Ocean City Development Company

In the record (6)

1. 1905 · 1905-09-16

   John F. Waggaman sells his entire Ocean City estate to a Baltimore syndicate, which incorporates in Delaware as the Ocean City Development Company with $300,000 of stock.

   "JOHN F. WAGGAMAN SELLS OCEAN CITY HOLDINGS — Purchased By A Syndicate Of Prominent Baltimore Business Men Who Will Spend Thousands On Improvements." The purchasers, who had "paid over to Mr. Waggaman the purchase money," organised with John W. Woodland president, E. S. Johnson vice-president, W. D. Allen secretary and W. S. McKean general manager, a full board of fifteen directors to follow. The new body was incorporated at Dover under Delaware law as the Ocean City Development Company, capital stock $300,000 — $100,000 preferred and $200,000 common. What it bought from Waggaman: the Atlantic Hotel and Casino; the Seaside Hotel; the electric light plant; a steam laundry plant; and 4,400 building lots platted 50 by 150 feet, of which 1,000 were on the ocean front, the whole extending eight miles along the ocean and nine miles along the Synepuxent Bay shore. The Pennsylvania Railroad "is said to be prominently identified with the new interests." The paper added that 1905 "has been the most successful in the history of Ocean City" — every cottage occupied and the boarding cottages up the beach turning away four times as many guests as they could take — and listed the syndicate's plans: a trolley from Ocean City to Fenwick Island and on to Rehoboth, another to Berlin and Pocomoke City, a fast vestibuled express from Claiborne, a second B.C.&A. station two squares north of the Plimhimmon, and a modern hotel near the Catholic Home at the north end of the beach.

   The 1904 pass found Waggaman's name on a Washington bankruptcy creditor list for $80,000. Eleven months later he is out of Ocean City altogether — and the town he had owned since 1897 belongs to a Delaware corporation floated in Baltimore.

   Pennsylvania Railroad CompanyBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayAtlantic Casino CompanyJohn F. Waggaman

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1905 · 1905-09-30

   A scheme is floated to camp 500 American amateur oarsmen across Sinepuxent Bay and bring the national regatta to Ocean City.

   "Invited To Ocean City. A movement has been instituted to have an encampment of amateur oarsmen across Sinepuxent bay next summer. The probable situation will be the farm upon which are located the golf links and clubhouse … the bay is but about half a mile wide at this point." The camp was to be confined to clubs of the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen, with streets laid out and named for the participating clubs, at least 20 clubs in camp and "fully 500 oarsmen." "Expert oarsmen who have seen Sinepuxent bay at Ocean City pronounce it as one of the finest courses for sculling and rowing in America. A course as straight as an arrow can be had for miles, and in breadth sufficient for half a dozen eights." The article also records that officers of the new Ocean City Development Company had promised support, and delivers a blunt verdict on the resort: "Ocean City has been lacking in healthy, clean amusement, such as the camp and regatta will afford." The passing reference to "the golf links and clubhouse" across the bay is the earliest mention of golf at Ocean City found in this campaign.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1906

   The shifting sand south of the Atlantic Hotel is buried under trainloads of clay and turned into a lawn and flower garden.

   On 28 April 1906 the Messenger reported that "The Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway has recently delivered several carloads of clay at Ocean City, for the Ocean City Development Company, to be used in front of the Atlantic Hotel, which will be transformed into a flower garden." By 2 June: "One of the most notable improvements is the plaza in front of the Atlantic Hotel on the south. Instead of a vast expanse of ever shifting sand, this is being turned into a beautiful lawn and flower garden. Many carloads of soil have been brought in and spread, grass seed sown and hundreds of flowering plants set out in attractive beds. At the eastern end is growing a pretty hedge of wild honeysuckle. The Atlantic Hotel has been painted in bright color, and upon the interior a complete remodeling and redecoration is now in progress."

   The new owners' first act was to import a lawn to a barrier island.

   Atlantic HotelBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1906

   John F. Waggaman sells everything he owns at Ocean City to the Ocean City Development Company of Maryland.

   The Messenger of 12 May 1906: "The Ocean City Development Co., of Maryland has issued a card stating that the Company has purchased all the holdings of Mr. John F. Waggaman at Ocean City, and that the Atlantic and Seaside Hotels will be open to the public on June 16th. The card also states that the hotels will be under the management of Mr. Theodore L. Page, who had charge of the Atlantic for several years." The transfer can be dated more closely than the card: the county road examiners' notice published on 6 January 1906 describes two proposed beach roads as crossing "the lands of John F. Waggaman," and the identical notice re-published on 3 February 1906 describes the same two roads as crossing "the lands of the Ocean City Development Company of Maryland." The man who had owned the Atlantic Hotel, the Colonial, the Convention Hall and most of the ocean front since 1897, and who was the town's mayor in 1902, is out.

   The single largest change of ownership in the town's first fifty years, announced on a printed card and confirmed by a road notice.

   Atlantic HotelJohn F. WaggamanTheodore L. Page

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

5. 1906 · 1906-06-02

   "Never before in the history of this town has there been so much activity" — the 1906 season opens 16 June with more cottage demand than cottages.

   From the Messenger's Ocean City correspondent, 2 June 1906, under the head OCEAN CITY GETTING READY FOR SUMMER — Many Improvements Being Made — Not Enough Cottages to Meet Demand: many cottagers have arrived and nearly all the boarding houses have visitors; "The only hotel open is the Seaside, under the management of Mr. T. L. Page, who will also manage the Atlantic for the Ocean City Development Company, the new owners of both hotels"; and "The demand for cottages is far in excess of the supply … This demand is much earlier and far greater than ever before," with accommodation at the hotels and boarding houses materially increased but likely still to fall short, as in 1905 when "it was roughly estimated that as many were turned away as were taken care of." The February report had already fixed the opening date — originally 1 June, "this date having been agreed upon by all interests here and the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway Company" — and reported the town council ordering work to start on Baltimore Avenue, the railroad tracks to come off it, building "more rapid," and improvements and additions at the Hamilton, the new Avalon, the Breakers and upward of twenty cottages.

   The first documented season in which Ocean City's problem was not attracting visitors but housing them.

   Atlantic HotelBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayTheodore L. Page

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

6. 1908 · 1908-01-04

   The Ocean City Development Company is in bankruptcy, and a federal judge stops the foreclosure of John F. Waggaman's $59,000 mortgage on its land.

   Under the head "SALE OF LAND STOPPED — Trustee Of The Ocean City Company Granted An Injunction," the Democratic Messenger of 4 January 1908 reported that on the petition of Frank H. Phelps, trustee in bankruptcy of the Ocean City Development Company, Judge Morris of the United States District Court had granted an injunction "restraining the sale of property of the company on January 8 next under foreclosure of a mortgage to John F. Waggaman, of Washington. The mortgage is for $59,000." The sale had been advertised by John W. Brawner of Washington and John W. Staton of Snow Hill, trustees, on a petition filed in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County. Phelps swore the property could not fetch its full value at that moment and that creditors would do better if the trustee sold later; Nicholas P. Bond deposed that "it would be practically impossible to obtain any bidder for it now other than the mortgagee." The company had been adjudicated bankrupt, with its own consent, on 9 November 1907 — three weeks into the Panic of 1907. This is the clearest Ocean City evidence of the panic yet found, and it fixes Waggaman's position at the start of 1908: no longer the town's proprietor but its largest mortgage creditor, about to be told by a federal court that nobody but him would bid. By December 1908 Phelps was conveying the company's Atlantic Avenue frontage — one parcel to Robert D. Grier for $1,500. In the same year's Berlin column, "Mr. and Mrs. John Waggaman and family, of Washington, have rented a cottage on Sinepuxent avenue for the summer," and a "Miss Waggaman" was working as stenographer at the Atlantic Hotel.

   John F. WaggamanFrank H. Phelps

   Source · checked 2026-08-06