History

United States Coast and Geodetic Survey

government

The federal surveying agency that made Ocean City the headquarters of its 1929 survey parties for the first charting of this stretch of coast since the nineteenth century — a topographic survey from Ocean City north to Lewes and a hydrographic survey from Fenwick Island Light southward, worked from the survey ships Lydonia (C. G. Madison commanding) and Ranger (R. L. Schoppe commanding), with permanent towers and signals erected ashore for hydrographic control and the old survey marks relocated where possible. The subparty chief working out of Ocean City, Carl F. Ehlers, was found dead near Salisbury on 9 November 1929.

In the record (3)

  1. 1896 · 1896-05-29

    A Coast Survey steamer finds thirteen feet where the charts showed twenty-one, on Blackfish Shoal off Assateague Light — and the Notice to Mariners files it under "near Ocean City."

    "Maryland and Virginia shoals, off Assateague Light and near Ocean City: A recent examination by Lieut. R. O. Peck, United States Navy, commanding Coast Survey steamer 'Bache,' has developed a thirteen-foot spot on the southern end of Blackfish Shoal, off Assateague Light, where 3½ fathoms is shown on the charts. The shoal covers an area of about 325 yards in diameter, with gradual shoaling into [deeper water] around it."

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

  2. 1929

    Lieut. Carl Ehlers, chief of the Coast Survey subparty working out of Ocean City, is found dead in a field three miles from Salisbury on 9 November.

    'Lieut. Carl Ehlers of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, who was assigned as chief of a subparty of the survey organization, working out of Ocean City, Md., was found dead 3 miles from here shortly before noon today. Ehlers, about 28 years old, was said to be a resident of Ogden, Iowa. State's Attorney Levin C. Bailey, following an investigation, said that Ehlers' death appeared …' — the Evening Star's special dispatch from Salisbury of 9 November 1929 breaks off there in the surviving page OCR.

    Four months after he arrived to chart the coast, the man in charge of the survey party was found dead in a field. The state's attorney had reached a conclusion, and this pass could not read it.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Carl F. Ehlers

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

  3. 1929

    The Coast and Geodetic Survey makes Ocean City its headquarters for the first survey of this coastline since the nineteenth century.

    With the arrival in late June 1929 of Carl F. Ehlers, junior hydrographic and geodetic engineer of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, preliminary steps were taken on a topographic survey of the coastline from Ocean City, Md., northward to Lewes, together with a hydrographic survey from Fenwick Island Light southward, to begin on the arrival of the survey ships Lydonia (C. G. Madison commanding) and Ranger (R. L. Schoppe commanding). Ehlers's party was to erect many permanent towers and signals for hydrographic control and, where possible, to locate the old survey marks. 'The last survey made along this coastline was in the nineteenth century so that it is expected the examination of the shoals and questionable spots will show considerable change over the charts of this area now being generally used. Ocean City will be the headquarters of the survey parties.'

    The federal government came to measure the beach. Ocean City had argued about jetties, inlets and shoaling for a decade on the strength of charts drawn before the town existed, and the campaign has been chasing Senator Goldsborough's 1925 bill to survey Sinepuxent Bay ever since. This is not that bill; it is the survey arriving anyway, and on a bigger scale.

    The BeachOcean City Inlet & JettyCarl F. Ehlers

    Source · checked 2026-08-06