History

Alfred Pruitt

builder · active 1937

The builder who took the contract for Ocean City's first public comfort station on 23 November 1937 at $578.00, undercutting the Sellersville Manufacturing Company at $793.82 and Chas. H. Clark & Co. at $743.50.

In the record (1)

  1. 1937 · 1937-11-23

    Ocean City contracted for a public comfort station in November 1937 - $578 to build it and $2,103 to plumb it

    'Question of Town Comfort station was discussed and decided to get other bids beside of Cropper on Cost' - 9 November 1937. Two weeks later, on 23 November, the bids were opened. For the plumbing: Harry J. Cropper $2,103.00, Carson Beldin $2,250.00. For the building: Sellersville Mfg. Co. $793.82, Chas. H. Clark & Co. $743.50, Alfred Pruitt $578.00. The contracts went to H. J. Cropper for plumbing and Alfred Pruitt for building. The plumbing cost nearly four times the shell, which is what a public lavatory cost in a town that had only just finished putting in sewers. The council also voted that night to pay the State Board of Health clinic $7 a month for twelve months beginning 1 December. — 1938 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [downgraded]: Measured negative: the Ocean City municipal comfort station contracted for on 23 November 1937 is NOT mentioned once in the whole of the 1938 minute book - no completion, no payment, no location, no opening. Nor does it appear in the 588 pages of the 1938 Democratic Messenger. The 1937 fact is not withdrawn - the contracts are in the 1937 minute and are real - but the campaign should stop expecting the next year's record to close it, because the next year's record has been read and it does not. — 1939 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: THE COMFORT STATION WAS BUILT, IS OPEN AND IS CHARGING. The 1937 pass recorded the contracts - Alfred Pruitt to build at $578.00, Harry J. Cropper to plumb at $2,103.00 - and could find no completion; the 1938 pass measured its total absence from 39 pages of minutes and 588 newspaper pages. Ocean City's own financial statement of 13 July 1939 carries 'comfort station 400.00' under estimated 1940 INCOME and 'Comfort Station 1100.00' under estimated requirements. It is therefore an operating municipal facility taking money at the gate by 1939. STILL NOT ESTABLISHED: where it stood. The 1939 minutes never say, exactly as 1937 and 1938 never said.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Maryland State Board of HealthHarry J. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11