History

Eastern Shore Transit Line

company · active 1925

Bus line named in the Ocean City Board of Trade's July 1925 advertising as one of the two ways to reach the resort from Washington: "Reached by W. B. & A. R. R., Annapolis Ferry and B. C. & A. R. R. or Eastern Shore Transit Line." Its appearance beside the railroads in the town's own advertisement is the clearest sign in the 1925 record that the motor bus had become a first-class approach to Ocean City.

In the record (2)

  1. 1921

    A motor bus line from Salisbury to Ocean City is promised for 1 April 1921, and the county paper openly cheers for competition against the railroad.

    "The proposed motor transportation for the Eastern Shore of passengers and freight, as proposed by the Shore Transit Line, Inc., which will operate between Elkton, Md., and Salisbury, and from Salisbury to Ocean City via Berlin, Snow Hill, Pocomoke City, Crisfield, Westover, Marion, Princess Anne to Salisbury, is assuming a point of reality, it is said, and those who advocate the motor transportation say that the line will be in operation for both passengers and freight by April first." The Worcester Democrat's editorial beside it is the clearest statement of the county's mood toward its railroad in this period: "We have a railroad which is said to be the best paying one in the country when its length is concerned, and still the passenger and freight facilities get worse and worse every year. It seems impossible for this great corporation to have opposition in the way of another railroad, but it is possible for them to have motor bus competition. This is surely better than no opposition at all."

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Source · checked 2026-08-10

  2. 1925 · 1925-07-12

    The Board of Trade published a hotel census in the Sunday Star: twenty-two houses, about 2,545 beds, the Atlantic alone holding 450.

    The Board of Trade's display advertisement in the Washington Sunday Star of 12 July 1925 — headed "Finest and Safest Bathing Beach on Atlantic Coast" and offering "Golf, Fishing, Sailing, Surf Bathing and many other sports… Relief for Hay Fever" — printed a two-column table of "Hotel Capacity": Atlantic 450, Plimhimmon 250, Colonial 185, Seaside 185, Shoreham 185, Breakers 125, Rideau 125, Belmont 100, Mt. Pleasant 100, Idlewild 100, Hastings 100, Del-Mar 80, Dennis 80, Nordica 80, Maryland Inn 75, Avondale 70, Baltimore Cottage 65, Gables 45, Lin-Mar 40, Kaye Cottage 35, Ocean View 35, Talbot Inn 35. The advertisement directed enquiries to "these hotels or Secretary, Board of Trade, Ocean City," and gave the route as "Reached by W. B. & A. R. R., Annapolis Ferry and B. C. & A. R. R. or Eastern Shore Transit Line. Invites you to take a trip from the National Capital through historic Annapolis, seeing the United States Naval Academy, across the beautiful Chesapeake Bay by ferry to the far-famed Eastern [Shore]."

    The single most useful document this campaign has found for sizing Ocean City: twenty-two hotels and about 2,545 beds in July — and by 30 December the Atlantic and the Seaside, 635 of those beds, were ash.

    Atlantic HotelPlimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaBoard of Trade of Ocean CityWashington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway CompanyBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway

    Source · checked 2026-08-06