somebody in Berlin was already thinking about a hotel on that sand.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1873 · 1873-07-18
July 1873: a party of prominent Marylanders meets on Synepuxent Beach opposite Berlin to plan a $25,000 summer hotel — the meeting that becomes Ocean City.
In the third week of July 1873 a delegation that included United States Senator George R. Dennis, the Hon. William T. Hamilton, State Comptroller Levin Woolford, Robert Fowler and a state senator whose name the papers print as 'I. M. Denson' crossed to the barrier beach opposite Berlin, Worcester County, 'with the view to locating there a fine large summer hotel, which will cost about $25,000.' Robert Fowler offered to give $5,000; Dr. H. R. Pitts, president of the Wicomico & Pocomoke Railroad, pledged the extension of that road to the beach. Committees on site and on subscriptions were appointed and the meeting adjourned. A companion notice a week earlier described 'a party of prominent gentlemen from Baltimore, Philadelphia and elsewhere' visiting Berlin 'for the purpose of building a handsome hotel on Synepuxent Beach.' The press pitch was already fully formed: the beach 'pronounced one of the finest in the world — comparing favorably with the celebrated Galveston beach,' a forty-mile drive at low tide, splendid surf-bathing, and a safe bay behind for sailing and fishing. Two years later that hotel opened as the Atlantic and the committee's chosen name for the place was Ocean City.
Ocean City's origin story usually starts on July 4, 1875 with the Atlantic Hotel's front door. The paper trail starts here — a committee meeting on an empty beach in the summer of 1873, with a railroad president promising track and a Baltimore money man promising $5,000.
Atlantic HotelWicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1873 · 1873-09-05
By September 1873 the hotel company has bought adjoining farms for $29,000 and is 'preparing to erect the mammoth hotel and construct the railroad.'
The Berlin correspondent's letter of September 5, 1873 reports that 'On Synepuxent[,] enterprise is moving onward with considerable vim... The company have purchased farms adjoining for $29,000 and [are] preparing to erect the mammoth hotel and construct the railroad. All will be in perfect order, in another season, if nothing prevents.' The same letter notes land prices around the scheme 'have been enormously high.' Seven weeks after the committee meeting on the sand, the promoters were buying real estate; thirteen days later the Panic of 1873 broke in New York.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1873 · 1873-10-21
A month after the Panic of 1873, the beach scheme is still alive: the 'Synepuxent R.R.' has nearly enough money in hand and lumber is being gathered for buildings on the beach.
The Berlin letter of October 21, 1873 — published under the standing head 'SYNEPUXENT R. R.' — reports that the road has nearly sufficient funds in hand to complete it, that work has commenced, and that lumber is 'being gathered together this fall and coming winter for the buildings [on] the beach.' The Panic of 1873 had begun with Jay Cooke & Co.'s failure on September 18 and closed the New York Stock Exchange for ten days; the same Wilmington paper was reporting bank suspensions rippling out through Pennsylvania that autumn. The Worcester County beach venture wobbled but did not die: the Wicomico & Pocomoke did not begin building toward the coast until 1874, and the hotel opened July 4, 1875.
The national economy fell over in September 1873 and a country railroad on the Eastern Shore just kept stacking lumber. That two-year lag between the 1873 plan and the 1875 opening is the Panic, priced in.
Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1874 · 1874-12-23
By December 1874 "a fine hotel is now being built" on the new beach — with a Baltimore night boat promising breakfast at the shore.
Reporting a new steamboat arrangement for the Eastern Shore, the Wilmington Daily Commercial of December 23, 1874 wrote that "the Baltimore people will secure quick communication along the Atlantic coast of the Eastern Shore [for] visiting the new beach in Worcester county, [near] Berlin, where a fine hotel is now being built. Leaving Baltimore in the evening, by boat, they will be at the beach for breakfast." A new boat was then in frame and partly plated at the Harlan & Hollingsworth yard in Wilmington, to be ready "early the coming season." The Atlantic Hotel opened July 4, 1875; this is contemporary evidence that construction was under way in 1874 and that the overnight-boat-plus-rail package to the beach was being sold before the town had a name.
Atlantic HotelWicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-01-06
"The proposed Ocean City, on the shore of Worcester county" — the name is in print in January 1875, six months before the town opened.
At the Peninsular Press Association's winter meeting in Wilmington, the editors argued over where to take their summer excursion. "Mr. Malone suggested a visit to the proposed Ocean City, on the shore of Worcester county." The name was therefore settled and circulating in the regional press by New Year's 1875. Who actually chose it, and when, this pass could not establish from any contemporary record. The standard account — that the Atlantic Hotel Company's promoters named their creation Ocean City — is repeated everywhere and sourced nowhere. What the beach was called before is documented: Synepuxent Beach in the newspapers, Worcester Beach in the shipping columns, and, on the 1869 state patent, "The Lady's Resort to the Ocean."
The town had a name before it had a building. Who supplied it is still legend, not history.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-04-01
Ocean City's first disaster came before the town opened: the half-built hotel was blown down in an April windstorm.
"Hotel Blown Down. — At Ocean City, the new summer resort on the Peninsular coast, the hotel in course of erection was blown down during a heavy wind storm on Thursday and damaged to the extent of $500," the Middletown Transcript reported on April 3, 1875. The building went back up in time; the plan of the town had been published three weeks earlier and the house was open for the summer season. The barrier beach announced its terms in the first year.
Three months before the ribbon, the ocean knocked the hotel over. It has been arguing with the buildings ever since.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-04-13
April 1875: the plan of Ocean City is published — seven streets, four avenues, about 60 acres, and one square reserved for the Atlantic Hotel.
The Wilmington Daily Gazette of April 13, 1875 had been shown "a well executed map showing the plan of Ocean City, the new watering place on the Synepuxent Beach." The town as laid off contained seven streets — Caroline, Talbot, Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico, Worcester and Division — and four avenues — Atlantic, Baltimore, Philadelphia and St. Louis — covering about sixty acres. "The Atlantic Hotel will occupy a square of ground fronting on Wicomico and Somerset street and Atlantic and Baltimore avenues. The plan and dimensions of this building, now being constructed, was published in these columns sometime ago … The hotel will be ready to accommodate visitors when the time arrives for opening the season." Six of the seven street names are Eastern Shore counties; the avenues are the cities the company hoped to draw from. Most of them are still on the map today.
Ocean City was named, surveyed, street-named and advertised three months before it opened. The founding was a real-estate launch, and the map came first.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-07-04
The Atlantic Hotel opens on July 4, 1875 — the day Ocean City dates its birth to.
Every modern account of Ocean City's founding turns on one date: the Atlantic Hotel, built by the Atlantic Hotel Company on the newly platted beach opposite Berlin, opened its doors on July 4, 1875, and the town has counted its age from that summer ever since. The 1875 newspaper record confirms the surrounding facts beyond argument — the plan of the town was published in April, the place was open and full by late July, and a Delaware editor wrote in July that Ocean City had "opened this year for the first" — but this pass found no contemporary notice of the opening itself, and the traditional July 4 date rests on later accounts. Sources also disagree on the building's size: some say more than 400 rooms, others that it accommodated 400 guests. Both disagreements are recorded here rather than resolved.
The birthday is real, the birth certificate is missing. Everything around July 4, 1875 checks out in the contemporary press; July 4 itself doesn't — yet.
traditionally 4 July 1875 — but no contemporary notice of an opening has ever been found, and the hotel was demonstrably holding three hundred guests on 20 June
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-07-28
"Ocean City, the new resort just below it, in Worcester co., Md., opened this year for the first, with a better hotel and a railroad right up to the back door."
The single cleanest contemporary confirmation of the founding year comes from a rival's editorial. Writing on July 28, 1875 about Rehoboth's flagging camp-meeting resort, the Smyrna Times listed the competition: "Ocean City, the new resort just below it, in Worcester co., Md., opened this year for the first with a better hotel and a railroad right up to the back door. Sea Grove, the new Presbyterian resort … at Cape May point, also opened this year for the first." A Delaware editor with no reason to flatter Maryland puts Ocean City's first season in 1875, gives it a hotel better than Rehoboth's, and — importantly — puts a railroad at its back door in the first summer.
Ocean City's founding year is confirmed by a neighbor complaining about it.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-07-31
Two hundred guests in the house and "many hundreds" over the season — Ocean City's first summer, counted in a Baltimore German newspaper.
Der Deutsche Correspondent, Baltimore's German-language daily, covered the new resort like a society column all July 1875. On July 24 it reported that many hundreds of visitors had stayed that summer in the "splendid little town almost entirely surrounded by water," that about 200 guests were then in the hotel, and that a second hotel was to be built. On July 31 it printed a roll of over 200 Baltimoreans at the "Atlantic-Hotel" at Ocean City. The names in those lists — Keene, Richmond, Newell, Grady, Fowler, Mathias, Cathell, Moulton — are the closest thing we have to a register of Ocean City's first guests.
The first summer's guest list survives because a German-language paper in Baltimore thought its readers would want to see who was at the beach.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-08-28
Ocean City's first season grossed over $35,000 at the hotel.
"It is stated that the gross assets for the [past] season at the hotel at Ocean City foot up over $35,000," the Wilmington Morning Herald reported on August 28, 1875, quoting a state paper. For scale: the Wicomico & Pocomoke Railroad, which served the whole lower Shore, had grossed $33,966.42 across all of 1873. A hotel that had not existed in the spring out-earned the county's railroad in a single summer.
The business case closed in one season. Everything the beach became follows from that number.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-08-31
August 31, 1875: a blindfolded boy pulls names from a hat and Ocean City's first 111 lots are handed out to the Atlantic Hotel Company's stockholders.
On Tuesday, August 31, 1875, excursion trains brought about two hundred people over to Ocean City and the directors of the Atlantic Hotel Company arranged the drawing for lots. "It was decided that each stockholder was entitled to a lot, those having the greater number of shares having the first choice. The names of each stockholder having an equal amount of stock were put into the hat at a time, and the names drawn out by a boy who was blindfolded." Hon. James U. Dennis's name came out first; he was absent, and his brother U. S. Senator George R. Dennis chose Lot No. 11 for him. Hon. William T. Hamilton's name came next, and Col. Lemuel Showell chose Lot No. 10 for him. Subscribers were sorted into nine classes by the size of their holding — $500 down to $50 — and among them were Governor W. Pinkney Whyte, Comptroller Levin Woolford, E. K. Wilson, E. E. Jackson & Co., Harrison Bro., the Barnum's Hotel Co. of Baltimore, and Wilmington's Wm. Lea & Sons. "One hundred and eleven lots in all" were taken. Afterwards the Wicomico & Pocomoke directors held a meeting, the Salisbury Brass Band played, and the day "wound up by a grand hop at night."
Ocean City's first property transfer was a raffle. The lots weren't sold to the public — they were dealt out to the men who had subscribed the hotel, in order of how much they'd put in.
Wicomico and Pocomoke RailroadGeorge R. DennisWilliam T. HamiltonCol. Lemuel ShowellLevin WoolfordEphraim King Wilson II
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-10-09
Ocean City's first named hotel-keepers: Henry Stokes & Co., proprietors of the Atlantic House, feed 111 railroad men in October 1875.
On October 9, 1875 the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad ran its peach-season employees on an excursion to Ocean City. The excursionists passed resolutions thanking the company for the first-class cars and "the sumptuous entertainment while there at the large and commodious Atlantic House, conducted by the very gentlemanly proprietors, Messrs. Henry Stokes & Co." Stokes replied that the courtesy the railroad had shown them "in the [enterprise] of making Ocean City a summer resort" entitled them to any effort on their part. The Wilmington Daily Commercial noted that the hotel "had been closed for two weeks, but was opened to the" party; about 150 people made the trip, and some took a bath in the ocean in October.
The first people to actually run Ocean City's first hotel have a name, and it isn't in the founding legend.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-11-29
Before its second season the Atlantic Hotel changes hands — and gains billiards, pool tables and a bar.
In October 1875 three Delaware papers reported that William C. Fountain of the Capital Hotel, Dover, was arranging to run the hotel at Ocean City the next year — one adding drily that he would have his hands full if he ran three houses. By November 29 the deal had gone elsewhere: "John Tracy & Co. (John Tracy, of the Peninsula House, Salisbury, and Messrs. McDermott and Dougherty) have bought the furniture [of the] Atlantic Hotel at Ocean City and leased the house. The new firm propose to conduct the house on different principles from last [season] and also make some internal changes in it. Billiards and pool tables will be introduced and a bar stocked with the various liquors will be a feature."
Ocean City's first winter produced its first change of management and its first bar. Season two was already being retooled for a livelier crowd.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1876 · 1876-05-10
Ocean City's first known product endorsement: the Atlantic Hotel's paint job, vouched for by the railroad president.
A trade notice in the Wilmington Daily Commercial of May 10, 1876 read: "The Atlantic Hotel, at Synepuxent Beach, was painted last summer, with Harrison's Town and Country Ready Mixed Paint, and notwithstanding the effects of the winter weather it shows no depreciation in color or firmness. So says H. R. Pitts, President of the Wicomico [and] Pocomoke R. R. Co." It is a small item that does three useful things: it dates the Atlantic Hotel's painting to the summer of 1875, it shows the new resort already being used as advertising copy 250 miles up the peninsula, and it puts Dr. Hilary R. Pitts in the president's chair of the Wicomico & Pocomoke in May 1876.
Wicomico and Pocomoke RailroadDr. Hilary R. Pitts
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1876 · 1876-07-22
Three hundred guests, four bowling alleys, and a register with names from Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana and Paris — the Atlantic Hotel's second season.
The Atlantic Hotel in July 1876 was run by "Messrs. Tracy & Dougherty of Salisbury, the latter formerly from Wilmington," had "comfortable rooms for more than three hundred guests," and was "nearly full, about three hundred persons being present." In the evening "the large dining room is cleared of the array of tables, and 'the dancers dancing in tune' to good music furnish a scene of gay delight till a late hour"; "four good bowling alleys are well patronised by those who wish for innocent and muscular amusement." Visitors came "principally from Wilmington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and the surrounding country," but "the Register chronicles the arrival of guests from Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana and other Western and Southern States, not to omit one sojourner for a week from the metropolis of France." One guest ranked it against the competition: "the only hotel at Cape May that surpasses this in convenience and accommodation is the Stockton House."
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1876 · 1876-07-22
"The completion of the pier across the bay, over which the cars bring visitors now to the door of the hotel" — the railroad reaches Ocean City itself.
A correspondent writing from "Ocean City, Md., July 22, '76" for the Wilmington Morning Herald gave the dated, contemporary confirmation that the rail crossing was finished for the resort's second season: "The improvements, however, this year over last are marked; one of the most important being the completion of the pier across the bay, over which the cars bring visitors now to the door of the hotel." He added that "The Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad, connecting with the Eastern Shore Railroad at Salisbury, runs directly to the hotel, and by means of the P. W. & B. and the Delaware Railroads affords easy access [from] all parts of this Peninsula." Before 1876, guests left the cars on the mainland and finished the trip by boat.
One sentence in a Wilmington newspaper is the whole hinge of Ocean City's history: the year the train stopped at the bay and the year it stopped at the hotel steps are not the same year, and 1876 is the second one.
Wicomico and Pocomoke RailroadOcean City Bridge Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1878
The Atlantic Hotel holds its rate for a fourth season — $2.50 a day, $10 to $12.50 a week, John Tracy proprietor.
"ATLANTIC HOTEL, OCEAN CITY, MD. Board, $2.50 per day, $10.00 to $12.50 per week. Appointments first class. Finest and largest house. Two daily trains from Wilmington direct to the beach. All the delicacies of the season. JOHN TRACY, Proprietor." The card ran in the Wilmington Daily Gazette all summer, from July 12 to September. It is word-for-word the 1877 rate: after a season in which a Delaware paper said Tracy had cleared ten thousand dollars, he did not raise his prices.
Four seasons in, the flagship hotel's rate has not moved a nickel — and it now has competition at two dollars.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1879
August 1879: John Tracy renews his lease of the Atlantic Hotel for five years from 1880, and the house is to gain a hundred more rooms.
"Tracy has renewed his lease of the Atlantic Hotel at Ocean City for the term of five years, beginning 1880. The hotel will be improved by the addition of one hundred more rooms." Tracy had run the Atlantic since the town's founding season and was reported in 1877 to have cleared ten thousand dollars above expenses; this is the first evidence of the railroad's hotel committing to a second five-year term and to a physical expansion on a scale that would roughly transform the building. It is also the clearest sign that 1879's two drownings did not shake anyone's confidence in the resort's economics.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1882 · 1882-08-03
The Atlantic Hotel Company reports its first mortgage paid off and property worth twice what the stockholders put in.
At the stockholders' meeting at Ocean City on Thursday, August 3, 1882, the Board of Directors reported: "The first mortgage of $3,000 is paid in full, leaving the second mortgage of $6,500 to be paid out of the rents. This is expected to be extinguished in the next two or three years. The company now has property worth from $25,000 to $30,000 that cost the stockholders $15,000." The directors elected were Dr. H. R. Pitts, B. Jones Taylor, R. J. Henry, Col. Lemuel Showell, Dr. Geo. R. Dennis, Dr. S. P. Dennis and E. Stanley Toadvine — six of the seven from the circle of Berlin, Snow Hill and Somerset men who conceived the resort on the beach in July 1873 and bought the land in 1875.
Seven years after the founding syndicate spent $15,000 on a sandbar, the sandbar was appraised at twice the money and the first mortgage was gone. The resort had stopped being a gamble.
Atlantic HotelDr. Hilary R. PittsB. Jones TaylorCol. Lemuel ShowellGeorge R. Dennis
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1882 · 1882-08-13
Ten days after his last trip to the town he helped invent, ex-U.S. Senator George R. Dennis dies.
Dr. George R. Dennis of Somerset County — U.S. senator from Maryland 1873-1879, and one of the men at the July 1873 meeting on the beach that resolved to build a $25,000 hotel here — attended the Atlantic Hotel Company's stockholders' meeting at Ocean City on Thursday, August 3, 1882, as a director of the corporation. His obituary in the Democratic Messenger of August 19 records it as his last outing: "As late as last Thursday two weeks he was able to visit Ocean City to attend a meeting of the stockholders of the Atlantic Hotel Company, of which corporation he was a director." He died at noon on Sunday, August 13, 1882, at his home near Kingston, Somerset County, of "a general breaking up of the system" after two years of failing health. Three weeks later the Messenger was advertising the sale of his personal property.
The founder's generation begins to go. Dennis got one more look at the beach.
Atlantic HotelGeorge R. Dennis
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1886 · 1886-03-25
The Atlantic Hotel Company's charter is rewritten to fix its annual meeting on the first Monday of August.
Chapter 94 of the Acts of 1886, approved March 25, repealed and re-enacted section 3 of the company's 1868 charter (Acts of 1868, ch. 29, "An act to incorporate the Atlantic Hotel Company of Berlin, Worcester county"). Under the new section the stockholders were to meet annually on the first Monday of August, on ten days' public notice, and elect by ballot seven directors from among themselves to serve twelve months; the directors, once sworn, would elect a president and a secretary-treasurer from their number, and every stockholder had one vote per share, in person or by proxy. The act is also the independent confirmation that the corporation that built Ocean City's Atlantic Hotel was chartered in 1868, seven years before the hotel opened.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1886 · 1886-06-24
The season opens about June 24 with the Atlantic Hotel, and Wilmington's Prof. A. S. Webster takes the dancing pavilion.
A letter datelined "Ocean City, Md., July 1" in the Delaware Gazette and State Journal reported that "the season [opened] a week ago with the opening of the Atlantic Hotel, and a large number of guests are already established in the popular hostelrie... The Atlantic Hotel especially caters to the public in offering superior accommodations, an unexcelled cuisine and varied entertainments for guests. A. S. Webster of Wilmington will have the dancing in charge, and music will be furnished by an orchestra of excellent musicians." Webster's engagement had been announced in Wilmington back in April: "Prof. A. S. Webster has been engaged by John Tracey, proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel, at Ocean City, Md., to take charge of his ball room and dancing pavilion the coming season." Tracy's own advertisement, running in the Evening Star from July 15, is four lines long: "ATLANTIC HOTEL, OCEAN CITY, MD. NOW OPEN. NOW OPEN. For circulars, apply to JOHN TRACY, Proprietor." — no rates at all, for the fifth season running.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1887
In December 1887 the Atlantic Hotel's directors buy John Tracy out for $7,800 — furniture, dancing pavilion, bath houses and ten-pin alleys — ending a twelve-year tenancy.
The Smyrna Times of December 28, 1887: "The directors of the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, have purchased from John Tracy, the lessee of the hotel for the past few years, all the furniture and fixtures, the dancing pavilion, bath houses, ten-pin alleys, etc. The price paid was $7,800. The old furniture will be sold and the house refurnished and renovated." Tracy's lease had run only to January 1, 1888. It is the end of the longest single relationship in the resort's first dozen years — he had bought the Atlantic's furniture in November 1875 as John Tracy & Co. and held the house, on and off, ever since. The inventory also tells you what an 1887 Ocean City hotel actually was: a dining room, a dance floor, bath houses on the beach, and a bowling alley.
The company that had leased its hotel to somebody else since 1875 bought the fittings back and decided to run it itself. That is the moment the Atlantic stops being a landlord's asset and starts being a business.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1887
John Tracy renews his lease on the Atlantic Hotel for $1,200 a year — the first Ocean City rent this campaign has documented.
The Baltimore County Union's "Over the State" column of May 21, 1887 reported that "Mr. John Tracey, who has had charge of the Atlantic Hotel at Ocean City for the last five years, has renewed his lease until January 1st, 1888, for $1,200 per year." It is the first figure this campaign has found for what it cost to hold Ocean City's founding hotel, and it also dates Tracy's continuous tenure: "the last five years" puts his current run from 1882, on top of the 1875–79 seasons already documented.
Twelve hundred dollars a year for the only first-class house on the beach. Eight months later the company bought him out for six and a half times that.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1887 · 1887-08-01
Seven men are elected directors of the Atlantic Hotel for the year from August 1, 1887 — the fullest named leadership Ocean City has yet produced.
Baltimore's German daily Der Deutsche Correspondent reported on August 3 that the following had been chosen directors of the hotel at Ocean City, Md. for one year from August 1: president H. H. Dashiell; secretary B. Jones Taylor; E. S. Toadvine; Judge J. Upshur Dennis; N. J. Henry; Col. Sam Showell; and Dr. S. P. Dennis. About two hundred guests were lodging in the house at the time, "so that an excellent season is in prospect." B. Jones Taylor was one of the four men named in the Atlantic Hotel Company's 1868 charter; J. Upshur Dennis drew first choice of lots at the town's founding sale in 1875. Nineteen years on, the same names still run the house.
No mayor, no commissioners, no bailiff — but a full slate of hotel directors, printed in German, in Baltimore. In 1887 that was the closest thing Ocean City had to a government of record.
Atlantic HotelB. Jones TaylorHon. James U. Dennis
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1887 · 1887-10-04
Col. Lemuel Showell — first president of the railroad that made Ocean City — fails, with $70,000 of liabilities against five thousand acres of Worcester County.
On October 4, 1887 a Wilmington special to the New-York Tribune reported that "Colonel Lemuel Showell, living at Showell's Station, Md.," had made an assignment that morning: liabilities $70,000; assets five thousand acres of land in Worcester County. The paper described him as a large vessel-owner in the coastwise trades who had inherited $250,000 from his father. Showell was the largest original investor in and first president of the Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad, a founder of the Atlantic Hotel, and the man whose family name the village of Showell still carries.
The resort survived 1887. The man who built the railroad to it did not — not financially.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Wicomico and Pocomoke RailroadCol. Lemuel Showell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1888 · 1888-03-24
John Tracy, who ran the Atlantic Hotel for a decade, gives it up and moves to Atlantic City.
"Mr. John Tracy, for many years lessee and manager of the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, has gone to Atlantic City, N.J., to live. He has taken the Edison House, on Michigan and Pacific Avenues." The Messenger added that no successor was known, though "there comes a report that Col. Coleman of the Carrollton Hotel, Baltimore, will probably be the man" — he was not. Tracy had opened the house in June 1884 advertising fresh paint and improvements when it was the only hotel in town advertising at all; four years later he left for the resort that the Delaware papers had been saying would bury this one.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1888 · 1888-07-01
The Atlantic Hotel's stockholders take the house back and hire James Carroll of the New York Hotel to run it.
"It has at last been definitely decided that Ocean City will be opened this summer," the Wilmington Evening Journal reported on June 15. "The Atlantic Hotel will be run by the stockholders, who have engaged James Carroll, of the New York Hotel, formerly of Baltimore, to manage the house." The Evening Star's own summer-resorts card put his pedigree in full: "under the management of James Carroll, formerly of Old Sweet Springs, Va., Eutaw House, Baltimore, and lately of New York Hotel, New York City." The house opened July 1, 1888 and advertised itself open until the first of October, with "unsurpassed bathing, boating and fishing" and an "elegant dancing pavilion." The Journal's Salisbury correspondent on July 14: "Two hotels are open, the Atlantic and the Seaside. The Atlantic, under the new management, is rapidly filling up with guests." On July 30 the Atlantic's pavilion held the largest hop of the season — some eighty couples of Salisburians with contingents from Princess Anne and Berlin.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1888 · 1888-07-28
"A BOOM FOR OCEAN CITY" — the Atlantic Hotel Co. buys a Washington ad campaign and quotes Bayard Taylor on the bathing.
From late July into August the Washington Evening Star's Summer Resorts column carried a display card signed by the Atlantic Hotel Co.: "A BOOM FOR OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND. FAST DAILY EXPRESS TRAIN PUT ON JULY 28. ATLANTIC HOTEL IN NEW HANDS. CUISINE UNEXCELLED. NO ADVANCE IN RATES. QUEEN OF FAMILY RESORTS. PARADISE OF SPORTSMEN. NO MOSQUITOES. 'Best bathing in the world,' said Bayard Taylor. Good boating, gunning, and fishing. The fish used at the Atlantic Hotel are caught in the Synepuxent Bay, within sight of the guests. Rock and trout abound. The gunning season for willet and curlew just begun." It closed with the timetable — Baltimore 2:30 p.m., Ocean City 7:40 p.m.; Ocean City 6 a.m., Baltimore 10:30 a.m. — and the note that the place was "reached, also, by steamers to Salisbury and Crisfield." A week earlier the Democratic Messenger had complained that "Ocean City needs advertising worse than any place in the world. While the Baltimore papers are teeming with praises of the various watering places along the Atlantic Coast, not a word is said for Maryland's only seaside resort... a thousand dollars spent in advertising would place Ocean City in the front."
The first recognisable Ocean City marketing copy in the record — and it is already selling the exact things the town would sell for the next century: the family, the fishing, the bathing, and the absence of bugs.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1888 · 1888-07-28
A fast daily express starts July 28 and the Atlantic Hotel sells "7 hours by the sea" as a day trip.
The Atlantic Hotel's own card in the Democratic Messenger from August 4 ran the schedule and the pitch together: "Trains run to accommodate Worcester people wishing to spend but one day — giving 7 HOURS BY THE SEA. Fast express train to and from Baltimore and Philadelphia — Leaving Ocean City at 6 a.m., arrive in Philadelphia at 10:30 and Baltimore at 11:10 a.m. Leave Baltimore at 2:30 p.m., arrive in Ocean City at 7:40 p.m. JAMES CARROLL, Manager." It was the season's structural change: in 1884 the Washington through train had got you here at 7:45 p.m. and that was an all-day journey; in 1888 a Baltimorean could be on the beach by dinner and a county resident could come and go inside a day.
Atlantic HotelTrain Depot Site
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1888 · 1888-08-16
Dr. Hilary R. Pitts's estate is auctioned in front of his own Ocean City drug store — three town lots, a shuttered signal-service office, and stock in the bridge, the hotel and the railroad.
By the will of Dr. Hilary R. Pitts, late of Worcester County, deceased, his executor John W. Pitts offered the estate at public auction at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 16, 1888, "in front of the Drug Store formerly owned by Dr. Pitts, at Ocean City." The advertisement is the closest thing to a property inventory of 1880s Ocean City in this campaign's record: (1) a lot with a two-storied house formerly used as a drug store; (2) an adjoining lot with a two-storied house "formerly occupied as a signal service office"; (3) the lot immediately south, carrying a house recently owned by Stephen T. Aydelotte, sold subject to Aydelotte's twenty-year lease from May 14 at an annual rental of thirteen dollars; and (4) personal estate — shares of the capital stock of the Ocean City Bridge Company, nineteen shares of the capital stock of the Atlantic Hotel Company, Ocean City, and two and a half shares of Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Railroad stock. Terms: ten per cent cash, the balance in two equal annual instalments on the purchasers' interest-bearing bonds.
Hilary Pitts was on the beach at the 1873 committee meeting that resolved to build a hotel here. Fifteen years later the town he helped invent is a numbered list in a legal advertisement — bridge stock, hotel stock, railroad stock, and a drug store with the signal office next door.
Ocean City Bridge CompanyDr. Hilary R. Pitts
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1889
C. W. Spofford of Washington's Riggs House leases the Atlantic Hotel for five years — and brings the capital's trade with him.
In February 1889 the Snow Hill Democratic Messenger reported from Berlin that "the prospects for Ocean City seem brighter now than for a long time. The Atlantic Hotel at that place has just been leased to Mr. C. W. Spofford, of the Riggs [House], Washington, D.C. ... Mr. Spofford is a well known [hotel] man and will undoubtedly be the [cause] of quite a number of Washingtonians spending next summer at Ocean City." The Smyrna Times of February 20 carried the lease term: "The Atlantic House at Ocean City has been leased to C. W. Spofford, of the Riggs House, Washington, for five years." By March 30 I. N. Mills, superintendent of the Delaware Railroad, had run a special train down to Ocean City with Spofford aboard, and Hon. George W. Purnell had been elected a director of the Atlantic Hotel company. John Tracy, who had run the Atlantic since at least 1882, moved across to the Seaside for 1889.
The proprietor of the Riggs House — the hotel where presidents' cabinets ate — took a five-year lease on a hotel on a sandbar. Washington's summer colony had been coming to Ocean City for a decade; in 1889 Washington's hotel trade came too.
Atlantic HotelJohn TracyGeorge W. Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1890 · 1890-04-09
The Atlantic Hotel is auctioned off at Snow Hill on April 9, 1890 to its own biggest creditor — and resold within ten weeks.
'The Atlantic Hotel at Ocean City was sold at public auction here to-day by George W. Purnell and E. Stanley Toadvin, trustees,' ran the dispatch from Snow Hill on April 9. 'The sale included the hotel building and land upon which it was situated, with the furniture and bath houses. Judge Charles F. Holland of Salisbury was the purchaser... He was the only bidder. The hotel is the largest at Ocean City, and was built about fifteen years ago by a syndicate at a cost of over $35,000. Liens existed against the property amounting to over $12,000, and it was to satisfy these that the sale was made. Judge Holland, the purchaser, was the principal creditor. He has not announced what disposal will be made of the property other than that it will be continued as a hotel.' The price is reported as $15,000 by the Wilmington Evening Journal; the Delaware Gazette's figure is illegible in the surviving scan. Holland did not keep it. By mid-June the Smyrna Times was reporting that 'Judge Charles F. Holland, who purchased the Atlantic Hotel at Ocean City at its last sale by trustees, has sold [it] to a syndicate of Eastern Shoremen. It is stated that the price paid was $12,000' — a figure Baltimore's German daily Der Deutsche Correspondent repeated from Salisbury on June 5. The house Ocean City was founded to build had gone under the hammer for less than half its cost.
sold for a reported $15,000
Atlantic HotelJudge Charles F. HollandGeorge W. Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1892 · 1892-03-14
A Washington real-estate broker takes control of the Sinepuxent Beach Company, and the whole Atlantic Hotel with it.
The Democratic Messenger of March 19, 1892: "The Synepuxent Beach Company Monday elected the following officers: President, R. G. Keene; vice president, Harvey L. Page; secretary and treasurer, Thomas E. Waggaman; assistant secretary W. J. Warrington. Mr. Waggaman, who is a Washington real estate broker, has bought a controlling interest. The Atlantic Hotel has been purchased by a Washington syndicate that will remodel and improve the building. The treasurer reported a balance of $23,000 after paying [dividends] last October. A party of twenty-five interested in the beach will visit Ocean City Sunday, leaving Baltimore Saturday and returning Monday." Robert Goldsborough Keene, one of the four incorporators of December 1890, replaced Dr. J. Pembroke Thom as president. A week later the paper watched the new money arrive: "A special train passed through Berlin Saturday night en route for Ocean City with a large party of capitalists and mechanics from Washington who propose to develop this favorite summer resort. A material change may be expected in its appearance ere the season opens." — 1892 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: THE CONFLICT IS RESOLVED AND THE FLAG SHOULD COME OFF. The Washington real-estate man who took control of the Sinepuxent Beach Company in March 1892 was JOHN FLOYD WAGGAMAN of 700 14th St. N.W., not his brother Thomas E. Waggaman of 917 F St. N.W. The evidence, in order of weight: (1) The Snow Hill paper corrects itself twice within four months. Its own Ocean City column of 25 June 1892 has “John F. Waggaman, of Washington” arriving by special train with the B&O officers; its own Real Estate Transfers column of 9 July 1892 records “John F. Waggaman from Atlantic Hotel Company of Ocean City, Md.… Consideration $15,000” and “The Sinepuxent Beach Company, from John F. Waggaman and wife… Consideration $15,000”, and in the same column “John F. Waggaman from Wm. S. Johnson and wife a tract of land… called the ‘Isle of Wight,’ containing 400 acres.” (2) The Washington Evening Star of 22 December 1892 lists the company’s directors for the coming year and the Waggaman on the board is “J. F. Waggaman”; the Star of 8 February 1895 gives the full board with “John F. Waggaman”. (3) The Star of 21 August 1895, reporting John S. Larcombe’s stockholder suit, narrates the founding: “Some time in 1891… a majority of the stock was to be put into a pool… to be voted by Page and John F. Waggaman, as trustees… In the spring of 1892, Mr. Larcombe says, he received a paper…” That places John F. as the controlling Washington principal at the exact moment the Messenger wrote Thomas E. (4) Across the entire Evening Star run, ‘Sinepuxent’ and ‘Waggaman’ co-occur on only seven pages, the earliest in 1895, and every one names John F. There is no source anywhere putting Thomas E. Waggaman with the company other than that single Messenger paragraph. (5) The two men were different people and were brothers, both sons of John Henry Waggaman: Boyd’s Directory of the District of Columbia for 1893 (compiled late 1892), printed p. 933, lists “WAGGAMAN JOHN F, real estate, 700 14th nw, h Woodley pk” and “WAGGAMAN THOMAS E, real estate broker, loans and auctioneer, 917 F nw, h 3300 O nw” — separate offices and separate firms in every year checked (1875, 1893, 1894, 1898). The brotherhood is stated in the Star of 7 July 1910, p. 1, on Thomas E.’s estate settlement: “John F. Waggaman, brother of the deceased.” AND THE ERROR IS EXPLICABLE, which is worth printing rather than hiding: the Messenger’s descriptor — ‘a Washington real estate broker’ — is verbatim THOMAS E.’s directory line (‘real estate broker, loans and auctioneer’), while John F. is listed simply as ‘real estate’. A Snow Hill compositor working from a Baltimore wire item, with two Waggaman brothers both in Washington real estate, reached for the better-known name. SEPARATELY, the illegible dividend figure is legible in the portal’s scan of the same page: “The treasurer reported a balance of $23,000 after paying 10 per cent dividends last October.” And the company styles itself ‘of Baltimore City’ in every 1892 Worcester County deed abstract and in the Evening Star’s December report, against the ‘Washington syndicate’ framing.
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyRobert Goldsborough KeeneThomas E. WaggamanDr. J. Pembroke Thom
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1892 · 1892-07-09
The Sinepuxent Beach Company buys the Atlantic Hotel for $15,000 — the deed chain runs Holland to the hotel company to Waggaman to the beach company inside four months.
Worcester County land records, printed week by week in the Democratic Messenger, settle a question campaign 1 and the 1890 pass both left open. In the week ending March 31, 1892: "Atlantic Hotel Company from Charles F. Holland all those tracts, lots and parcels of land with the buildings and improvements situate at Ocean City." In the transfers printed July 9, 1892, two deeds in sequence: "John F. Waggaman from Atlantic Hotel Company of Ocean City, Md., all those tracts, parts of tracts, lots and parcels of land together with the buildings and improvements... Consideration $15,000" and "The Sinepuxent Beach Company, from John F. Waggaman and wife, all those tracts, parts of tracts, lots and parcels of land together with the buildings and improvements situate in Ocean City, Md. Consideration $15,000." The company said so itself in a Messenger advertisement of May 21: "The Sinepuxent Beach Company, having recently purchased the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, Md., and intending to re-furnish the same throughout with new and modern furniture, will sell by public auction all the contents" — a sale held in the hotel on Tuesday, May 24, 1892 at 10 o'clock.
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyJohn F. WaggamanJudge Charles F. Holland
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1892 · 1892-07-20
The Atlantic Hotel's dancing pavilion is the town's public hall: a congressional convention in July, the Gridiron Club's hop in August.
The Democratic Messenger's account of the First District Democratic convention of July 20, 1892 locates it precisely: "The convention was held in the dancing pavilion of the Atlantic Hotel, the same room where Mr. Page was first nominated two years ago. The same chairman also presided, Dr. Robert M. Price, of Queen Anne's county, whose fair rulings then commended him to the present convention." A month later the same room did what it was built for: "A musicale and hop were given in the Atlantic Hotel pavilion Saturday night by the Gridiron Club of Washington, D. C., and dancing was indulged in to a late hour." The hotel had brought its own band down for the season — "The Atlantic Hotel Orchestra arrived at Ocean City on Friday" (July 2). The pavilion is also what the year's most persistent hotel rumour was to be attached to: "a fine new hotel will be erected at Ocean City on the ground adjacent to the Atlantic and in front of the Seaside. It is proposed to join this to the Atlantic with an immense open-air sea pavilion."
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyHenry Page
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1892 · 1892-07-27
The rebuilt Atlantic Hotel advertises electric light and an elevator — the first documented elevator on the beach.
The Washington Evening Star carried the Atlantic Hotel's card through the summer of 1892: "electric light, elevator... splendid fishing and boating, with the finest bathing on the Atlantic ocean. For further information apply to THEO. L. PAGE, Manager, Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City." The Democratic Messenger had trailed the work in March: "The Atlantic, the largest hotel on the beach, has been purchased by a syndicate and will receive a thorough overhauling. It is said that elevators and electric lights will be put in the building and that the walls on the first floor will be frescoed before it is opened for the reception of guests." In May the Wilmington Evening Journal summarised the whole town in eight words: "Ocean City, Md., has a big building boom. Electric lights are in prospect." In August the house was so full that "Col. Theodore Page, the manager, was forced to put up cots in the parlors." — 1892 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed against its own cited page, and an image is attached — the first image the year 1892 has had. The Evening Star card of 27 July 1892 reads in full that the Atlantic Hotel is “owned by the Sinepuxent Beach Company” and opened for guests 25 June “complete in everything. New furniture, silver ware, linen, as well as perfect drainage and sewerage; also electric light and elevator,” with a new steam launch on Sinepuxent Bay and sail and rowboats, under Theo. L. Page of the U.S. Senate restaurant. Two details worth adding: the company’s OWNERSHIP is stated in the hotel’s own advertising, which is a second and independent confirmation of the deed chain; and the advertised opening of 25 June sits against the county paper’s “The Atlantic will be opened Saturday next” of 25 June, which points at 2 July — record both rather than reconcile them.
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyTheodore L. Page
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1892 · 1892-08-13
"More people have been at Ocean City this summer than ever before" — five thousand on a single August Thursday, and cots in the Atlantic's parlors.
The Democratic Messenger's August 13 Ocean City letter opens: "It is universally said that more people have been at Ocean City, Md., this summer than ever before. On Sunday the largest crowd of the season was here. The trains from Baltimore that connected with the steamboat at Claiborne, both morning and evening, landed hundreds who sought relief from spending a hot Sunday in the city... The Atlantic Hotel was packed, and Col. Theodore Page, the manager, was forced to put up cots in the parlors. Even then the applicants could not be accommodated. The Seaside Hotel, Congress Hall and Isle of Wight Cottage were also well filled. It was long after midnight before everybody got settled." The paper counted the traffic all season: seventeen carloads of excursionists on July 29; about 800 tickets sold from the Snow Hill office alone for the August 18 special; "over five thousand people at Ocean City on Thursday last" (August 27 issue); over a thousand on Sunday, September 11, including more than three hundred railroad employees and their families riding free. In October the town's mayor "predict[ed] a more successful season next summer than this, which was the best in the history of the place." — 1892 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The fact currently reads "about 800 tickets sold from the Snow Hill office alone for the August 18 special." The Worcester County Library portal's scan of the same issue and page — Democratic Messenger, 20 August 1892, page 3 — reads: "The excursion to Ocean City last Thursday was a mammoth affair. The weather was most favorable and the people turned out in force and had a good time, returning home early in the evening in time to eat a hearty supper. About 250 tickets were sold from this office." It is the only ticket-count sentence in that issue or the two around it. SETTLED BY READING THE PAGE IMAGE. The number is 250. I rendered the region of the page around the sentence at 6x from the portal's page PDF and read it by eye: “The weather was most favorable and the people turned out in force and had a good time, returning home early in the evening in time to eat a hearty supper. About 250 tickets were sold from this office.” The Chronicling America ALTO text for the same page, recovered later in the session when loc.gov stopped rate-limiting, OCRs the figure as the nonsense word “Soil” — which is where 800 came from. Withdraw 800. The rest of the fact is confirmed and gains three corroborations. Berlin counted the trains: "Twenty car-loads of excursionists passed through here for Ocean City Wednesday" (13 Aug) and "Seventeen cars filled to their utmost capacity passed through here for Ocean City last Thursday" (30 Jul). Berlin also confirmed the season at its height on 27 August: "The hotels at Ocean City are still full to overflowing. The season is unprecedented in the history of this delightful seaside resort." And the five-thousand figure keeps its hedge — "It is said that there were over five thousand people at Ocean City on Thursday last. We sincerely hope there will be another excursion there this season, and that there will be enough cars to accommodate the people so as they will not have to stand up all the way there and back." IMAGE ATTACHED (the year had none): an IIIF region crop of the “GAY TIME AT OCEAN CITY” column itself, from the Chronicling America page scan. Direct image URL measured HTTP 200 image/jpeg.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayTheodore L. PageWilliam Sydney Wilson
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1893
Three hotels open the eighteenth season, and the Atlantic Hotel company rents Congress Hall as well.
"The Atlantic Hotel, at Ocean City, was opened for the reception of guests on the first day of June," the Democratic Messenger reported on June 3. "The hotel company have rented Congress Hotel for the season, and will run it on the European plan." Theodore L. Page managed the Atlantic and a Baltimore Sun correspondent singled him out in July as a man who "has put his house on the same plane as the best houses at any" resort. The Sea Side Hotel "was opened to guests by Proprietor John Tracey" on Tuesday June 13; the Sun's man called Tracy "the veteran Salisbury hotel keeper... who has been doing business every summer at Ocean City with success, for the past fifteen or twenty years." Congress Hall's arrangement changed hands over the summer: on June 24 "Will Rayne has leased Congress Hall, Ocean City, for the season," and on July 8 "Congress Hall, Ocean City, opened on Saturday last with William E. Rayne proprietor and John L. Nock clerk." Billy McKew took the Hotel de Purnell. By July 1 there were "about two hundred people at the various hotels, more than usually found at Ocean City so early in the season," four cottages were building, and "many improvements have been made about the beach." George W. Purnell announced he would build "a handsome cottage at Ocean City between now and next season" on "one of the choicest lots on the beach," and William Warrington, secretary of the Sinepuxent Beach Company, meant to put up a cottage on Atlantic Avenue. — 1893 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The Congress Hall conflict has a third state that resolves the shape of it: Rayne did not only lease, he bought. A Baltimore Sun correspondent reprinted in the Messenger of 15 July 1893 names "Mr. William R. Rayne, who has just bought of William B. R. Selby's estate the large hotel known as Congress Hall and proposes to put $10,000 worth of improvements on it." So the sequence is: the Atlantic Hotel company rented Congress Hall for the season on 3 June; Will Rayne leased it on 24 June and opened it on 1 July; and within a fortnight of opening he bought the freehold out of the Selby estate. The two claims in the conflict are both true and sequential. Add also that by late October the hotel was in winter care: "Mr John Willet moved his family to Ocean City Wednesday, and will take care of Congress Hall during the winter." And in March 1893 the Baltimore & Ohio had sent an agent to Ocean City "to examine the Congress Hall property with a view to purchasing the same" — a railroad nearly bought the hotel five months before Rayne did.
Congress Hall changed hands between June and July 1893 — the hotel company took it first, Will Rayne ran it
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyTheodore L. PageJohn TracyWilliam E. RayneGeorge W. PurnellWilliam Warrington
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1894 · 1894-08-06
The Atlantic Hotel, run by the keeper of the Senate restaurant, holds three or four hundred guests — and the Sinepuxent Beach Company owns it.
A Baltimore Sun letter datelined "Ocean City, Md., Aug. 6" and reprinted in the Democratic Messenger of August 11, 1894: "Ocean City was never more attractive than this summer... This resort, like wine, improves with age." It names the season's houses — the Atlantic Hotel "under the management of Mr. T. P. Page, who conducts the Senate restaurant at Washington... is the pride of its three or four hundred guests"; "Combined with the Atlantic Hotel is the Seaside Hotel, which has been turned into spacious quarters for the accommodation of visitors"; and "The Isle of Wight House, Congress Hall and the Eastern Shore House, the other leading resorts on the beach, report a prosperous season." Crucially it settles the ownership question left open in 1890: "the plans of the Synepuxent Beach Company, which owns the Atlantic Hotel and a considerable portion of the beach." The letter's real subject is a grievance — the New York, Philadelphia & Norfolk and Pennsylvania roads would not time their Salisbury trains to meet the B&ES, and "the management of the Atlantic Hotel has assurance that if the north-bound express from Norfolk... could be so arranged as to make connection... there would be over 500 visitors at the resort from Richmond alone." — 1894 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The manager's initials are wrong. The Baltimore Sun letter of 6 August 1894 as reprinted in the Messenger gives 'Mr. T. P. Page'; every 1895 source gives T. L. — the Democratic Messenger of 3 August 1895 spells it out as 'Theo. L. Page', and the Washington Evening Star of 22 June 1895 directs enquiries to 'the Hotel Page, this city, or T. L. Page, Ocean City.' Read as Theodore L. Page, who is already in the registry. The 1894 'T. P.' is an OCR or a compositor's error.
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyBaltimore and Eastern Shore Railroad
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1895 · 1895-06-22
The Atlantic Hotel advertised as far west as Wheeling in 1895, and its advertisement gives the journey, the manager and the owner: six hours from Baltimore, Theo. L. Page, and the Sinepuxent Beach Company at 641 Equitable Building.
A display advertisement running through June and July 1895 in the Wheeling Register, four hundred miles inland: 'THE ATLANTIC HOTEL... [for the] season of 1895. All modern conveniences and improvements. Take B. & O. or Penna. R. R. to Baltimore, thence from Pier 4, Light St. by boat and train 6 hours to Ocean City. Apply to Theo. L. Page, Mgr., Ocean City, Md., or the Sinepuxent Beach Co. of Baltimore City, 641 Equitable Bldg., Baltimore, Md.' Three useful things fall out of it. The house was six hours from Baltimore by the steamer-and-train route in 1895. Its manager and its owner are given as alternative addresses, which states in the plainest possible form what the 1894 Baltimore Sun letter only implied — the Sinepuxent Beach Company owned the Atlantic Hotel. And the company's own office is 641 Equitable Building, Baltimore, which is where its directors met in February to consider selling the beach.
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyTheodore L. Page
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1895 · 1895-07-27
A man is hurt on top of the Atlantic Hotel's elevator while repairing the wire to its electric light — the first evidence that the hotel had either.
An accident report carried by the Wilmington Evening Journal under an Ocean City dateline of 29 July 1895 and, at more length, by the Democratic Messenger of 3 August: 'On Saturday Mr. Albert Lyman met with a painful accident from the elevator of the Atlantic Hotel. He was on top of the elevator repairing the wire leading to the electric light inside. He told the boy to raise the elevator a little and in the ascent he lost his footing and one of his legs was caught under a beam, mashing the leg badly above and below the knee. No bones were broken, however, and the physician says the injury will not be permanent.' Lyman was a son of Dr. Lyman of Baltimore and a grandson of the late Bishop Lyman of North Carolina. The value of the item is incidental: in July 1895 the Atlantic Hotel had a working passenger elevator and interior electric lighting, and a boy to run the elevator.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1898
The Atlantic Hotel adds a banquet and convention hall, a new theater and an enlarged dancing pavilion, and advertises 300 rooms open all year.
Planned in January and delivered by May. The Evening Star of 24 January 1898 reported that 'changes and improvements are being made to the Atlantic Hotel. It is proposed to refit one of the buildings for use as an auditorium, so that theatrical performances can be given.' The March dispatch from Ocean City added that 'the dancing pavilion of the Atlantic Hotel is to be raised and enlarged and underneath, on the first floor, is to be constructed a women's and men's [bath house].' By 14 May the season advertisement could claim: 'ATTRACTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS. "The Atlantic" has added this year a large BANQUET and CONVENTION HALL and a NEW THEATER. Among the attractions are an orchestra composed of young ladies, special dramatic company, large dancing pavilion, large, airy rooms, excellent cuisine and rates as low as compatible with luxury and good living.' The hotel advertised '300 rooms' and 'Open all the year' under Theo. L. Page, manager. In July the season's music was 'Miss Smoot's orchestra, from New York city.' The convention hall paid for itself within two months: the Maryland Bankers' Association held its third annual convention in the hotel that July.
A convention hall and a theater on a barrier beach in the first season under new ownership. Waggaman was not buying a hotel; he was buying a season, and he built the rooms that would fill it in June and September as well as August.
Theodore L. PageJohn F. Waggaman
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1898
The Sinepuxent Beach Company's collapse is settled: the Atlantic Hotel and the unsold building lots are John F. Waggaman's, sold to him out of the wreck in 1897.
The Wilmington Evening Journal's Ocean City dispatch of 4 March 1898: 'Word comes to us here to-day that the Atlantic Hotel will be managed this year by Theodore L. Page, who was in charge of the hotel for several seasons prior to the sale by the Sinepuxent Beach Company last year to John F. Waggaman, of Washington.' Waggaman's own advertising through the 1898 season confirms it and shows the scope of what he took: the Washington Evening Star carried, from late May, 'OCEAN CITY, MD. ATLANTIC HOTEL, directly on the beach. Open all the year. Modern improvements. 300 rooms. Finest bathing, boating and fishing, both bay and deep sea... THEO. L. PAGE, Mgr. BUILDING LOTS for sale, low. Easy terms. Own your own seaside cottage. Apply to JOHN F. WAGGAMAN, 700 14th St., Washington, D. C.' Waggaman's Washington office also sold the excursion tickets, and on Saturday 25 June 1898 he held 'a grand and unreserved sale of LOTS at auction' at Ocean City; a March auction of Ocean City building lots had already been held at Sloan's, 1407 G Street, Washington. So the hotel, the resort's promotion and the unsold plat all passed from a Baltimore development company that went into receivership in November 1896 to one Washington real-estate man, who ran them as a single business.
The receivership question that has hung over this decade has a plain answer: the town was bought by a Washington realtor, and for the next several years Ocean City was, commercially, an annex of an office at 700 14th Street NW.
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyJohn F. WaggamanTheodore L. Page
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1898 · 1898-05-14
With the Spanish-American War three weeks old, Ocean City advertises itself as 'the only absolutely safe seaside resort on the Atlantic coast, in case of invasion.'
A full display advertisement in the Washington Evening Star of 14 May 1898, three weeks after the declaration of war: 'Ocean City, Maryland... The attractions at this popular resort are many and varied; Fine Hotels, Beautiful Cottages, Best Bathing, Boating and Fishing on the Atlantic coast. "Bay Crabbing." Boating and Fishing for children. Purest air and water; and total absence of mosquitoes. Season of 1898 opens about May 20. ONLY SAFE SEASIDE RESORT IN TIME OF WAR. Ocean City, Md., is the only absolutely safe seaside resort on the Atlantic coast, in case of invasion. This is due to the fact that vessels of heavy draught cannot approach nearer than eight or ten miles on account of a SUCCESSION OF NATURAL SAND BARS.' The claim ran all summer in shorter form: the Atlantic Hotel's standing advertisement read 'Absolutely safe from invasion by foreign enemy.' The Star's Ocean City correspondent of 13 May reported the season promising 'a prosperous and gay one, war and rumors of war to the contrary notwithstanding,' and quoted a cottager: 'The war will not only not injure business here this season, but I believe it will improve it.'
The same offshore shoals the county paper credited with breaking every Jersey gale were repurposed, in the spring of a naval war, as protection from the Spanish fleet. It is the most brazen piece of resort advertising in this campaign, and it worked: the season was a good one.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1898 · 1898-07-23
A hundred or two Maryland bankers hold their third annual convention in the cafe of the Atlantic Hotel, then go swimming.
Staff correspondence of the Washington Evening Star, datelined Ocean City, Md., July 23, 1898, under the head 'MARYLAND BANKERS — They Meet by the Breakers at Ocean City': 'Maryland bankers have invaded Ocean City to the number of a hundred or two during the past two days in attendance upon the third annual convention of their association, and, after spending their mornings considering questions of grave import in the cafe of the Atlantic Hotel, they have scooted for the bath houses like so many boys and surged into the surf, apparently oblivious that such things as overdrawn accounts or dishonored drafts ever had existence.' The convention heard William T. Dixon on the financial situation; the Star's sub-heads read 'COMBINE BUSINESS AND PLEASURE' and 'PROSPECTS ARE CHEERING.' The Westminster Democratic Advocate confirms the meeting from the other end, noting that Dr. J. Howell Billingslea went down as a delegate and that Dr. J. W. Hering, cashier of the Union National Bank, attended with his wife.
The new convention hall was two months old. Ocean City had spent a decade being the Eastern Shore's political meeting-ground; 1898 is the year it started selling itself to trade associations, which is a different and more durable business.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1898 · 1898-07-30
The Atlantic Hotel's Black bell boys stage a concert, a cake walk and a prize waltz in the hotel dining room — 'tickets are already at a premium.'
Staff correspondence of the Washington Evening Star from Ocean City, 29 July 1898: 'The colored population is to-day pleasurably excited and the visiting population expectant over an entertainment to be given in the Atlantic Hotel dining room by the bell boys of the establishment. There are to be a concert, a cake walk and a prize waltz, and tickets are already at a premium. The two latter events are expected to be productive of great rivalry.' The Star's own framing of the performers is in the racial idiom of 1898 and is not reproduced here. It is the earliest documented performance by Black workers at an Ocean City hotel found by this campaign, and one of very few traces of the town's Black population in the 1890s press — the others being the documented Black excursions of 1877 and 1889 and the 1891 statewide organising meeting.
The hotel's Black staff put on the show, sold the tickets, and drew the whole town — and the only reason we know is that a Washington reporter found it quaint. Ocean City's Black history in this decade survives almost entirely in other people's asides.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1898 · 1898-09-10
About two hundred army and navy officers arrange to spend two months recuperating at the Atlantic Hotel after the Spanish-American War.
The Westminster Democratic Advocate of 10 September 1898, in its Maryland news column: 'It is said that about 200 navy and army officers are making arrangements with the Atlantic Hotel to come to Ocean City within the next few days to spend two months recuperating their health at the Maryland seaside.' The war had ended with the protocol of 12 August; the army was coming home from Cuba and Puerto Rico sick with typhoid and malaria, and the Atlantic Hotel — advertising all summer that it was 'open all the year' and 'absolutely safe from invasion by foreign enemy' — put its off-season capacity at the disposal of the convalescents. Whether the officers came, and how many, is not established.
The season that opened by selling itself as invasion-proof closed by selling itself as a convalescent home. It is the only year in this decade when a beach hotel's off-season had a national customer.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1931 · 1931-03-29
The Atlantic opens 1 April 1931 and calls itself "the largest and most modern Resort Hotel on the Delmarva Peninsula" — under Dr. C. W. Purnell, telephone 128.
Evening Star, 29 March 1931: "HOTEL ATLANTIC, opening Apr. 1. Come for health and pleasure, bask in sunshine from our sun porches and sun decks; [$]5 daily and up, with meals. Elevator service." Through the summer the standing line is "ATLANTIC — Largest and most modern Resort Hotel on the Delmarva peninsula. Phone 128", and from July "Beauty parlor, golf, fishing. Dr. C. W. PURNELL." In 1930 the Atlantic advertised "200 rooms" and "250 rooms" in different papers; in June 1932 the town's own collective capacity table put it at 300 rooms, the largest of nineteen houses listed.
This matters for a fight the campaign has open. In 1932 the George Washington Hotel advertised itself as "Largest Hotel in Ocean City" in the same month that the town's own list gave the Atlantic 300 rooms and did not name the George Washington at all. In 1931 the Atlantic is claiming the peninsula, not just the town, and there is no rival claim anywhere in 699 pages.
Atlantic HotelDr. Charles Washington Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1931 · 1931-06-09
Eleven Ocean City, Md. houses advertise in the Evening Star's June 1931 resort column — and the George Washington Hotel is not one of them.
The "OCEAN CITY, MD." block in the Evening Star of 9 and 12 June 1931 lists: the PLIMHIMMON ("A Famous Maryland Hostelry... The T. Worth Plimhimmon Orchestra in ball room. Garage. Golf."); the COLONIAL HOTEL ("Boardwalk; modern. Special rates to July 15. Golf. Booklet. 18th season. Charges reversed on phone reservations. Ph. No. 2. C. O. and N. C. D. CARTER"); the ATLANTIC ("Largest and most modern Resort Hotel on the Delmarva peninsula. Phone 128"); the HASTINGS HOTEL (Mrs. Chas. Ludlam, parking space, special rates to July 15); the MAYFLOWER ("New; directly on Boardwalk; rooms single or en suite... Mrs. K. C. Hastings, Owner-Manager"); THE LANKFORD ("On Boardwalk; garage. M. B. Quillin, Prop."); the BREAKERS ("On Boardwalk. Rooms with hot and cold running water and private bath. Phone 76. C. H. Timmons, Prop."); THE DENNIS; THE BELMONT ("Terms Reasonable. L. R. Hearne"); THE KAYE ("New and modern. On boardwalk. Excellent table. Bathing free. Mrs. M. Kaye, Prop. Ph. 117"); and THE DEL-MAR ("Private baths. Mrs. S. I. Carey"). The MAJESTIC joins the block later in June.
Twelve houses across the season, two of them advertising themselves as NEW. And no George Washington Hotel — in a column that its 1932 successor advertised in, on the same page of the same paper. Whatever the George Washington was doing in 1931, it was not buying space in Washington.
Atlantic HotelPlimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaOcean City BoardwalkPlimhimmon Hotel Company of Worcester CountyDr. Charles Washington PurnellMrs. K. C. Hastings
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1933 · 1933-05-30
The Atlantic Hotel opened its 'fifty-seventh anniversary' season — and told a founding story that dates itself to 1876
Datelined Ocean City, Md., 3 June, the Washington Times printed the town's own account of itself: 'The Atlantic Hotel celebrated its fifty-seventh anniversary at the opening of the season on Memorial Day. The history of this hotel is really one of Ocean City… All the material in the original Atlantic Hotel was brought over in scows. In fact, this hotel was the first building under construction in Ocean City. James Tracey, the first owner, formally threw open the doors in 1876 and the start of Ocean City toward a place among the premier resort cities of the East was begun. Realizing the unusual advantages, a railroad extended its lines to the growing little city in 1880. The road ran from Salisbury… The old Atlantic Hotel was destroyed by fire in December, 1925, and on the original location the new Atlantic Hotel was built in 1926.' The present owner is given as Dr. W. C. Purnell. The 1876 opening and the 1880 Salisbury railroad both disagree with the contemporary record this campaign has built, and the item is recorded as evidence of what the town believed in 1933, not as evidence of 1876.
Dr. Charles Washington Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-10