Ocean City Improvement Association
civic · founded 1911
Booster association organized in July 1911 to promote a resort then billed as 'the least advertised resort in the United States' — the start of Ocean City's century-plus of organized self-promotion, ancestor in spirit to the later Chamber of Commerce and tourism bureaus.
In the record (4)
1911
The Ocean City Improvement Association organizes to promote 'the least advertised resort in the United States.'
In late July 1911 local citizens organized the Ocean City Improvement Association, a civic booster group for the resort. The Democratic Messenger's Berlin correspondent wrote that the association 'doubtless will do good work for the city-by-the-sea. It is said to be the least advertised resort in the United States, so if this interested body of citizens will bring their town to the notice of the general pleasure seeker, they will accomplish much for her.' The same season the paper noted the town readying itself: 'Much paint is being spread, the board walk is being looked after, and there is a general getting ready for the summer visitors.' PAGE: page 5, ALTO file 0244, not page 7 / file 0240. The association is mentioned EXACTLY ONCE in all 52 issues of the county paper for 1911 - on 29 July - and not at all in the 546 out-of-county pages read. No officer, member, meeting or act of it is recorded anywhere. The registry should say so rather than imply a functioning body. The 'least advertised resort in the United States' line is a Berlin correspondent's impression and is contradicted two weeks later by the town's own accounts, which record $104 to the A. S. Abell Company (Baltimore Sun) for forty lines of advertising twenty-six times and $51.50 to the Philadelphia Inquirer - see fact:1911-town-buys-newspaper-advertising. The Washington Evening Star also carried a paid Ocean City, Md. hotel advertisement through May and June 1911. The quotation as printed reads 'city-by-the-sea' - the OCR runs it as 'city-by-thesea'.
Before ad budgets and tourism bureaus, boosting Ocean City was a volunteer job — and in 1911 even the county paper thought the town was hiding its light.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1911 · 1911-08-12
In the same year the county paper called it 'the least advertised resort in the United States', Ocean City was buying space in the Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The town's published accounts for 13 September 1910 to 1 August 1911 record three separate advertising payments out of the municipal treasury: 'To A S Abell Pub Co., 40 lines advertising, 26 times — 104.00' (the A. S. Abell Company published the Baltimore Sun); 'To Phila. Inquirer for advertising — 51.50'; and 'To Democratic Messenger, advertising and printing — 96.00'. Twenty-six insertions in the Sun is a fortnightly advertisement running the whole year. Whatever the Berlin correspondent believed when he wrote in July 1911 that Ocean City 'is said to be the least advertised resort in the United States', the corporation itself was spending better than $150 a year on out-of-state newspaper advertising, and the 1912 accounts continue the practice with $15.68 to the Evening Star Newspaper Company and $300 to Peters Printing for booklets.
The most quoted line about 1911 Ocean City is contradicted by the town's own ledger, printed two weeks after it.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1965 · 1965-01-12
One hundred and six eligible voters extended Ocean City to the Delaware line, in a referendum forced by the opponents of annexation
"The residents of North Ocean City voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday, extending the city to the Delaware line. The annexation will become effective on January 26, or 14 days after the election … a referendum forced by the opponents of annexation … There were 106 eligible [voters]." A town of 983 year-round residents at the 1960 census had just voted its boundary to the state line, and the whole electorate that decided it was one hundred and six people. By the end of the month candidates were filing for council seats out of the North Ocean City Improvement Association, which had led the annexation fight — among them Gerald Truitt, one of its directors.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1965 · 1965-01-28
Within a fortnight of winning the annexation referendum, the North Ocean City Improvement Association was filing candidates for council seats
Among them Gerald Truitt, one of its directors. The body that organised to bring the north into the town moved directly into governing it — the annexed ground converting its numbers into representation faster than the water and sewer it had been promised ever arrived.
Source · checked 2026-09-02