Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association

In the record (6)

1. 1927

   Ocean City joins a peninsula-wide resorts bureau, and its Board of Trade has a new president.

   A Resorts Commission of the Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association, called by chairman State Senator Louis A. Drexler of Delaware, met in early February 1927 and again at The Dennis, Ocean City, on Tuesday 29 March 1927, "for the purpose of taking immediate action on the permanent organization of a Resorts Bureau, to operate in conjunction with the Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association; for the outlining of a cooperative advertising program and to consult with a sub-committee of the Transportation and Communication Division regarding the securing of better railroad transportation to resorts." Twenty-five representative resort men attended. Ocean City's delegation was Mayor W. W. McCabe; F. W. Truitt, president of the Board of Trade; Chas. Ludlum of the Hastings Hotel; and Dr. C. W. Purnell of the Atlantic Hotel. The transportation asks, put to former Senator E. Dale Adkins, chairman of the Transportation Committee, were week-end excursion fares Friday to Monday to both Ocean City and Rehoboth; special week-end trains from Philadelphia and Baltimore from 1 July to 15 September; and ten- to seventeen-day excursion fares from the Pittsburgh territory to Rehoboth and Ocean City, with Pullman cars running through.

   Two things fall out of a routine trade-body notice. The Board of Trade still exists under that name in 1927 and its president is no longer Dr. Purnell but F. W. Truitt — Purnell attends as a hotelier, not as the town's spokesman. And the town's growth strategy in 1927 was not local at all: it was a peninsula-wide advertising co-operative asking the Pennsylvania for a Pullman from Pittsburgh.

   Board of Trade of Ocean CityPennsylvania Railroad CompanyWilliam W. McCabeDr. Charles Washington PurnellF. W. TruittLouis A. Drexler

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1928 · 1928-04-25

   South Ocean City is to build two miles of concrete toward the inlet — the fourth link of the three-state ocean boulevard, on a hundred-foot strip its owners gave away.

   Smyrna Times, 25 April 1928, under "PLAN NEW LINK OCEAN ROAD — South Ocean City to Build Two Miles on the Three-State Boulevard": "The fourth link of concrete highway in the proposed Del-Mar-Va Ocean boulevard, extending 80 miles southward from Lewes, Del., through Maryland to Chincoteague Island, Va., is being planned for construction in South Ocean City in the form of a two-mile hard surfaced road. The new highway will connect with the southern end of Baltimore avenue, Ocean City's principal thoroughfare, and extend south in the direction of the Natural Inlet. A strip of property, 100 feet wide and extending thru the central section of South Ocean City for two miles, has been given by its owners for the proposed road. The completion of this new link will give Maryland about six miles of improved highway along its 35-mile ocean front. Already three links in the proposed boulevard have been opened, one at Bethany Beach, Del.; one at Rehoboth Beach, Del., and the third at Maridel Beach, north of Ocean City. In the course of a few years, other links will be built in the three States, until eventually, the entire 80-mile highway is completed. One of the features of the proposed boulevard for Worcester county is that it will shorten the distance from Wilmington and Philadelphia to these [resorts]."

   Three things fall out of one paragraph. The 1926 boulevard from Lewes to Chincoteague was not just talk: by April 1928 three links are open. Maridel Beach — the 1926 land-boom scheme a mile north that sold elevation and 'restriction as to class of purchasers' — is one of the three, so something was actually built there. And the 1920 storm cut is still on the map in 1928 under the name the 1926 papers gave it, the Natural Inlet, with a road being aimed at it. That is eight years open, five years before the storm that made the famous one.

   Maridel Beach City

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1928 · 1928-07-09

   Six conventions in one season: the letter carriers at the Atlantic in July, the Del-Mar-Va Association in August, the funeral directors and the Virginia firemen, the Episcopal summer school in June — and the American Legion books the town for 1929.

   **The letter carriers, 9–10 July.** "The 25th annual convention of the Maryland State Letter Carriers Association will be held at the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, Md., July 9-10." **The Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association, 3 August.** Its executive committee met "at the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, Md., Friday" and chose Dan S. Hollenga, business manager of the Petersburg, Virginia Chamber of Commerce, as executive head in succession to Dr. F. B. Bomberger, who was returning to the University of Maryland as Director of Markets for the State. **The funeral directors, late August.** "At the annual meeting at Ocean City, Md., this week of the Maryland State Funeral Directors' Association, William B. Pumphrey, jr., of Rockville, was chosen president for the ensuing year." **The Virginia firemen, August.** Alexandria arranged for its Citizens' Band, headed by City Treasurer Roger C. Sullivan, "to accompany the local volunteer firemen to the convention at Ocean City next month. Over 100 uniformed members of the three volunteer companies in the city and 30 members of the woman's auxiliary will make the trip. Fire Chief James M. Duncan, jr., president of the Virginia State Association, will preside." **The Episcopalians, from 25 June.** The Peninsula Summer School of Religious Education at Ocean City, "under the joint auspices of the dioceses of Delaware and Maryland," ran Monday to Friday; a Washington party left by the one o'clock bus for Annapolis on 24 June to take the ferry over. **The rural mail carriers** met at Ocean City in mid-July. **And the veterans:** at its Cumberland convention in late August the Maryland department of the American Legion named "Ocean City, backed by Eastern Shore posts," as the meeting place for August 1929.

   The 1926 pier prospectus promised a thousand-seat theatre "explicitly to serve the convention trade," and the pier was never built. The convention trade came anyway, and it went to the Atlantic Hotel — which is worth noticing because the Atlantic does not appear once in the Evening Star's Ocean City hotel column all season.

   Atlantic HotelDan S. Hollenga

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1929

   The Baltimore & Eastern applies to close eight stations; a shippers' association protests and the Maryland Public Service Commission refuses six outright.

   Reported by a Delaware weekly on 1 May 1929: the Traffic and Transportation Bureau of the Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association protested, on behalf of the patrons, against the proposed closing of eight stations by the Baltimore and Eastern, and the Public Service Commission of Maryland refused permission to close six of them and made one of the two remaining conditional on the railroad furnishing 'reasonable and convenient service to shippers at that point'. The association counted it a decisive victory.

   The reorganised railroad's first instinct was to shrink, and it took a shippers' association and a state commission to stop it. Nothing found says which eight stations, or whether Ocean City was among them.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   Baltimore & Eastern Railroad CompanyPublic Service Commission of Maryland

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

5. 1930 · 1930-07-15

   "The convention resort": seven state and regional bodies meet at Ocean City in 1930, and Mayor McCabe welcomes the Maryland druggists with Governor Ritchie closing the session.

   Documented in the 1930 corpus: the 95th annual session of the Improved Order of Red Men, 23–24 April, at which Mrs. Florence Abernathy of Cherry Hill was elected Great Pocahontas of the Ladies' Branch (Midland Journal, 2 May); the Maryland Pharmaceutical Association in convention with the Delaware Pharmaceutical Society in late June, where "Mayor William W. McCabe of Ocean City gave an address of welcome to the state druggists at the opening session" and Governor Ritchie addressed the members at the close (Smyrna Times, 2 July); the Maryland State Teachers' Association, whose sessions drew the Garrett County superintendent (The Republican, Oakland, 3 July); the Automobile Trade Association of Maryland, 14–15 July, headquarters the Hotel Atlantic, "more than 350 visitors… among them Gov. Ritchie" (Washington Daily News, 8 July); the fifth annual convention of the Eastern Shore of Maryland Association of Optometrists, 21 August, with delegates from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the District (Washington Times, 21 August); the Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association, whose Worcester County governors for the year were named on 1 July as including W. W. McCabe, Dr. C. W. Purnell and Frank W. Pruitt, all of Ocean City (Peninsula Enterprise, 5 July); and the Maryland State Council of the Izaak Walton League, meeting 19 September to elect officers and adopt a constitution (Evening Star, 7 September). In December the Community Fire Company of Rising Sun elected five delegates and five alternates to the Maryland State Firemen's convention, "which meets at Ocean City" — booked for 8–10 July 1931, "one month later than usual."

   1928's draft called the convention trade 'the year's quiet economy'. In 1930 it is not quiet: it is the thing the town's own advertising leads with, and the mayor's job in July is standing up to welcome druggists.

   Atlantic HotelMaryland Pharmaceutical AssociationState Teachers' Association of MarylandOcean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentWilliam W. McCabeDr. Charles Washington Purnell

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

6. 1931 · 1931-03-25

   The Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association, a thousand businessmen strong, endorses state construction of a permanent inlet at Ocean City while the bill is still pending.

   The Smyrna Times of 25 March 1931, under the headline "[DEL-MAR-]VA TO BACK INLET AT OCEAN CITY, MD.": "A proposal for state construction of a permanent inlet between the ocean and Sinepuxent Bay, at Ocean City, has been given the endorsement of the Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association, whose membership consists of more than a thousand of the leading business and professional men of the Peninsula... Action on these two proposals was taken at the meeting of the executive committee of the association at Salisbury recently. The inlet proposal was put before the executive group by Colmore E. [surname lost to the trimmed page edge], of Pocomoke, representing the Worcester County Chamber of Commerce and city official of Ocean City, Md. A measure to authorize construction of such an inlet for this purpose is now pending in the General Assembly." The same meeting appointed a committee to weigh a TUNNEL under the Chesapeake instead of a bridge, on a proposal from the Denton Chamber of Commerce. The association's president, Louis A. Drexler, reviewed a plan for a peninsula business directory.

   Three weeks before Chapter 511 was approved, the inlet had a peninsula-wide business lobby behind it and a named sponsor from Pocomoke speaking for Worcester County's Chamber and for Ocean City's own town government. The campaign has never been able to see the town lobbying for the inlet from the inside; this is the closest it has come.

   Ocean City Inlet & JettyOcean City Chamber of CommerceLouis A. Drexler

   Source · checked 2026-08-10