Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors
government · founded 1902
The United States Army's standing review board for civil works, sitting in the Munitions Building in Washington, which decided whether a proposed river or harbour improvement was worth federal money. It is the body Ocean City had to convince to get an inlet. It ordered a survey of an Ocean City inlet under the River and Harbor Act of 1930; the survey came back favourable on the engineering and the board came back against the money, holding in March 1932 that the benefit 'would accrue almost entirely to the immediate locality in the State of Maryland' and would 'apparently be sufficient to justify the improvement at the sole expense of the State'. It called Ocean City officials to a hearing on 29 March 1932. A delegation of Eastern Shore towns, both Maryland senators and Senator John G. Townsend Jr. of Delaware argued the case, and by 18 June the Chief of Engineers, Brig. Gen. Lytle Brown, and Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley had approved the project.
In the record (5)
1931 · 1931-04-17
Maryland creates the $500,000 Ocean City Inlet Loan of 1931 — Chapter 511, approved 17 April.
Chapter 511 of the Acts of 1931 authorises a State debt of five hundred thousand dollars "to be known as the 'Ocean City Inlet Loan of 1931'", the proceeds to pay part of the cost of securing property and constructing "a canal or inlet SOUTH of Ocean City, in Worcester County, together with such jetties, approaches, channels or appurtenances as may be necessary therefor, to connect the Atlantic Ocean with Sinepuxent Bay." The Board of Public Works — the Governor, the Comptroller and the Treasurer — may pay the money over to "the Government of the United States, or any agency thereof which may undertake the acquisition of the necessary property and the construction", to cover NOT EXCEEDING TWO-THIRDS of the cost. The condition is stated in the statute in proportions, not in dollars: "no part of said loan shall be issued, and no part of the proceeds shall be paid over to the Government of the United States, or any agency thereof, until the Government of the United States shall have made provisions to pay at least ONE-THIRD of the cost, and for the COMPLETION, of the improvements above described." The Board is also empowered to acquire land, roads, approaches, rights and easements "by purchase, gift, condemnation or otherwise", and $10,000 of the proceeds is set aside for engraving, advertising and incidental expenses. Approved 17 April 1931; effective 1 June 1931.
This is the piece of paper the whole 1932-33 inlet fight rests on, and reading it changes what it says. Two years of secondary accounts have rendered the condition as "provided the Federal government should contribute $250,000" — a figure that only appears once the project is priced at $750,000. The Act itself never names a federal sum. It names a RATIO, and it names completion. Note too that Maryland's own statute already puts the inlet SOUTH of the town, eighteen months before the Board of Engineers recommended a cut five miles below Ocean City, and two and a half years before the storm ignored both and opened one at the town itself.
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1931 · 1931-05-11
On 11 May 1931 the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors scraps the old report and votes a complete new survey of the Sinepuxent inlet.
The Midland Journal of Rising Sun, 22 May 1931, under the standing head "SINEPUXENT INLET": "Congressman Goldsborough was notified on May 12 by the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors that at a meeting held on May 11th it had been decided to make a complete survey of the proposed inlet from the Sinepuxent Bay to the Atlantic Ocean at Ocean City, Maryland. In 1927, Congressman Goldsborough secured the passage of a bill providing for a survey by the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors of this proposed inlet. Ascertaining that the report would be unfavorable he requested the report be delayed, because when an unfavorable report is once made another survey cannot be made of the same project for four years. In the last session of the Maryland Legislature, a bill was passed providing for an appropriation by the State of Maryland for $500,000 to be turned over to the United States providing the Government would build the inlet to completion. On April 3 last, the Board of Engineers notified Mr. Goldsborough that the report would have to be filed by May 15th. Upon representations of the Act of the Maryland Legislature, the Board agreed not to file its report..."
A four-year statutory bar on re-surveying is the reason a congressman spent four years keeping his own report unfiled, and the reason the Maryland appropriation had to arrive before 15 May 1931. Chapter 511 was approved 17 April. The Board voted the new survey on 11 May. The state's money bought the town not an inlet but a second opinion — and the second opinion is the file that reaches the Secretary of War in June 1932.
Ocean City Inlet & JettyT. Alan Goldsborough
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1931 · 1931-05-19
Eight days later the War Department formally directs surveys of "Ocean City Harbor and Inlet, Md." and of Sinepuxent Bay "from the Inlet north to Ocean City".
Evening Star, 19 May 1931, page 5, in a short paragraph headed "Army Engineer Surveys Ordered": "Following recent preliminary examination by Army engineers, under authority of river and harbor acts, the War Department has directed that surveys be made of Paris Creek, Md., and also of Ocean City Harbor and Inlet, Md.; Sinepuxent Bay, Md., 'from the Inlet north to Ocean City.'" This is the administrative act that follows the Board's vote of 11 May, and it is the survey that the district engineer at Wilmington carried out and reported favourably on in February 1932.
Two words in that quoted phrase matter: "the Inlet", definite article, treated as a place. In May 1931 the War Department is already describing the improvement by reference to an inlet that does not exist, north of which lies Ocean City.
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1935 · 1935-06-08
Ocean City called off the dedication of its own inlet — because Washington kept approving more of it
On 25 May 1935 the Salisbury Times reported that Governor Harry W. Nice and Mayor Howard W. Jackson of Baltimore would be invited to the opening of the new Ocean City inlet on 22 June. It did not happen. Under the head “Inlet Fete Delayed”, the Evening Star of 9 June carried a paragraph datelined Ocean City, Md., June 8: “The elaborate inlet celebration, originally planned for June 22, will be held at a later date.” The reason was not failure but accretion — two further dredging projects had just been approved, and “it was decided to postpone the dedication of the inlet until all of the projects have been completed. When the celebration finally is held, boats and yachts of almost any size and number can be accommodated.” Five days earlier the Worcester Democrat had printed Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough's telegram of 3 June: “Resolution authorizing Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors to act on two additional projects in connection with the Ocean City inlet has just been approved by the Committee on Rivers and Harbors.” So the inlet has no opening day. Every time the town set a date to declare it finished, the federal government added something else to it — and the postponement was made on a promise about the size of boat the harbour would one day take.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1940 · 1940-09-30
Ten feet held: the Ocean City inlet was sounded again in September 1940 and came out at 10.0 feet, with no dredging in either year
The Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for fiscal 1941, entry 8, 'OCEAN CITY HARBOR AND INLET AND SINEPUXENT BAY, MD.', reports: 'The existing project was completed in 1936. The controlling depths at mean low water were 10.0 feet in the inlet, ascertained in September 1940, thence 5.0 feet to the end of the channel in Chincoteague Bay, in August 1935, and 8.3 feet in the fishing harbor in September 1940, and 5.0 feet in the channel to Isle of Wight Bay, to the Ocean City Yacht Club, thence 3.2 feet to the end of the project in the bay, in June 1939.' The June 1939 sounding of ten feet had been the deepest the inlet was ever recorded; fifteen months later a fresh sounding gives the same figure to a decimal place. Neither fiscal year contained any dredging at all. Fiscal 1940's work was 'Surveys of the jetties and channels for future maintenance needs... and maintenance operations on a portion of the north jetty', costing $5,142.37; fiscal 1941's was 'office and field studies for future maintenance of the improvement, and minor repairs made to the north jetty', costing $12,775.60. The authorised project depth was ten feet. The inlet was holding its design depth on its own.
This is the answer to the question the 1939 pass left open, and it is the strongest thing the inlet thread has ever had. The channel the 1933 storm cut and the Corps armoured was not a maintenance liability in 1939 and 1940; it was at project depth, twice measured, with a total of $17,917.97 spent on it over two years and not one cubic yard dredged. And the second sounding also gives the fishing harbour at West Ocean City - 8.3 feet in September 1940 - which is the first depth the campaign has for the harbour the Coast Guard and Seaside Inc. built out of nothing in 1937.
Source · checked 2026-08-11