History

Ocean City Advertising Committee

civic · founded 1940

A committee of nine appointed by Mayor Clifford P. Cropper at the council meeting of 9 May 1940, after a delegation from the Game Fishermen and Anglers asked that a publicity man be employed and paid for by a licence on the party boats. Its charge was 'to investigate the possibility of a unity of purpose & to ascertain if all parties could work together', and the mayor deliberately balanced the town's three trades in it: John B. Lynch, Talbot Bunting and Crawford Savage for Boats; C. Parker Smith, Dr. C. W. Purnell and James D. Jarman for Hotels; Preston Laws, Arthur Davis and Dan Trimper 3rd for stores. James Whaley's name is written into the margin. It met at the council office at 7:30 on the evening of Monday 13 May and reported to the council the next evening, with Dr. Purnell in the chair, proposing to licence the sport fishing boats at $10 for a local boat and $25 for an outsider and to raise $2,000 for advertising. The council agreed to pay its advertising man up to $800 and heard two candidates for the post. The licence could not lawfully be levied; in October the council voted the Chamber of Commerce the $2,000 outright and resolved to seek the necessary act from the General Assembly.

In the record (1)

  1. 1940 · 1940-05-14

    Ocean City's advertising was to be paid for by taxing the charter boats - ten dollars for a local boat, twenty-five for an outsider - and the town spent the rest of the year trying to find the legal power to do it

    On 14 May 1940 the Advertising Committee came before the council: Dr. C. W. Purnell as chairman, C. D. Savage, J. D. Jarman, John B. Lynch, Talbot Bunting, C. Parker Smith and Preston Laws, 'and Clarence Carey, a visitor.' Purnell 'outlined a plan for licensing the sport fishing boats of $10 for native and $25 for foreign, and stated they could collect from outside dealers several hundred dollars, so with the licences and what they could get outside they would have $2,000 for advertising.' The council agreed to pay the committee's advertising man not more than $800, and heard two candidates for the post, Joe Pancoast and a Mr. McKimmon of Salisbury. The power to levy the licence did not exist. On 16 April the mayor had already asked the attorney 'to study the Licences and see if there was any way City could licence the fishing boats.' On 2 October the council settled it by voting the Chamber of Commerce the $2,000 outright for the fiscal year 10 September 1940 to 10 September 1941, advancing $350 in cash at once against it, and resolving 'to try to get an act through the Legislature empowering the City to licence the fishing boats, the licence if collected to be given over to the Chamber also.' — 1941 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The scheme's ending is now dated. On 30 July 1941 Capt. Crawford Savage came before the council 'asking that fishing boats be relieved of any lisence for this year', and the council's recorded response was to vote the Chamber of Commerce a further sum not exceeding $500 to settle its deficit, on terms that it cut its budget to the money it had. Fifteen months after the advertising committee proposed to raise $2,000 by licensing the charter fleet at $10 and $25 a boat, the town was still covering the Chamber out of its own funds. ⚠ THE MINUTE DOES NOT SAY WHETHER THE BOATS WERE RELIEVED, and nothing about the licence's fate should be inferred from it.

    The white marlin fleet had made Ocean City famous and the town's answer was to make the fleet pay for the advertising that made it famous - at two and a half times the rate for a boat from somewhere else. It could not, because a Maryland municipality cannot levy what the General Assembly has not authorised, and the Assembly was not sitting. So the town paid the two thousand out of its own pocket and put the licence on the list for Annapolis in 1941. The whole resort economy is in that sequence: an idea in May, a lawyer in April who had already said no, and a bill for the next session.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceDr. Charles Washington PurnellJohn B. LynchClarence Carey

    Source · checked 2026-08-11