Board of Trade of Ocean City

In the record (13)

1. 1923

   The 1922 experimental jetty is judged a success and an appropriation is passed to build more.

   The Ocean City Board of Trade reported in May 1923 that "the jetties for the protection and upbuilding of the beach which have been installed by the State Highways Commission have proved so [success]ful that an appropriation has been passed and money is in hand to increase the number of these valuable buttresses." The 1922 pass documented the first jetty — 400 feet, two rows of piling, opposite Somerset Avenue — going in that April, and the town's correspondent arguing that same May for a second one above the end of the boardwalk before the September storms. This is the state answering.

   Ocean City BoardwalkMaryland State Roads Commission

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1923

   Ocean City gets a golf course: a new nine holes and tennis courts laid out on David L. Johnson's bayside farm.

   The Board of Trade's May report: "David L. Johnson has rearranged his farm on the Bay, and has made arrangements with the Maryland Country Club to open an extensive golf links and tennis courts in easy access of the city and open to visitors at a moderate charge." From mid-June the Washington Evening Star's resort block carried its own standing advertisement — "Ocean City Golf Course. New Nine-Hole Course." — and the Breakers advertised "golf and tennis privileges" while the Plimhimmon simply listed "Golf" among its amenities.

   This is the year golf arrives at Ocean City, and it arrives on a farm.

   Plimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaMaryland Country ClubDavid L. Johnson

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1923

   Ocean City has a Board of Trade — organised in the autumn of 1922 under J. Edgar Ijams of the Plimhimmon — and it spends the winter selling the town.

   "The Board of Trade of Ocean City, Md., which was organized last fall with J. Edgar Ijams as president, has been very active during the last winter, as reported at a meeting held in the State school house on Friday night. An extensive publicity campaign has been set on foot, arrangements are being made for increased transportation service, and the hotels and boarding houses are cooperating in an effort to increase the facilities for taking care of guests… Steps are being taken to improve the approaches to Ocean City, and the Board is cooperating with the City Council in the improvement of all streets and highways. The Board has also associated itself with the allied Boards of Trade of the Eastern Shore." The appeal closes: "We want the citizens of Ocean City at the meetings. We want boosters." In February the same column reported that "Mr. William Taylor has accepted the publicity management of a booklet to be published shortly by the News… devoted to the business interests and advantages in Ocean City."

   Fifty years after a committee of Worcester County men sat on the beach and resolved on a hotel, their successors organised a booster club and hired a publicity man.

   Plimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaJ. Edgar Ijams

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1923 · 1923-05-26

   Three years on, the 1920 storm inlet is still open, and Ocean City says the bay is the better for it.

   In an appeal printed over the signature of a committee of the Ocean City Board of Trade, the Worcester Democrat reported: "Since the storm of a few years ago, in which a natural inlet was made below the city, the natural tide of the Ocean has washed the shores of the Bay so thoroughly that its waters have become fresh and clean, and fishing and boating on the Bay has become active." This is the third consecutive year the registry can show the inlet cut by the February 1920 storm still open — after Senator Harrison called it "a permanent connection" in February 1922 and the General Assembly voted $2,000 of Worcester County road money for dynamite to keep it that way in April 1922. The Board of Trade item says "below the city" without a distance, which neither settles nor contradicts the two-miles-south figure the 1922 statute and newspaper both give.

   The dynamite worked. Whatever the county bought in 1922, the hole was still there in 1923 and the town had stopped treating it as an accident and started treating it as an asset.

   Ocean City Boardwalk

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

5. 1925 · 1925-07-04

   Ocean City turned fifty on 4 July 1925 and 35,000 people came — 5,600 cars from eighteen states, and two hundred who slept in them.

   Worcester Democrat, 11 July 1925, page one: "35,000 At Ocean City For Week-End Holiday — Resort Reports Largest Crowd In History At Celebration Of Its 50th Anniversary — POLICE ESTIMATE 5,500 AUTOS THERE SATURDAY." "Ocean City, Maryland's only ocean front play ground celebrated in great style its fiftieth birthday Saturday, July 4th by entertaining the largest holiday crowd in the history of the resort. Ocean City came into being as a summer resort on July 4th, 1875 and Saturday reached the heighth of its increasing popularity by entertaining a crowd that is estimated as some thirty five thousand. State Police force, under the command of Lieutenant Peppersack, which handled the great influx of highway traffic, estimated that more than 5,600 cars bearing the license tags for more than 18 states entered the resort before late Saturday afternoon… Judging from the different license plates noted in a brief survey the crowds that swarmed the board walk and filled the hotels represented many points within a radius of four hundred miles. Hotel registers show that this year the resort drew from the larger surrounding cities as never before in the history of Ocean City… Vacant rooms were at a premium… It is estimated that more than two hundred were forced to spend the night either in automobiles or along the beach."

   A town of a few hundred people took 35,000 visitors in a day, and the record it set in July was gone by New Year's Eve.

   Ocean City BoardwalkAtlantic Hotel

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

6. 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 PlazaWashington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway CompanyBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayEastern Shore Transit Line

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

7. 1925 · 1925-07-13

   Governors Ritchie of Maryland and Robinson of Delaware, two congressmen and a Virginia gubernatorial candidate all spoke at Ocean City in one evening, 13 July 1925.

   The Maryland Press Association and the Del-Mar-Via Press Association held their joint summer outing at Ocean City on 12–14 July 1925, more than eighty newspapermen, entertained free of charge by the Board of Trade and the hotel proprietors. Monday's meeting was in the auditorium of the State School building, decorated with flags and bunting; the address of welcome was made by Mayor William McCabe, with responses from Ridgely Melvin of Annapolis and Edwin H. Brown of Centreville, presidents of the two associations. State Comptroller William S. Gordy, Jr. "explained why the several counties had not received their full quota of school funds." Charles A. Carter of the Colonial Hotel, "a former western newspaper man," welcomed the visitors for the hotel men; "The formal welcome on behalf of the Board of Trade was made by Dr. Charles W. Purnell, its president, and also proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel." At noon the party took a motor-boat cruise down Sinepuxent Bay to the inlet, "enlivened by a jazz orchestra," and landed at "Eagle's Nest," the bayside lodge of W. H. Kearfott about three miles below the town, for a crab feast on the lawn. In the evening Governor Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland and Governor Robert P. Robinson of Delaware spoke, with Congressmen T. Alan Goldsborough and John Philip Hill; G. Walter Mapp, candidate for governor of Virginia, was also on the programme. The invitation had been extended the previous January at Salisbury by Clarence L. Vincent, editor of the Snow Hill Democratic Messenger, and the associations chose Crisfield for 1926.

   Two sitting governors, two congressmen and a would-be third governor, on a beach that fifty years earlier had one hotel and no road.

   Atlantic HotelMaryland Press AssociationDel-Mar-Via Press AssociationAlbert C. RitchieRobert P. RobinsonT. Alan GoldsboroughWilliam W. McCabeDr. Charles Washington PurnellW. H. KearfottCharles A. Carter

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

8. 1926 · 1926-06-27

   The Board of Trade advertises Ocean City in Washington as twenty hotels with their guest capacities printed beside them — about 1,900 beds in a town of some 700 residents.

   The Board of Trade's 1926 display advertisement ran in the Evening Star and the Washington Times through the season under the line 'Maryland's Only Seashore Resort': 'WHERE cool, fresh ocean breezes bring health and happiness. Here you will find beneficial enjoyment in fishing, golf, sailing and surf bathing. Modern hotels and ample garage accommodations. Artesian water. Relief for hay fever. Reached directly by B., C. & A. R. R. Also by W., B. & A. R. R., Annapolis Ferry, Tolchester Ferry and the Red Star Motor Coaches.' A May variant adds 'modern hotels along mile and a half boardwalk; reasonable rates; unparalleled Maryland cooking... smooth, wide roads from Washington; good golf course.' Then a two-column table, 'Hotel. Capacity.': Atlantic 300, Plimhimmon 265, Colonial 185, Hastings 150, Rideau 150, Breakers 125, Shoreham 125, Liberty Farms 105, Belmont 90, The Boyd 90, Idylwild 85, Mt. Pleasant 85, Avondale 75, Del-Mar 75, Dennis 75, The Kaye 75, Maryland Inn 75, Monticello 75, Nordica 75, The Walls 75. Separate small advertisements the same summer name The Lankford (M. B. Quillen), The Chelsea (Mrs F. M. Neikirk, 'on the boardwalk, at Talbott st.'), Liberty Farms Hotel ('New, modern... Fresh farm products'), The Boyd (Mrs H. F. Boyd, 'formerly of the Lin Mar'), the Belmont ('recently remodeled, with 20 new rooms'), the Hastings (Mrs Chas. Ludlam), Hotel Hamilton (J. L. Massey & Son), the Breakers (C. H. Timmons, phone 76), the Dennis (Mrs R. J. Dennis), the Del-Mar (Mrs S. I. Carey) and the Colonial ('Boardwalk; strictly modern. Special rates to July 16. Golf. Ownership management').

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

9. 1926 · 1926-07-10

   The Board of Trade's publicity committee tries to buy an 'Ocean City News page once per week' from an existing county paper, and is turned down.

   Worcester Democrat, 10 July 1926: 'Efforts on the part of business interests of Ocean City, Maryland, to have a newspaper for the resort, were made during the last week. Publicity of the resort is thought to be the primary cause for wanting a newspaper publication. Efforts were made, according to the reports, to close a deal with Worcester county publications already in existence, for the editing and publication of an Ocean City News page once per week, but failed, it is said. The publicity committee of the Ocean City Board of Trade is reported to be behind the movement. The founding of a newspaper for Ocean City at present would necessitate the publishing of the news sheet elsewhere, interested parties are reported to have stated. No announcement has been made public relative to the plans of those behind the new movement for a newspaper for Ocean City.' This is the town's own explanation for the documentary silence the 1924 and 1926 passes both ran into: the Worcester Democrat's weekly 'OCEAN CITY NEWS.' column, which supplied more than half of 1923's facts, does not run in 1924, 1925 or 1926, and in 1926 the town tried to buy it back and could not.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

10. 1927

    Ocean City donates twelve building lots and the General Assembly asks Ritchie for $15,000 to build the Governor of Maryland a summer home on them.

    Joint Resolution No. 28 of 1927, approved 26 April 1927: "A Joint Resolution of the General Assembly of Maryland requesting the Governor to prepare a supplementary budget authorizing the appropriation of Fifteen Thousand Dollars ($15,000.00) for building and furnishing a summer home for the Governor of Maryland on an ocean front site at Ocean City, Maryland, donated for said purpose. WHEREAS, Ocean City is Maryland's only seashore resort, where thousands of citizens from Baltimore and all parts of Maryland reside during the summer and large numbers go for week-end outings for health and rest, being recognized by health authorities as one of the best health resorts for bathing on the Atlantic Coast, and is easily reached by concrete roads from all the Eastern States; and WHEREAS, Citizens of Ocean City have donated for the purpose six building lots on the ocean front and Baltimore avenue and six building lots on Baltimore avenue and Maryland avenue, extending to the Maryland Highway; therefore, be it Resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland, That the Governor be and he is hereby requested to prepare at once and submit to the General Assembly a supplementary budget authorizing the appropriation of Fifteen Thousand Dollars ($15,000.00) for building and furnishing a cottage on said land at Ocean City, for the use of the Governor of Maryland as a summer home." NOTHING CAME OF IT. The 1929 session passed thirteen joint resolutions and the volume's own printed Index to Joint Resolutions lists every one; none concerns Ocean City or a governor's cottage. The only summer home in the volume is Joint Resolution No. 5, memorialising Congress to site the PRESIDENT's summer home in Maryland.

    Twelve donated lots on Baltimore Avenue — a block and a half from where the power plant burned — offered to the state to plant a governor on. It is the boldest civic advertisement the town ever attempted, and the resolution's preamble is a Board of Trade brochure with a seal on it. Whether Ritchie ever submitted the budget, or the cottage was ever built, no source found says.

    Albert C. Ritchie

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

11. 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.

    Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore AssociationPennsylvania Railroad CompanyWilliam W. McCabeDr. Charles Washington PurnellF. W. TruittLouis A. Drexler

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

12. 1928 · 1928-06-10

    "Thanks to the success of an experiment intended to protect our beach in time of storm, the beach is pronounced the best we have had in 16 years" — Ocean City's own verdict on its jetties, June 1928.

    The Evening Star's automobile page of 10 June 1928 quotes the resort's promotional copy at length: "Ocean City has always boasted of the finest and safest beach on the Atlantic coast. But this season, thanks to the success of an experiment intended to protect our beach in time of storm, the beach is pronounced the best we have had in 16 years. The Board Walk has been extended several blocks toward the [north] so that at no place is the beach crowded." The same copy sells the water: "Ocean City, Md., being several degrees south of all the larger resorts and several degrees nearer the Gulf Stream, as well as several hundred miles farther from the polar currents that come down our Northeastern coast, has delightful ocean bathing conditions found nowhere else in the neighborhood of our great cities." And it inventories the amusements: "The golf course is improving every year, and may be enjoyed without the prohibiting expense which at some places takes the joy out of the play. There are numerous tennis courts, bowling alleys, cinema shows, dancing places, sail or motor boats, beach ponies for the kiddies, auto trips, card parties and public entertainments. The churches are served by pastors of unusual ability."

    In February 1926 the county paper said the jetties were reclaiming the beach and lots were selling on the strength of it. In June 1928 the town is dating the improvement: sixteen years takes you back to 1912, which is roughly when the beach began to be a problem. And the boardwalk is longer — 'extended several blocks' — for the first time since the fire that destroyed it. Then the August storm came over it.

    The Beach

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

13. 1928 · 1928-06-10

    "There are now two 'Ocean Cities' — one distinctly a cottage resort, the other an almost exclusively hotel city" — and the town advertises itself as the resort for people looking for somewhere "less mixed with the various elements of society."

    From the same June 1928 resort copy: "People visit Ocean City for various reasons, but mostly because they are looking for something different from what they have been accustomed to, trying to enjoy… Very many are hunting for a place [less] crowded or less mixed with the various elements of society. This is not a cosmopolitan resort and has no ambitions in that line. Since automobiles began wandering down the beautiful Del-Mar-Va Peninsula — otherwise known as the Eastern Shore of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia — some aimlessly, some exploring, some seeking a resort more to their liking, Ocean City has made great strides in its development. It has become modern. It has improved and grown in recent years so fast that it gives the appearance of a new city sprung by magic from the [sand]. The world is beginning to recognize the fact that there are now two 'Ocean Cities': one distinctly a cottage resort, the other an almost exclusively hotel city."

    Two years after Maridel Beach printed "Only large beach on the coast restricted as to class of purchasers" as an amenity, Ocean City itself is selling the same idea in softer words. "Less mixed with the various elements of society" is not a description of the beach; it is a description of who is expected on it. And it appears in the same paragraph that explains why the town grew — the automobile — which is to say the town was advertising exclusivity at precisely the moment the car was making it reachable by anyone.

    Source · checked 2026-08-06