Eastern Shore Public Service Company
company · active attested supplying Ocean City 1934
The electric utility supplying Ocean City in 1934. The Mayor and City Council's minutes of 9 October 1934 order paid a bill of $608.18 'for September' — the town's single largest recurring outgoing that autumn, larger than any note interest and eight times the coal bill. Two weeks later, on 23 October, the council resolved to have its solicitor prepare a bill for the General Assembly seeking a bond issue with referendum for $100,000 to build the town its own electric plant; in November it wrote to its auditor for the name of 'an expert on Costs and operation of Electric plants.' Chapter 471 of the Acts of 1935 duly authorised a municipal plant and up to $150,000 of bonds, subject to a vote of the town. The company is the successor in this role to the Eastern Shore Gas and Electric Company recorded here from 1925; the corporate relationship between the two was not established this pass.
The reason Ocean City spent the winter of 1934 drafting a bill to build a power station: it had just seen what one month of somebody else's electricity cost.
In the record (9)
1934 · 1934-10-09
What it cost to light Ocean City in September 1934: $608.18
The bills ordered paid at the meeting of 9 October 1934, in the order the secretary wrote them: Eastern Shore Public Service $608.18 for September; Ocean City Ice & Fuel Co. $73.09 for coal; Ocean City Insurance Agency $27.30; Edmund Johnson, retainer fee, $50.00; W. H. Scott (for Edmund Johnson) copying the Charter, $4.00; a $2,000 note to the Exchange & Savings Bank; a $3,700 note to the Bank of Ocean City; and $16.00 to the Farm Bureau Insurance Co. on the truck. At the same meeting the council resolved that the checks issued should be read over at each meeting — and from 23 October the minutes duly record them by serial number, beginning with checks 7025 to 7048.
Bank of Ocean CityExchange and Savings Bank of Berlin
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1934 · 1934-10-23
October: the council resolved to ask the legislature for a $100,000 bond issue to build the town its own electric plant
On 23 October 1934 the council passed a resolution 'to have Edmund Johnson prepare bill for Legislature asking Bond issue with Referendum for $100,000 to build electric plant.' Johnson was the town solicitor, appointed six weeks earlier. The town's motive is legible three lines above in the same minute book: on 9 October it had ordered paid a bill of $608.18 to the Eastern Shore Public Service Company for September alone — a single month's light in a resort of a few hundred winter residents. On 27 November the secretary was told to ask the auditor to recommend 'an expert on Costs and operation of Electric plants.' There was no 1934 session of the Maryland General Assembly — the state sat in odd years — so the bill had to wait for January 1935, and when it came it was larger than asked: Chapter 471 of the Acts of 1935, approved by Governor Harry W. Nice on 17 May 1935, empowered the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City 'to construct, install, equip, maintain and operate an electric lighting plant and lighting system' and to borrow, subject to a town referendum, 'a sum not to exceed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.' — 1935 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The 1935 sequel is now on the record from the town's own books, and it is not the sequel the act implies. The council kept working the electric question through the spring — a letter from Riggs Distler on the cost of surveying the field and estimating a plant was read and laid on the table on 8 January 1935, and on 23 April the secretary was told to write John D. Hamilton and Gibbs & Hill, consulting engineers, inviting them to a meeting on 30 April to discuss electric plants. No meeting of 30 April exists in the town's minute series. After that the subject vanishes: the electric plant is not mentioned again in any of the 26 meetings of 1935, no referendum on it was held, no bonds were issued under Chapter 471, and the town went on paying its light bill to a private company — $370.80 for November 1935. What Ocean City actually financed in 1935 was a sewer, with federal money.
The town asked for a hundred thousand and Annapolis wrote a hundred and fifty. What the minutes catch is the moment before that — a council reading its September light bill and deciding it would rather owe a bondholder than the power company.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1935 · 1935-01-08
The year opened with a contractor's letter on the table telling Ocean City what it would cost merely to estimate its own electric plant
The first meeting of 1935, Tuesday evening 8 January, with Mayor W. Thomas Elliott and councilmen W. H. Scott, W. Preston Laws and Dr. F. J. Townsend present: “Letter from Riggs Distler regarding cost of looking over field and estimating cost of Electric plant read and laid on table.” It is the direct continuation of 23 October 1934, when the council had told its solicitor to prepare a bill for the legislature seeking a $100,000 bond issue with referendum to build a municipal electric plant. The same meeting renewed notes of $1,000 each to H. T. and C. A. Parker for six months, gave H. T. Parker a further $1,000 note “to make enough money to pay off fire truck note”, paid $23.75 to the Times for advertising the audit, and granted building permits to the Ocean City Ice & Fuel Co. for an office, to Mrs. J. S. Mumford for a garage and apartment on Division Street, and to Anthony Purnell for a small house in rear of the Ritz Apartments. Council adjourned at 9.45 p.m.; J. M. Mumford signed as Secretary.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1935 · 1935-12-09
What it cost to light Ocean City in November 1935: $370.80
The bills ordered paid on 9 December 1935 include “November Electric Bill 370.80”. The comparable figure the registry holds for 1934 is $608.18 for September, ordered paid on 9 October 1934 — a summer month against a winter one, so the two are not a like-for-like series, but they are the only two monthly light bills the town's own books have yielded, and they bracket the argument the council was making in Annapolis. The lighting was rationed to match: on 25 June 1935 the council ordered one 100 candle-power light placed in the centre of the block between North Division and North First Street “for the Summers Month only”, and in May it read a letter from Mr. John Ayres asking for lights on 8th Street without recording any answer.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1936 · 1936-06-02
Six cents, two cents, one point eight: what Ocean City agreed to pay for electricity in 1936
The one-year power contract the Eastern Shore Public Service Company offered Ocean City on 2 June 1936 was priced 'on a Basis of reading all meters as one': six cents a kilowatt-hour on the first 1,000 watts, two cents on the next 1,000, and 1.8 cents on all over 2,000 watts. The street-lighting side of the deal saved about $375 a year and came with a change from 60 to 100 candle-power lamps. For comparison, the town's electric bill for November 1935 had been $370.80 - so the annual street-lighting saving was about one month's light.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1936 · 1936-06-09
Ocean City never held the electric-plant referendum it won in Annapolis - in June 1936 it signed a five-year contract with the private company instead
Chapter 471 of the Acts of 1935 had authorised Ocean City to build and operate a municipal electric light plant and to borrow $150,000 for it, subject to a referendum for which the act fixed no date. Across twenty-six meetings in 1935 the council never selected one, and in 1936 the question came back not as a plant but as a price. On 2 June 1936 'Mr. Mitchell & Blake of Electric Light Co.' appeared before the council with a proposition for street lighting on a five-year contract showing a reduction of about $375 yearly after changing from 60 to 100 candle-power lamps, together with a one-year power rate. The council decided to consider it before signing; on 3 June, with the engineer Clark Gardner present, it examined the contracts for lights and power, decided to ask for some changes, and put William H. Scott in charge of seeing the electric people. On 9 June, W. Preston Laws moving and Scott seconding, it resolved 'that Contract be signed for Lighting Streets with "The Eastern Shore Public Service Company of Md" for five (5) Years since they had made the changes requested in meeting of June 3rd. Also that Power Contract be Executed for one (1) Year Contract listed as Schedule #9.' The municipal lights for the Fire House were not to be charged for. No referendum was ever called, no bonds were issued, and no municipal plant was built. — 1937 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The five-year term did not survive 1937. On 1 June 1937 the council 'agreed to sign contract if changed to one year' for the town's own lighting, and on 29 June, when Cecil Blake and two others came to ask that the power contract for the two sewer pumping stations and the disposal plant be signed for five years, 'Council agreed to sign contract for 1 year and contract was Executed on a 1 year basis.' Ocean City refused a five-year power contract twice in four weeks in the same year it took delivery of a plant that ran on electricity.
This is the answer the water-light-and-sewer thread has been waiting two years for. Ocean City went to Annapolis for a power station and came home with a better tariff. The credible threat of building your own plant was worth $375 a year and five years of certainty - which is the whole municipal-utility argument of the 1930s compressed into one council minute.
W. Preston LawsWilliam H. ScottClark Gardner
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1938 · 1938-04-12
Ocean City discussed holding a referendum on building its own electric plant in 1938, and never held it
The town had been buying its light from a private company for decades and had spent 1937 arguing with it - the power company wanted a five-year contract to light the new sewage plant and Ocean City signed for one. On 12 April 1938 the last item of a long meeting is this: 'Dr. F. J. Townsend discussed the advisability of the City holding Election on whether the City should build its own Electric plant if the Government passes the law loaning municipalities money to finance such projects with no interest.' The federal loan he was waiting on is the Public Works Administration's municipal power programme. No election was called in 1938, and Townsend himself was voted off the council in August. On 4 April the treasurer had been 'ordered to pay all bills except Electric Light Co.'
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1943 · 1943-04-14
In April 1943 the town signed a lighting contract with the Eastern Shore Public Service Company 'to care for the change in lights for the duration' — the dim-out written into a utility bill.
Clifford P. CropperJ. M. Mumford
Source · checked 2026-08-12
1944 · 1944-11-28
Ocean City's Boardwalk stayed wood because concrete was too dear: the plans were brought in on 28 November 1944 and the cost killed them the same night.
Clark Gardner and Geo. Purnell brought plans for a concrete walk and presented them to the council, and as the cost was prohibitive the council decided to continue the same construction with lumber for the present. It is the resolution of the debate the property owners opened on 24 October, when they asked the town to price a cement walk because it would be cheaper and last longer. The same meeting decided to bill property owners $25 a lot for the work of rebuilding a 16-foot walk; found the walk from 1st Street to 4th Street in such condition that it was best to build new rather than waste time and materials on the old, and ordered every owner notified by letter that if they did not act within 20 days the council would build and charge it to the property; accepted a five-year contract from the Electric Light officials for relighting the city streets, signed by the mayor and witnessed by the clerk; and heard Mayor Trimper ask every councilman to attend a meeting at Snow Hill on Thursday evening on post-war planning.
Ocean City BoardwalkClark GardnerDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.
Source · checked 2026-08-12