Dr. Charles Washington Purnell

In the record (50)

1. 1923

   The Evening Star's Ocean City banner changes for the first time since 1917 — and now sells golf, tennis and dancing.

   Since 1917 the Washington Evening Star's standing resort block had headed its Ocean City houses "Finest beach in world: ocean on one side, bay on other; cool, healthful; boating and fishing." In 1923 the banner reads: "OCEAN CITY, MD. Finest and safest bathing beach on Atlantic coast; ocean on one side, bay on other; cool; golf, tennis, fishing, boating and dancing." The 1922 block carried eleven houses and not one price. The 1923 block runs to roughly eighteen, including several new to this registry — the COLONIAL ("running water in every room; private baths"), the NEW AVALON ("$3 per day up… Dancing, bathhouses", D. Oliver Ditto), KAYE COTTAGE (Mrs. M. Kaye), THE IDYLWILD (Dr. E. L. Brittingham), THE GABLES ("Southern cooking; same management as Blue Lattice Inn"), THE MERVUE (T. W. Taylor, American plan), THE SHOREHAM ("A New Hotel Just Completed"), and a "NURSING COTTAGE, centrally located at Ocean City, Md.; ideal spot for rest and recuperation. Apply GRADUATE NURSE." The Hastings now advertises under two names — "Mrs. GEO. B. CONNER. Mrs. CHAS. LUDLOW" — and the Atlantic Hotel as "Opens June 23… 2nd yr. under present management… C. W. PURNELL, Prop. & Mgr."

   Atlantic HotelPlimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaOcean City BoardwalkLafayette JohnsonMrs. S. M. Mason

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1924

   Dr. C. W. Purnell of the Atlantic Hotel advertises in Virginia as a travelling optometrist — 'write or phone 81, Ocean City, Maryland.'

   Peninsula Enterprise, November 1924: 'Dr. C. W. Purnell, optometrist, will visit Accomack and Northampton counties the week beginning November 17th. If you wish him to call at your home and examine your eyes for glasses write or phone 81, Ocean City, Maryland.' The manager of Ocean City's oldest hotel spent the off-season driving the Eastern Shore of Virginia fitting spectacles. It is as clear a picture as the registry has of what a resort proprietor did for the eight months nobody came.

   Atlantic Hotel

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1924

   The Atlantic Hotel advertises 200 rooms at $20 and up per week.

   Washington Times, June 1924: 'THE ATLANTIC HOTEL—Ocean front, 200 rooms. Private baths, music, dancing; $20 and up per week. Dr. C. W. Purnell, Mgr.' The 1923 block carried no rate for the Atlantic at all and the year's only printed room price was the New Avalon's '$3 per day up'. This is the registry's 1924 hotel rate, and the first count of the Atlantic's rooms since the rebuilding.

   Atlantic Hotel

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1924

   Washington's resort columns carry about eighteen Ocean City houses, a golf course with 'New Tea Room attached', and for the first time a restaurant open day and night.

   The Evening Star's standing banner is unchanged from 1923 — 'OCEAN CITY, MD. Finest and safest bathing beach on Atlantic coast; ocean on one side, bay on other; cool; golf, tennis, fishing, boating and dancing' — but the golf line has grown: 'Ocean City Golf Course. New Nine-Hole Course. New Tea Room attached.' The 1924 houses, across the Evening Star and the Washington Times: MT. PLEASANT ('NOW OPEN … most exclusive', S. M. Mason); THE GABLES ('Centrally located. Home cooking … New management. O. M. Chandler, Prop. Tel. 45'); THE SEASIDE ('American plan; running water; private baths … garage free to guests', H. G. Cropper) — new; HOTEL HAMILTON ('OCEAN FRONT', J. L. Massey & Son) — new; THE AVONDALE ('Open now. Accommodations for tourists and week-end parties', G. W. Rounds) — new; TARRY-A-WHILE ('Cool, attractive rooms near water front', Mrs. T. J. Cropper) — new; THE CASINO RESTAURANT ('A place at Ocean City to get a real meal and some good home cooking. Open day and night', W. M. Ruark) — new; THE MARYLAND INN ('On the Boardwalk; comfortable outside rooms; American plan', Mrs. W. I. Purnell); THE RIDEAU (La Fayette Johnson); THE IDYLWILD (Dr. E. L. Brittingham); KAYE COTTAGE; THE DEL-MAR ('Second house from Boardwalk … Homelike Maryland Cooking. Private Bathhouse', Mrs. S. I. Carey, opening 15 June); THE BELMONT (L. H. Hearne); THE ATLANTIC (C. W. Purnell); THE HASTINGS ('Newly painted and renovated. Garage in connection', Mrs. Charles Ludlam); THE BREAKERS ('Rebuilt … Golf. Phone 76', C. H. Timmons); THE SHOREHAM (Mrs. K. C. Hastings); THE DENNIS ('Comfortable and homelike. Enlarged … Special rates to auto parties', Mrs. R. J. Dennis); THE PLIMHIMMON ('Ocean front. Best service. Orchestra. Ballroom. Grill. Tearoom. Golf. Garage.'); THE COLONIAL ('Boardwalk; strictly modern. Special rates to July 15'). Private baths and golf privileges were the 1923 boast; in 1924 the new words are garage, tea room, and open day and night.

   Plimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaAtlantic HotelOcean City BoardwalkMrs. S. M. MasonLafayette JohnsonCapt. William I. Purnell

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

5. 1925

   A Maryland Seashore Corporation bought the whole of Block 8 North in Ocean City in the autumn of 1925, and the resort's land market was busy all year.

   Among the Worcester County real-estate transfers printed weekly in the Worcester Democrat: "Maryland Seashore Corp., from Charles S. Walton, Jr., and wife, property comprising the whole block No. 8 North, in Ocean City," and "Maryland Seashore Corp., from W. C. Poole, certain lots in Ocean City, one at the intersection of the East side of Philadelphia avenue and the North side of North Seventh street and 5 lots at the intersection of the Easterly side of Philadelphia avenue with the Southerly side of North Seventh st." (5 December 1925). Other 1925 transfers with real prices attached: "Elijah L. Brittingham from George H. Myers and John W. Staton, Trustees, real estate at the corner of the west side of Atlantic avenue, and the South side of North First street, at Ocean City. Consideration, $13,800" (11 July); "John D. Ayres and Ada T. Ayres, his wife, from Ralph P. Barnard and wife, real estate on the West side of Atlantic avenue, on the north side of Ocean City. Consideration, $2500" (18 July); "Charles W. Purnell from George H. Myers and John W. Staton, Trustees, part of the 'Isaac J. Coffin Farm,' in Synepuxent, in East Berlin Election district. Consideration, $4200" (7 November). Daniel Trimper, Sr. and Lloyd E. Jester both sold mainland ground opposite Ocean City to Frank L. Garey in October, and Josephine Hastings bought at Baltimore Avenue and North Fifth Street in December. On the mainland, the F. B. Bannister Company of 339 St. Paul Place, Baltimore was cutting a "new road to the property from the Ocean City highway" for a lot sale about 15 June, with J. W. Carey as sales manager.

   Nobody in 1925 was buying Ocean City ground because of the pier or the hotels — they were buying it because of the road.

   Maryland Seashore CorporationJosephine HastingsDaniel Trimper, Sr.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

6. 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 AssociationBoard of Trade of Ocean CityAlbert C. RitchieRobert P. RobinsonT. Alan GoldsboroughWilliam W. McCabeW. H. KearfottCharles A. Carter

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

7. 1925 · 1925-10-24

   Ocean City lobbied hard for the Maryland National Guard's state encampment, offering a farm at $50 an acre six miles from the beach.

   Worcester Democrat, 24 October 1925, page one. General Reckord inspected the "Genezer tract" near Sinepuxent, ten feet or more above sea level, "in close reach to the bay or ocean… and can be brought very close to Ocean City, by stone road, which Commissioner Mackall says will be built, and by the B. C. & A. railroad. Besides, the purchase price is quoted at the cheap rate of $50 per acre." The Democrat argued the six or seven miles was no objection since "the resort furnishes all the amusements which are really required in a community such as a soldier camp." "Ocean City's claims for the camp were presented by Mayor W. C. McCabe; Dr. C. W. Purnell, president of Ocean City Chamber of Commerce, and Capt. William B. Powell. Hale Harrison, president of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce, acted as spokesman for the delegation." Salisbury sent its Chamber manager, Senator Charles R. Disharoon and fifty others; Snow Hill sent Mayor W. D. Corddry; Pocomoke sent Edward J. Clarke of the Worcester Democrat; Berlin sent Mayor E. E. Burbage and Gen. H. M. Creel, U.S.A., retired. T. Alan Goldsborough came for Caroline County and spoke for the Ocean City site. Rival sites were on Kent Island and the Choptank River.

   The whole lower Shore turned out to sell the Guard a sandy farm, on the argument that the soldiers could go to the beach.

   Ocean City Chamber of CommerceMaryland State Roads CommissionBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayWilliam W. McCabeT. Alan Goldsborough

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

8. 1925 · 1925-12-29

   Days after the fire, Dr. C. W. Purnell said he would not build another Atlantic and the Seaside's owners were not expected to rebuild — the pier, they thought, would come back.

   Worcester Democrat, 2 January 1926: "Ocean City is now in darkness, but is promised lighting facilities in a very short while. Seaside Hotel, on which there was an insurance of $10,000 will likely not be rebuilt; and Dr. C. W. Purnell is reported as saying that he will not erect another Atlantic hostelry. The Pier, it is thought, will be re-built as will also the other structures destroyed." The paper closed with the obituary of the building: "A landmark has been removed from Ocean City's water front in the burning of the Atlantic Hotel. Recently it celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of [its] erection, and is probably the ol[dest]…" Officials of the Eastern Shore Gas and Electric Company said the town would be in darkness "for possibly ten days." RESOLVED: he rebuilt. "The NEW ATLANTIC HOTEL" advertised for Easter 1927, and through that summer "Hotel Atlantic … Season, Easter to Thanksgiving. Dr. C. W. Purnell, Prop." In August its dining room held a hundred-guest banquet closing the second annual convention of the Atlantic Coast Guard. He said it in the shock of the week after the fire and did the opposite within eighteen months.

   The Atlantic was rebuilt in 1926 anyway, and the Purnell family has run it ever since — so the most quotable line in the whole story is a man saying, four days out, that he was done.

   Atlantic HotelEastern Shore Gas and Electric CompanyThe Purnell Family

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

9. 1925 · 1925-12-29

   The Great Fire: on Tuesday 29 December 1925 three blocks of ocean-front Ocean City burned, taking the Atlantic Hotel, the Seaside, the Pier, the Casino, Dolle's and the power plant.

   The Worcester Democrat and the Ledger-Enterprise of 2 January 1926 ran it across page one: "FIRE DESTROYS TWO HOTELS, THE PIER, AND SEVERAL OTHER BUILDINGS AT OCEAN CITY — Conflagration Of Tuesday Last Sweeps Heart Of State's Summer Resort — POCOMOKE FIRE COMPANY HELPS FIGHT BIG BLAZE." "A disastrous fire visited Maryland's only seaside resort, Ocean City, last Tuesday, laying waste property valued at between $300,000 and $400,000. The buildings destroyed were the Power plant, Seaside Hotel, Atlantic Hotel, the Pier, the Casino, the building containing the flying horses, and the candy-making establishment adjoining." The Milford Chronicle of 1 January 1926 headlined it "DISASTROUS FIRE SWEEPS HOTEL AREA AT OCEAN CITY, MD. … RESORT IN DARKNESS" and reported that "Three blocks of ocean-front property at Ocean City, Maryland, were destroyed on Tuesday by a [fire] which, aided by a thirty-five-mile wind, raged for two hours"; that the blaze spread from the power plant to the Seaside Hotel adjoining, "then leaped Baltimore avenue to the Atlantic Hotel, spreading over that entire square," next to Dolle's Candy Shop, "then leaped to the Casino Building, where several amusement devices are located, across the boardwalk to the pier"; and that "The boardwalk was burned for the entire distance of three blocks." Firemen stopped it at Wall's Hotel, just south of the pier. The Associated Press had the story running the same day: the Washington Evening Star of 29 December 1925, page one — "BLAZE IS SWEEPING MARYLAND RESORT — Ocean City Isolated—Two Hotels and Several Homes Appear Doomed" — datelined Baltimore, 29 December: "A section of Ocean City, Md., including two hotels and several residence blocks, appeared doomed by fire at noon today."

   Fifty years and six months after the Atlantic Hotel opened, the building Ocean City was built around burned down in an afternoon, and took the pier and three blocks of boardwalk with it.

   Atlantic HotelOcean City BoardwalkEastern Shore Gas and Electric CompanyOcean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentMrs. Harry Gunby

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

10. 1925 · 1925-12-29

    Itemised: the Atlantic $100,000, the power plant $100,000, the pier $50,000, the Casino $40,000, the Seaside $35,000, Dolle's $15,000, Dr. Purnell's cottage $6,000 — and almost none of it insured.

    The Milford Chronicle of 1 January 1926 printed the loss schedule: "Atlantic Hotel of 200 rooms, $100,000; electric power plant, $100,000; Ocean City pier, $50,000; [Casino] Building, $40,000; Dolles Candy Shop, $15,000; Seaside Hotel, of 65 rooms, $35,000; cottage of C. W. Purnell, $6,000" — a total of $346,000 — and added: "Practically none of the property was covered by insurance, the average insurance being about twenty per cent of the loss." The Worcester Democrat put the loss "between $300,000 and $400,000" and the insurance at "not more than $50,000 on the total loss of $300,000 or more. This will not go very far toward rebuilding." The Smyrna Times of 30 December ran the highest figure — "$490,000 Damage Done to Resort Including the Famous Atlantic Hotel" — and its list adds Reed's amusement park $5,000, Wall's Hotel damaged by fire and water $3,000, the Atlantic Summer Garden (used in summer as a branch of Dolle's Candyland) and Loeb's Pier Theatre.

    The town lost a third of a million dollars and was insured for a fifth of it — which is why the Seaside never came back.

    Atlantic HotelEastern Shore Gas and Electric Company

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

11. 1926 · 1926-01-02

    The county paper's obituary for the old Atlantic Hotel: fifty years old, and 'probably the oldest hotel on the Beach'.

    Worcester Democrat and the Ledger-Enterprise, 2 January 1926: 'A landmark has been removed from Ocean City's water front in the burning of the Atlantic Hotel. Recently it celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its erection, and is probably the oldest hotel on the Beach. It had been the resort of many politicians, sportsmen, and capitalists for many years; and, could its history be written, it would tell of a [great deal].' The same column recalls that the porch had once stood five or six feet above the board walk and that blown sand had since forced the walk to be raised until the porch sat below it — a fifty-year record of the beach moving, told as an aside. Dr. C. W. Purnell was reported as saying he would not build another Atlantic; he did.

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

12. 1926 · 1926-02-13

    Six weeks after the fire the county paper reports a building boom in the burnt district — and says the jetties are reclaiming the beach.

    Worcester Democrat, 13 February 1926, 'BUILDING BOOM TO START SOON AT OCEAN CITY — Many New Structures To Arise In Area Recently Destroyed In Big Fire — NEW ATLANTIC HOTEL TO BE OPENED IN JULY': 'Speculation was rife after the disaster as to what extent rebuilding would ensue. Reports had it that Dr. Purnell would not rebuild; nor would the Seaside, or the Pier, or the flying horse establishment, be replaced. But recent developments have shown that a new Atlantic would arise, modern in all its appointments, tho' probably not as large; that the Seaside had changed owners and a new house would arise there; that the power plant would not be seen again, but that 'juice' would be furnished from Laurel, Del.; that the Pier would be no more, at least at present; that the Casino would be rebuilt... The board walk is fast being rebuilt and it is thought the new Atlantic will be ready about the middle of July.' The Shoreham, owned by Mrs Hastings, was reported sold to the former owner of the Seaside, and the Seaside property sold to E. R. Bounds. And then the sentence that matters most to this campaign: 'Ocean City property has advanced in value, since it has been proved that the jetties are reclaiming the beach, preventing the wearing away of the lands. Many of the lots northward have been sold, and within a few years it can be confidently predicted that the city will be extended as far as the Catholic Home.'

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

13. 1926 · 1926-07-01

    The new Atlantic Hotel opens on 1 July 1926 with a hundred rooms — half the size of the one that burned.

    The Evening Star's resort column carried the hotel's own advertisement all June: 'THE ATLANTIC — New Hotel — 100 Rooms — Ocean Front — Music — Dancing — Opens July 1.' By September the Washington Times was running 'NEW ATLANTIC HOTEL — 100 Rooms On Ocean Front — MUSIC DANCING.' The Atlantic that burned on 29 December 1925 had 200 rooms and was advertised in 1924 at '$20 and up per week'. So the rebuilt house is exactly half the old one's room count, and it opened six months and two days after the fire — the county paper had predicted 'about the middle of July'. The Board of Trade's own display advertisement nonetheless lists the Atlantic at a capacity of 300, the largest in the town.

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

14. 1927

    "Spend Your Easter In Ocean City, Md., At The NEW ATLANTIC HOTEL" — fifteen months after the fire, Dr. Purnell's rebuilt house is open, and open earlier than the old one ever was.

    From 2 April 1927 the Peninsula Enterprise carried a display advertisement: "Spend Your Easter In Ocean City, Md. At The NEW ATLANTIC HOTEL. Special Easter and Spring Rates. Dance in Grill Saturday, April 16th from 9 p. m. Make early reservations." Easter Sunday 1927 fell on 17 April. Through the summer the Evening Star's resort block listed "NEW ATLANTIC — Music. Dancing. Tennis. Grill. Golf. Booklet", and the Washington Times listed "Hotel Atlantic — Music—Dancing—Golf—Tennis—Grill—Booklet. Season, Easter to Thanksgiving. Dr. C. W. Purnell, Prop." By August its dining room was hosting the banquet that closed the second annual convention of the Atlantic Coast Guard, with a hundred guests, and the Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Real Estate Board was organised in the building.

    Four days after the fire of 29 December 1925, Dr. C. W. Purnell was reported as saying he would not erect another Atlantic hostelry. This is what he did instead: rebuilt, reopened by Easter, and stretched the season from Easter to Thanksgiving — a seven-and-a-half-month year in a town that had run on July and August. The most quotable line in the fire story turns out to have been wrong within fifteen months, and the man who said it is the one who proved it wrong.

    Atlantic Hotel

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

15. 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.

    Board of Trade of Ocean CityDel-Mar-Va Eastern Shore AssociationPennsylvania Railroad CompanyWilliam W. McCabeF. W. TruittLouis A. Drexler

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

16. 1928 · 1928-03-21

    In March 1928 Dr. Charles Washington Purnell announces the Sinepuxent Pier and Improvement Company — a fishing pier AND an amusement pier — the fourth attempt to replace the pier the 1925 fire took.

    Smyrna Times, 21 March 1928: "In line with other improvements which are being made at Ocean City, Md., announcement was made last week by Dr. Charles Washington Purnell that the Sinepuxent Pier and Improvement Company is laying plans for the construction of a fishing pier and an amusement pier for this resort." The Ocean City Amusement Pier Corporation chartered in December 1926 under Clarence W. Whealton of Salisbury, with $160,000 of authorised capital and thirty days to break ground, does not appear in the 1928 corpus at all; the man now announcing a pier is the owner of the Atlantic Hotel. The only other 1928 mentions of an Ocean City amusement pier in the entire corpus are a Washington Daily News motoring feature of 23 May and this item. THE PIER EXISTS BY 1930 and is described on 18 June as "the old Ocean City pier, which burned down, was replaced by a 700-foot ocean fishing pier fronting Atlantic av." — a length matching the standard June-1929 franchise account exactly. But NO CONTEMPORARY SOURCE NAMES THE BUILDER, and "sinepuxent pier" is still zero pages across 1929–31.

    1926 ended with a pier company on paper and a promise of a June 1927 opening. 1928 opens with a different company, a different promoter and two piers instead of one. The standard account of Ocean City's pier dates the Sinepuxent Pier and Improvement Company to June 1929, when it obtained its franchise from the town — but here it is announcing plans fifteen months earlier, and announcing them through the proprietor of the Atlantic, not through the Salisbury lawyer who held the 1926 charter.

    Pier Ballroom & Bandshell SiteSinepuxent Pier and Improvement CompanyOcean City Amusement Pier CorporationClarence W. Whealton

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

17. 1929

    The 1929 hotel block: thirteen Ocean City houses in the Washington papers, the Atlantic advertising itself as 'NEW AND ON OCEAN FRONT … Near Fishing Pier', and a new house called the Breakers.

    The Evening Star's standing 'OCEAN CITY, MD.' resort block from June to August 1929 carried: Hotel Atlantic ('NEW AND ON OCEAN FRONT. Best location and service. Music. Dancing. Near Fishing Pier. Ph. 128'); the Colonial ('Boardwalk; modern. Special rates to July 15. Golf. Ownership Management. 16th season'); the Plimhimmon ('40 new rooms and baths added. Ocean front. Best service. Ballroom. Orchestra. Garage. Golf'); the Hamilton ('The House of Plenty. Ocean Front. Hotel Bus. Running Water. Garage. Dancing. Bathing. Golf. Sun Deck and Sun Parlor'); the Lankford ('On Boardwalk; garage. M. B. Quillin, Prop.'); the Chandler House; the Belmont ('Ocean front rooms. Running water in all rooms. Terms Reasonable. L. R. Hearne'); the BREAKERS ('ON BOARDWALK. Rooms with hot and cold running water and private bath. Phone 76. C. H. Timmons, Prop.'); the Del-Mar ('Remodeled, Enlarged. Private baths. Mrs. S. I. Carey'); the Hastings ('Boardwalk. Modern and homelike. Running water and private bath. Mrs. Chas. Ludlam'); the Dennis ('Comfortable and homelike … Bathing free. 38th season. Mrs. R. J. Dennis'); the Kaye ('New and modern. On boardwalk. Excellent table. Bathing free. Mrs. M. Kaye, Prop. Ph. 117'); and the Mayflower ('Phone In Every Room. Mrs. Kendall C. Hastings').

    Two years on from the rebuilding year the boasts have moved again: 1927 boasted that the room was new, 1929 boasts a sun deck, a phone in every room and — at the Atlantic — proximity to a pier that did not exist twelve months before. The Breakers is new to this campaign's record. The Royalton and the Gables, both advertising in 1927, are gone from the block; the Seaside and the Casino are still absent, four years after the fire. And the Dennis's '38th season' in 1929 squares with the '36th' printed in 1927, which is the reading that survives that year's conflict.

    Atlantic HotelPlimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaOcean City Boardwalk

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

18. 1930 · 1930-06-17

    The Atlantic Hotel advertises in Washington again after a silent 1928, and a new house joins the boardwalk: the Hotel Stephen Decatur, "Newest on Boardwalk. Elevator and telephone."

    Evening Star OCEAN CITY, MD. resort block, 17 June 1930: "Atlantic — 200 rooms, new. Ocean front. Orchestra. Dancing. Fresh sea food. Pasteurized milk and pure filtered water used exclusively. Ph. 128." · "PLIMHIMMON HOTEL — 46 new rooms and baths added. Ocean front. Best service. Ballroom. Orchestra. Garage. Golf. Tennis." · "COLONIAL HOTEL — Boardwalk; modern. Special rates to July 15. Golf. Ownership Management. 17th season." · "HOTEL STEPHEN DECATUR — Newest on Boardwalk. Elevator and telephone." · "THE BELMONT — Running water in all rooms. Reasonable." · "THE DENNIS — running water. Terms reasonable. Bathing free. 39th season. MRS. R. J. DENNIS." · "THE DEL-MAR — Private baths. MRS. S. J. CAREY." · "THE HASTINGS HOTEL — Boardwalk. Modern and homelike. Running water and private bath. MRS. CHAS. LUDLAM." · "BREAKERS — ON BOARDWALK. Rooms with hot and cold running water and private bath. Phone 76. C. H. Timmons." · "NEW MT. VERNON — Under new management. Reasonable rates. MRS. H. F. BOYD, formerly of Del-Mar." By 7 August the block is down to four houses: Plimhimmon, Hastings, Breakers and Belmont.

    Two of 1928's open questions close quietly here. The Atlantic, which advertised nowhere in 171 Evening Star pages in 1928 while demonstrably hosting conventions, is back in the column and back under Dr. Purnell's name. And the seasons count up correctly — the Colonial's 15th in 1928 is its 17th in 1930, the Dennis's 37th is its 39th — which is a small, cheap check that this is the same column and the same town.

    Atlantic HotelPlimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaOcean City Boardwalk

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

19. 1930 · 1930-06-18

    "For Further Information Write MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL, Ocean City, Md." — the town buys its own display advertisement in a Washington daily.

    Washington Daily News resort section, 18 June 1930: "Ocean City Maryland — 'Maryland's Only Seashore Resort' — Bathing — Sailing — Canoeing — Motor Boating — Dancing — Golf — Tennis — Deep Sea Fishing Pier — Three Mile Boardwalk — Hotels and Cottages. For Further Information Write MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL, Ocean City, Md." Beside it the Atlantic Hotel advertised "A well appointed Hotel with excellent service — Sun Deck, Local and Long Distance phones in all rooms. Dancing — near deep sea fishing pier and amusements. DR. C. W. PURNELL, Directing Manager."

    In 1928 not one of 510 pages mentioned Ocean City's government in any form. In 1930 the government is buying space in a Washington paper under its own name and calling the place Maryland's only seashore resort. And the same page that says the boardwalk is 'nearly two miles' long carries the town's own claim of three.

    Ocean City BoardwalkAtlantic HotelWilliam W. McCabe

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

20. 1930 · 1930-07-15

    "The convention resort": seven state and regional bodies meet at Ocean City in 1930, and Mayor McCabe welcomes the Maryland druggists with Governor Ritchie closing the session.

    Documented in the 1930 corpus: the 95th annual session of the Improved Order of Red Men, 23–24 April, at which Mrs. Florence Abernathy of Cherry Hill was elected Great Pocahontas of the Ladies' Branch (Midland Journal, 2 May); the Maryland Pharmaceutical Association in convention with the Delaware Pharmaceutical Society in late June, where "Mayor William W. McCabe of Ocean City gave an address of welcome to the state druggists at the opening session" and Governor Ritchie addressed the members at the close (Smyrna Times, 2 July); the Maryland State Teachers' Association, whose sessions drew the Garrett County superintendent (The Republican, Oakland, 3 July); the Automobile Trade Association of Maryland, 14–15 July, headquarters the Hotel Atlantic, "more than 350 visitors… among them Gov. Ritchie" (Washington Daily News, 8 July); the fifth annual convention of the Eastern Shore of Maryland Association of Optometrists, 21 August, with delegates from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the District (Washington Times, 21 August); the Del-Mar-Va Eastern Shore Association, whose Worcester County governors for the year were named on 1 July as including W. W. McCabe, Dr. C. W. Purnell and Frank W. Pruitt, all of Ocean City (Peninsula Enterprise, 5 July); and the Maryland State Council of the Izaak Walton League, meeting 19 September to elect officers and adopt a constitution (Evening Star, 7 September). In December the Community Fire Company of Rising Sun elected five delegates and five alternates to the Maryland State Firemen's convention, "which meets at Ocean City" — booked for 8–10 July 1931, "one month later than usual."

    1928's draft called the convention trade 'the year's quiet economy'. In 1930 it is not quiet: it is the thing the town's own advertising leads with, and the mayor's job in July is standing up to welcome druggists.

    Atlantic HotelDel-Mar-Va Eastern Shore AssociationMaryland Pharmaceutical AssociationState Teachers' Association of MarylandOcean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentWilliam W. McCabe

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

21. 1931 · 1931-03-29

    The Atlantic opens 1 April 1931 and calls itself "the largest and most modern Resort Hotel on the Delmarva Peninsula" — under Dr. C. W. Purnell, telephone 128.

    Evening Star, 29 March 1931: "HOTEL ATLANTIC, opening Apr. 1. Come for health and pleasure, bask in sunshine from our sun porches and sun decks; [$]5 daily and up, with meals. Elevator service." Through the summer the standing line is "ATLANTIC — Largest and most modern Resort Hotel on the Delmarva peninsula. Phone 128", and from July "Beauty parlor, golf, fishing. Dr. C. W. PURNELL." In 1930 the Atlantic advertised "200 rooms" and "250 rooms" in different papers; in June 1932 the town's own collective capacity table put it at 300 rooms, the largest of nineteen houses listed.

    This matters for a fight the campaign has open. In 1932 the George Washington Hotel advertised itself as "Largest Hotel in Ocean City" in the same month that the town's own list gave the Atlantic 300 rooms and did not name the George Washington at all. In 1931 the Atlantic is claiming the peninsula, not just the town, and there is no rival claim anywhere in 699 pages.

    Atlantic HotelAtlantic Hotel Company

    Source · checked 2026-08-10

22. 1931 · 1931-06-09

    Eleven Ocean City, Md. houses advertise in the Evening Star's June 1931 resort column — and the George Washington Hotel is not one of them.

    The "OCEAN CITY, MD." block in the Evening Star of 9 and 12 June 1931 lists: the PLIMHIMMON ("A Famous Maryland Hostelry... The T. Worth Plimhimmon Orchestra in ball room. Garage. Golf."); the COLONIAL HOTEL ("Boardwalk; modern. Special rates to July 15. Golf. Booklet. 18th season. Charges reversed on phone reservations. Ph. No. 2. C. O. and N. C. D. CARTER"); the ATLANTIC ("Largest and most modern Resort Hotel on the Delmarva peninsula. Phone 128"); the HASTINGS HOTEL (Mrs. Chas. Ludlam, parking space, special rates to July 15); the MAYFLOWER ("New; directly on Boardwalk; rooms single or en suite... Mrs. K. C. Hastings, Owner-Manager"); THE LANKFORD ("On Boardwalk; garage. M. B. Quillin, Prop."); the BREAKERS ("On Boardwalk. Rooms with hot and cold running water and private bath. Phone 76. C. H. Timmons, Prop."); THE DENNIS; THE BELMONT ("Terms Reasonable. L. R. Hearne"); THE KAYE ("New and modern. On boardwalk. Excellent table. Bathing free. Mrs. M. Kaye, Prop. Ph. 117"); and THE DEL-MAR ("Private baths. Mrs. S. I. Carey"). The MAJESTIC joins the block later in June.

    Twelve houses across the season, two of them advertising themselves as NEW. And no George Washington Hotel — in a column that its 1932 successor advertised in, on the same page of the same paper. Whatever the George Washington was doing in 1931, it was not buying space in Washington.

    Atlantic HotelPlimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaOcean City BoardwalkAtlantic Hotel CompanyPlimhimmon Hotel Company of Worcester CountyMrs. K. C. Hastings

    Source · checked 2026-08-10

23. 1932 · 1932-12-31

    Ocean City's fishing pier, standing and advertised in 1930, is not mentioned once in the 645 pages read for 1932.

    The 700-foot ocean fishing pier fronting Atlantic Avenue, described by the Washington Daily News in June 1930 and made 900 feet by the Washington Times that August, and the $115,000 Pier Ballroom of September 1929, appear nowhere in the 1932 corpus. Every occurrence of "pier" within 900 characters of "Ocean City, Md." in the 645 harvested pages is either Atlantic City's Steel Pier, the Baltimore & Eastern's Love Point ferry pier, or a Washington wharf. The Atlantic Hotel, which in 1930 advertised itself as "near deep sea fishing pier", advertised in 1932 simply as "Largest, most modern Resort Hotel on the Delmarva Peninsula. Dr. C. W. PURNELL. Ph. 128." The town's own collective advertisement offers "Surf Bathing — All Amusements — Fishing — Sailing" and names no pier. RESOLVED, 2026-08-10, AND THE HEDGE WAS RIGHT. An Evening Star staff photograph caption of 25 August 1933 says the storm "destroyed about one-fourth of the walk, including the fishing pier, popular with Washington vacationists." The pier stood through the 1933 season and was lost in the hurricane of 23 August. ADD: the silence is a 1932 silence only. In July 1931 the Maryland State Volunteer Firemen's Association held its convention in the OCEAN CITY PIER CONVENTION HALL, crowded on the opening night with more than 1,500 firemen expected (Washington Times, 9 July 1931), and the Milford Chronicle of 3 July 1931 names CALLAHAN THOMPSON as 'manager of the pier and dance pavilion at Ocean City, Md.' The building was in full use fourteen months before the 1932 corpus fell silent about it.

    Not in this year's record, which is not the same as gone. But it is a conspicuous silence: the pier was the town's headline improvement in 1930 and its hotels stopped mentioning it. The Washington Daily News, which gave Ocean City half a page in 1930, has no pages in the 1932 corpus at all, so part of this silence is a missing newspaper rather than a missing pier.

    Source · checked 2026-08-10

24. 1933 · 1933-05-30

    The Atlantic Hotel opened its 'fifty-seventh anniversary' season — and told a founding story that dates itself to 1876

    Datelined Ocean City, Md., 3 June, the Washington Times printed the town's own account of itself: 'The Atlantic Hotel celebrated its fifty-seventh anniversary at the opening of the season on Memorial Day. The history of this hotel is really one of Ocean City… All the material in the original Atlantic Hotel was brought over in scows. In fact, this hotel was the first building under construction in Ocean City. James Tracey, the first owner, formally threw open the doors in 1876 and the start of Ocean City toward a place among the premier resort cities of the East was begun. Realizing the unusual advantages, a railroad extended its lines to the growing little city in 1880. The road ran from Salisbury… The old Atlantic Hotel was destroyed by fire in December, 1925, and on the original location the new Atlantic Hotel was built in 1926.' The present owner is given as Dr. W. C. Purnell. The 1876 opening and the 1880 Salisbury railroad both disagree with the contemporary record this campaign has built, and the item is recorded as evidence of what the town believed in 1933, not as evidence of 1876.

    Atlantic Hotel Company

    Source · checked 2026-08-10

25. 1934 · 1934-08-07

    A doctor complained about the noise, and the council shut the dance halls at 12.15 and told the police to arrest the drunks on the walk

    On 7 August 1934 'Dr. Purnell was present asking something be done to have better order in his neighborhood and Secretary instructed to have the Dance Halls to Close at 12.15 and order police to arrest all drunks keeping noise on the walk.' The order did not stick. Eight days later, on 15 August, 'Question of Closeing Dance Hall was again taken up and after hearing from Mr Rubles, Dr. F. J. Townsend, F. W. Truitt, Dr. C. W. Purnell, Mr Parks and other the Council asked Mr Purnell and Rubles to get together on a closeing time suitable to them.' The complainant was Dr. Charles Washington Purnell, proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel; Townsend, who spoke at the hearing, had been elected to the council nine days earlier and would be sworn in three weeks later.

    The oldest argument in Ocean City, in its first documented form: the hotel that wants its guests to sleep against the hall that wants them dancing — and a council that, having ordered a closing time, promptly told the two men to work it out between themselves.

    Atlantic HotelOcean City BoardwalkFrancis J. Townsend

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

26. 1934 · 1934-08-15

    One August night the council walked the assessment roll and took tens of thousands of dollars off the town's own tax base

    The meeting of 15 August 1934 ended at 11.10 p.m. after an item headed 'Assessments were ordered changed as follows'. What follows is a list of the town's property in the fifth year of the Depression: Raymond Quillin (Hamilton) $5,000 taken off; W. R. Rayne $500; Dr. C. W. Purnell $7,000 marked off for 1930-31-32-33, being $5,000 on the hotel and $2,000 on its furniture, plus a half-year interest charge of $126.50 on $2,300; Anthony H. and Mattie Purnell, $100 added for a smith house; 'W B S Powell arena off' $2,000; a shed or shop building $2,000 and $1,000; C. S. Powell, new house on 13th Street, $1,500 added; 'Manor Real estate south of hotel'; 'L. Kress & Friedlander stand off' $1,000; Chas. J. and Lides Jackson, addition to a hall, $200; Guy R. and Virginia D. Ayres $2,000; Raymond Quillin $5,000. Six days later O. M. Chandler was allowed rebates of $20 each on $2,000 of 1930, 1931 and 1932 taxes and $12 on $1,200 for 1933, and on 31 July Stacy Ludlam had been allowed $8 for overpaid 1929 water tax with his 1932 water bill marked off.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    William B. S. Powell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

27. 1934 · 1934-09-25

    The Atlantic Hotel settled four years of unpaid town taxes for $3,807.94 — and only after the council cut its assessment by $5,000

    The Atlantic's proprietor, Dr. Charles Washington Purnell, spent August and September 1934 negotiating with the town over what he owed it. On 15 August the council went through the assessment roll and, against Purnell's name, wrote off half a year's interest charge of $126.50 on $2,300 and marked off $7,000 of assessment 'for 1930-31-32-33' — $5,000 of it on the hotel and $2,000 on its furniture. On 18 September, when he came back for more, 'Dr. Purnells taxes on Atlantic Hotel was discussed and refused to allow any farther reduction.' A week later, on 25 September, the council accepted his cheque: 1930, $1,217.73; 1931, $1,359.52; 1932, $1,230.69 — '$3,807.94. This is a reduction of 5000 assessment on Hotel.' The same 18 September meeting refused a parallel request: a letter from Wellington Finance about the Colonial Hotel's assessment was answered with an instruction to write back that it 'would not be reduced.'

    Atlantic Hotel

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

28. 1936 · 1936-03-17

    Ocean City had the only high school in Worcester County without a gymnasium, and in 1936 the town went to Snow Hill to ask for one

    A delegation of Ocean City residents representing the town's civic organisations - Dr. Charles W. Purnell, Capt. W. I. Purnell, Franklin Upshur and others - waited on the Board of County Commissioners at Snow Hill at five o'clock on Tuesday 17 March 1936 and asked for about $8,000 in the next annual levy toward a gymnasium annex at Ocean City High School, promising to raise the balance of the $11,000 estimated cost themselves. 'Every High School in Worcester County has gymnasium facilities except Ocean City, the Commissioners were informed.' The commissioners promised favourable action and asked for an accurate estimate and the Board of Education's approval; the June levy carried $5,000 for a Recreation School building at Ocean City, to be paid only if additional WPA or federal funds were secured. Two days after the delegation, the town's Parent-Teachers' Association appointed a Gymnasium Finance Committee and voted to ask the Board of Education to require all pupils in District 10 to attend the Ocean City school.

    County Commissioners of Worcester CountyBoard of Education of Worcester CountyCapt. William I. PurnellFranklin Upshur

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

29. 1936 · 1936-06-25

    'The Convention City': in 1936 Ocean City took the Spanish-American War veterans, the rural letter carriers, the poultrymen and a four-town dual-highway dinner

    'Ocean City is fast becoming known throughout the East as "The Convention City",' the Messenger wrote on 25 June 1936, and the season bore it out. Del-Mar-Va Camp No. 14, the only Spanish-American War veterans' unit on the Eastern Shore, hosted the state encampment on 20-21 June with Dr. C. W. Purnell of Ocean City as chairman and speakers including Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough, Mayor Howard Jackson of Baltimore, State Commander E. A. Mulrooney of the Delaware department of the American Legion and Past Department Commander James B. Freeland of the Spanish War Veterans of the District of Columbia; Col. Joseph M. Mann of Ocean City, who had been in Havana harbour when the Maine blew up, attended. Maryland's rural letter carriers held their annual convention there in early July and were praised by Goldsborough; Maryland poultrymen met on 29 July to consider a Consumer Research Bureau. And on 25 June the mayors and councils of Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill and Pocomoke City, with Selbyville, Frankford, Millsboro, Dagsboro, Georgetown and Milford in Delaware, sat down to a dinner meeting at the Hotel Commander to advocate a dual highway through lower Delaware and Worcester County over U.S. Route 113.

    Rural Letter Carriers' Association of MarylandT. Alan Goldsborough

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

30. 1936 · 1936-10-23

    Offered a $75,000 federal boardwalk, Ocean City chose to make its own property owners pay instead

    Rebuilding the wrecked boardwalk was argued out in public for six weeks. At a city-wide meeting reported on 1 October, Mayor Elliott said the town needed about $75,000 to rebuild the ocean-front walk from the Ocean City pier northward to its terminus, over a mile and a half, and that the city was without such funds - while the charter put the expense on the individual owners of the adjacent properties, a proposition Ocean City residents 'have attacked as unfair and are united in their stand to refuse'. On 17 October Arthur K. Hungerford, State Director for Maryland of the National Emergency Council, told some eighty Ocean City business people at Col. Joseph M. Mann's cottage that there were no federal flood-control funds available, that hurricane money would have to come from the PWA or the WPA, and that a WPA grant would require Ocean City to furnish 55 to 60 per cent of the total cost. He proposed thirds: boardwalk property owners, the Mayor and Council, and the WPA. Daniel Trimper, Jr. costed the piling alone at about $21,000 - three thousand piles, four or five months to drive with average relief labour. Then on Friday evening 23 October the mayor, his three councilmen and the citizens' boardwalk committee met and abandoned the federal application altogether. Edmond Johnson, the town solicitor, read the council the law on compelling property owners to rebuild and said that in his judgment the city was holding the bag if it sponsored a WPA project. The minute is blunt: 'A long discussion was had and finally decided to go ahead & rebuild the walk without government aid.' — 1937 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The refusal held through the rebuilding. The Democratic Messenger of 11 March 1937 states that the ocean-front owners built the walk themselves, 'refusing to accept Federal or other financial aid'. The finished job cost $38,945.63, of which the assessed owners paid $17,377.92 and the town paid $21,567.71 — so the town, having refused $75,000 of federal money in October 1936, ended by paying more than half of a much smaller bill out of its own funds.

    A town that had spent 1935 begging Washington for a sewer spent 1936 refusing Washington a boardwalk - because the arithmetic said the charter was cheaper: $53,900 by ordinance against $75,000 by grant, and no waiting.

    Ocean City BoardwalkFederal Emergency Administration of Public WorksW. Thomas ElliottDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

31. 1936 · 1936-11-17

    The new boardwalk was specified in creosote and no old lumber: 8-inch piling two feet down, caps 8 by 10, and a deck of dense square-edge sound lumber at $57.55 a thousand

    Ocean City's boardwalk committee - Dr. C. W. Purnell, Horace O. Cropper, Edgar J. Ijams, John B. Lynch, Franklin Upshur, Edmond Johnson and Capt. W. I. Purnell - met the council three times in November 1936 to choose what the new walk would be made of. On 9 November they decided unanimously that it should be built of creosote piling and caps: piling of 8-inch butts driven two feet down, caps 8 by 10 for the 24-foot walk and 6 by 8 for the 16-foot walk; the motion was made by H. O. Cropper and seconded by Dr. C. W. Purnell. On 10 November representatives 'from the Wolmanized Salts people', Mr. Clifton of the Wood Preserving Corporation of Baltimore and Mr. Powell of the Adkins Company came to argue the various treatments of lumber and were asked to quote prices. On 17 November their bids were opened: Adkins at $53.25 a thousand for Wolman treatment, $60.50 on round square edge, $62.00 on long leaf and $52.00 on short-leaf heart at 85 per cent heart; the Wood Preserving Company at $57.55 a thousand Wolman treated and $66.00 for creosote stringers. Capt. Purnell moved and Dr. C. W. Purnell seconded that the city buy creosote stringers; Franklin Upshur moved that dense structural square-edge sound lumber be bought for the decking at $57.55, and that no old lumber be used in the construction of the new walk. — 1937 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The specification is now documented from the outside as well as from the minutes. Democratic Messenger, 11 March 1937: 'Fine creosoted-treated piles with the specially chemical-treated sills and stringers placed on the pilings, have been driven. Fourteen-inch drift iron pins have been used in the construction of the sub-walk. The boardwalk will be so strongly built ... that it will take a very severe storm to tear it from the 18-foot pilings.' The lower section, from Dr. F. J. Townsend's drug store to the Coast Guard Station, was finished by 21 January 1937 and 'guaranteed for twenty years'; top decking was Southern pine, delayed by floods in the middle West; and the walk was storm-tested and held on 26 April 1937.

    This is the moment the Ocean City boardwalk stops being a wooden sidewalk that keeps washing away and becomes an engineered structure: pressure-treated piling, specified caps, and a rule against reusing a single old board.

    Ocean City BoardwalkFranklin UpshurCapt. William I. Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

32. 1936 · 1936-11-21

    Ordinance No. 55, passed 21 November 1936: rebuild the boardwalk across your own frontage, or the town will do it and bill you

    On the Saturday evening of 21 November 1936 the council read Ordinance No. 55 on rebuilding the board walk, together with its specifications and the covering letter to property owners, and on Dr. F. J. Townsend's motion, seconded by W. Preston Laws, passed it unanimously. Copies were then ordered sent by registered mail to the last known address of every ocean-front owner, and the clerk wrote the names and frontages into the minute book - some forty of them, from Ernest Purnell's fifty feet of Lot 12 to Mrs. Louise Johnson's hundred and fifty feet of Block 1, with addresses in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Laurel, Salisbury and Washington as often as in Ocean City. Pencilled marginal notes record the mailing: 'Mailed 11/25/36', 'OK', and a second batch 'mailed Dec 1, 36'. The Messenger had already reported the terms: a charge of $7 a running foot on about 7,700 feet, a total outlay of $53,900, with the rebuilt walk 24 feet wide from Dorchester Street north to North Fifth Street and 16 feet wide from there northward, and laid crosswise instead of diagonally - a change proposed by the hotel owner Dr. Charles W. Purnell that was reckoned to cut the cost by a quarter. — 1937 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The ordinance was carried out. On 19 January 1937 the Ocean City council assessed the Atlantic Avenue properties by name — $369.57 for a fifty-foot lot where the walk was twenty-four feet wide, $257.83 where it was sixteen — and instructed the secretary to send the bills out 'for walk fronts as it was completed'. On 19 March the mayor was authorised to borrow enough money to settle for the walk when needed. The rate actually charged was $7.3914 a running foot, not the $7 the ordinance contemplated. THE COMPLETE 1937 RUNS OF BOTH COUNTY PAPERS — 645 pages of the Democratic Messenger and 2,766 of the Salisbury Times — CONTAIN NO SUIT, NO INJUNCTION, NO PROTEST MEETING AND NO REFUSAL TO PAY, and no published text of the ordinance. What the Messenger reports instead, on 11 March 1937, is that 'the construction has wholly been done by property owners on the ocean front, who placed the matter of purchasing materials and building in the hands of the Mayor and Council, refusing to accept Federal or other financial aid.'

    The most consequential Ocean City ordinance the campaign has recovered from the 1930s, and it survives only as a number, a vote and a mailing list. The text itself is still in a book the town has never digitised.

    Ocean City BoardwalkW. Preston Laws

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

33. 1937 · 1937-05-30

    A Washington newspaper's summer classifieds are the best 1937 roster of the Ocean City boardwalk: eight hotels, their managers, and $4.50 a day at the Atlantic

    From 20 May to 9 September 1937 the Evening Star of Washington ran a resort advertising column headed 'OCEAN CITY, MD.' - set physically apart on the same page from its 'OCEAN CITY, N. J.' block, which is as clean a dateline discriminator as this campaign has. On 30 May 1937 it read: 'The Stephen Decatur - A modern, restful vacation Hotel, on the Boardwalk, facing the sea; American Plan, 60 rooms, 30 baths, free bathing facilities, lockers, parking space. Maryland cookery at its best ... EARL E. COWLEY, Mgr. - RIDEAU, On Boardwalk, Ocean Front ... Phone 72. C. B. Brookey, Mgr. - LANKFORD, On Boardwalk; garage. M. B. Quillin, Prop. - ATLANTIC, Ocean City's Largest, Most Complete Hotel. From $4.50 Daily. American Plan. Phone 128. Dr. C. W. Purnell, Owner-Manager. - THE DEL-MAR, Private Baths. MRS. S. I. CAREY. - BREAKERS, ON BOARD WALK, Rooms with hot and cold running water and private bath. C. H. TIMMONS, Prop. - THE ROOSEVELT, Boardwalk at Division St. Thoroughly Modern. American Plan. EDWARD L. THOMPSON, Manager.' Three days later the Atlantic added the weekly rate: 'From $4.50 Daily, $24 Weekly. American Plan.' Every one of them sells itself by the boardwalk - the structure the ocean-front owners had been compelled to rebuild at their own expense five months earlier, and which was carrying their trade again by Memorial Day.

    Ocean City BoardwalkAtlantic Hotel

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

34. 1937 · 1937-09-02

    Five hundred and thirty voters, one-third of them living out of town, were entitled to choose where Ocean City's $900,000 bridge would land

    The Messenger followed the bridge from soundings to statute. In April the State Roads Commission made borings in Ocean City harbour for a '$760,000' span while a delegation from Ocean City and West Ocean City petitioned with 150 property owners' signatures for a site south of Wicomico Street, preferably South Division Street; in March the Commission voted $1,000 for emergency repairs to the existing bridge. On 26 August the paper reported the 'Sinepuxent Bridge Bill passed by the Senate', 'providing for construction of bridge at either Wicomico, Worcester or South Division Streets, but people of Ocean City' to choose. On 2 September, under 'Ocean City To Hold Bridge Site Election Thursday; 530 Voters', it printed the mechanics: the special election on 9 September, polls at the Municipal Building on Dorchester Street from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., a ballot listing North Division, South Division, Wicomico and Worcester Streets with a blank for a write-in, and a cost now put at $900,000 with approaches. And it printed the franchise, which is the striking part: 'Under the Ocean City Charter, persons who are taxpayers on real or personal property at Ocean City, irrespective of their residence, may vote' — about a third of the 530 lived somewhere else. In December the delay in the plans sent the Chamber of Commerce to Governor Nice, and on 15 December W. Preston Laws and C. W. Purnell 'volunteered to go to Annapolis on Wednesday to tell Gov. Harry Nice where to put the new bridge at Ocean City.'

    Maryland State Roads CommissionOcean City Chamber of CommerceW. Thomas ElliottW. Preston Laws

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

35. 1937 · 1937-12-30

    Four months after Ocean City voted 275 to 97 for Worcester Street, the state said the vote was not binding and the bridge would go somewhere else

    'Ocean City's new bridge over the Sinepuxent Bay ... probably will be built several blocks north of the present span despite a municipal vote for the present location,' the Associated Press reported from Baltimore on 30 December 1937. 'Ocean City residents, in a special election, voted for the present site. The vote is not binding on the state.' That is the whole 1937 bridge story in one sentence. Congress had written into the Act the town's right to designate a point; the town had spent August and September organising a special election in which non-resident taxpayers could vote; 372 ballots were cast and 275 of them said Worcester Street. In December two councilmen 'volunteered to go to Annapolis ... to tell Gov. Harry Nice where to put the new bridge at Ocean City', and by the end of the month the State Roads Commission's engineers had a different answer. The bridge, when it came, landed at Worcester Street after all — but not because of the vote. — 1938 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The consequence is now documented at both ends. On 6 June 1938 Ocean City's own council enacted an ordinance approving the State Roads Commission's plans for a bridge landing in the beds of North Division and Caroline Streets under SRC Contract No. WO-180, and granted the state the public easement in both - which is to say the town legislated the referendum's defeat, seven months after losing the argument. The State Roads Commission accepted the grant on 27 July 1938 and sent a certified copy of its resolution back to the town, and it was copied into the minute book. The fight nonetheless continued through a residents' committee, a War Department permit hearing on 15 August at which twelve speakers opposed the North Division site, and a request in November for another federal hearing.

    A federal statute gave a town of 530 taxpayers a veto over its own bridge, and the state took nine words in an AP wire to say the veto did not exist.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionW. Preston Laws

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

36. 1938 · 1938-07-28

    Ocean City residents formed a Bridge Committee in the summer of 1938 to keep Worcester Street, and asked the state to survey North Fifteenth Street instead

    'The Ocean City Bridge Committee, recently chosen at a meeting of residents favoring Worcester street for a new bridge and whose membership includes L. Franklin Purnell, Dr. Charles W. Purnell, Clarence Carey, Edward Gray and William H. Purnell, secretary, said today that a written official request for a new bridge survey for North 15th street would be sent immediately to the State Roads Commission in Baltimore.' Their case was that approval for a bridge at North Fifteenth Street, together with the improvement and maintenance of the present Worcester Street span, 'would not only build an economical bridge at North 15th street, where rights of way can be secured at low cost, but also re-build the present Worcester street bridge.' It was a committee formed after the town council had already given the state North Division and Caroline Streets, and its members are the same men who turn up three weeks later at the War Department hearing.

    Ocean City Bridge CommitteeMaryland State Roads CommissionL. Franklin PurnellClarence CareyEdward GrayWilliam H. Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

37. 1938 · 1938-11-22

    Ocean City granted at least twenty-two building permits in 1938 and, for the first time in the campaign's record, refused four

    The permits, as the minute book lists them: Atwood & Lynch, Collins Ayres and one other at Philadelphia Avenue and Fifth and Third Streets (23 February); John W. Burbage on Twelfth Street (14 March); Magee Oil Co. on Somerset Street, Chas. W. Purnell at the Post Office, and Ruth Kubit on Eighth Street (4 April); Mr. and Mrs. Salvatore Rousevalle at Baltimore Avenue and Ninth, Edward Evans on the west side of Philadelphia Avenue at Seventh, and Dr. C. W. Purnell at the Boardwalk and Wicomico Street (12 April); L. W. Farlow in the Ninth Street alley and Collins Ayres a small house behind his own on Fifth (10 May); Joe H[eckmott], Mrs. Jane B. Townsend, Clarence Carey a garage, Charles S. Powell an addition to a hotel, J. P. Whaley a garage, and Raymond Bounds to remodel a garage into stores and apartments (14 October); Parker Smith and Evans Development (10 November); an addition to a restaurant building and a bungalow (22 November). What is new is the refusals. Thomas Shill's shed at the corner of Ninth was rejected on 10 May after six neighbours objected. Sam Ayres withdrew an application for a chicken house on 14 October rather than have it voted on. On 22 November the council refused Charles C. Richards's Colored Recreation Hall, refused Nathan Rapport's application to move a building opposite South Division Street on Atlantic Avenue, and refused Edward Evans a wood shingle roof.

    Clarence CareyCharles C. RichardsE. Raymond BoundsEdward Evans

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

38. 1939 · 1939-06-30

    The mayor spent the last hour of June 1939 trying to get the piles pulled out of Ocean City's bathing beach

    At the assessment hearing of Friday afternoon 30 June, held from 3 to 4 o'clock and sitting until 5:25, the minute closes: 'Mayor Johnson talked with Dr. Chas Purnell about the cutting off of Piles on Bathing beach and is to write State Department & State Roads Commission asking order be passed to Dr. Purnell ordering the pulling of piles.' The same meeting passed an ordinance on pin ball machines, signed by the president of the council and the mayor.

    Cutting a pile off at the sand leaves the pile. The mayor understood that, could not make the owner understand it, and went over his head to two state agencies in the last week before the season - which is the most exact picture the year gives of what a mayor of Ocean City actually did.

    Edmond H. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

39. 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 CommerceOcean City Advertising CommitteeJohn B. LynchClarence Carey

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

40. 1940 · 1940-08-05

    Ocean City's 1940 election was decided by one vote: the third council seat went to Robert Lee Cropper on 128 against Frank Salea's 127

    'An Election was held in Firemens Building Monday August 5th 1940 for purpose of electing one person for Mayor and three persons for City Councilmen for a term of two years from 2nd Tuesday of September 1940 to 1942.' The polls were open from 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. The returns were filed with the clerk by three election judges, Stephen J. Quillin, Horace H. Richardson and Thomas L. Savage. For Mayor: Clifford P. Cropper 167, Charles W. Purnell 97, C. Parker Smith 2, John B. Lynch 3. For City Council: Harold J. Rayne 208, E. Raymond Bounds 189, Robert Lee Cropper 128, Frank Salea 127, Talbot E. Bunting 91. Three seats were to be filled, so Rayne, Bounds and Robert Lee Cropper took them and Salea missed by a single vote. The new mayor and council were sworn in by Magistrate J. Edward White at nine o'clock on the evening of 10 September, and organised by electing Bounds President of the Council and Rayne Treasurer, and reappointing J. M. Mumford Secretary and Wm. H. Scott attorney.

    Four men stood for mayor and 269 votes were cast for them; five stood for three council seats and 743 votes were cast, so the same electors were plainly splitting their tickets. The mayor the council had appointed in January was confirmed by the town in August with a comfortable majority over the doctor who owned the Atlantic Hotel - and the last seat on the board turned on one elector, in a town whose whole year-round population the census had just put near a thousand.

    Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentClifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee CropperFrank SaleaJohn B. LynchJ. Edward White (magistrate)William H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

41. 1940 · 1940-08-08

    The county paper printed Ocean City's election three days after it happened and put a figure on the town's whole electorate: 271 votes cast out of 600 eligible

    The Democratic Messenger of 8 August 1940 confirms the minute book almost line for line: 'Mayor Clifford P. Cropper, of Ocean City, won re-election for a two-year term as chief executive of the Maryland resort, in the Ocean City Municipal election held on Monday. Cropper defeated his lone opponent, Charles W. Purnell, in the Mayoralty race, by a vote of 167 to 97 - a majority of 70 ballots. Only 271 votes were cast out of a total of 600 eligible. In the Councilmanic contest, E. Raymond Bounds and Harold J. Rayne, incumbents, were re-elected, the third Council post going to Robert L. Cropper.' Its official list gives Rayne 208, Bounds 189, Robert L. Cropper 128, and the fifth candidate 127, with Talbot E. Bunting last. And it says outright what the clerk left the reader to work out: 'Candidate Frank Sacca fell short one vote to tie R. L. Cropper for the third Council seat.' Two differences from the minute book are worth keeping. The paper calls Purnell Cropper's 'lone opponent' and prints no line for C. Parker Smith's 2 votes or John B. Lynch's 3, which the clerk recorded. And the paper's 271 votes cast does not equal the 269 mayoral votes the clerk added up.

    Six hundred eligible voters. That is the whole political weight of Ocean City in 1940 - fewer people than registered for the draft in the same town ten weeks later - and 271 of them turned out to decide a council seat by one vote. The most useful thing in the paragraph is the denominator, which the minute book never gives and which nobody in this campaign has had before.

    Clifford P. CropperRobert Lee CropperFrank SaleaHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

42. 1941 · 1941-06-03

    A delegation of Boardwalk businessmen got the council to license umbrella hire at five dollars from a fixed place of business — and to refuse it altogether to anyone with a cart.

    On the evening of 3 June 1941, with the season about to open, a 'Delegation headed by James Jarman and Dr Chas. Purnell' came before the Ocean City council 'asking that council grant no lisence to any one to rent umbrellas from push cart on the board walk and agreement was reached that council lisence each place renting umbrellas from their business places lisence for $5.00 and refuse any traveling push cart.' It is a small ordinance and a complete picture of how the Boardwalk economy defended itself: the men with premises pay five dollars and keep the trade; the man with a cart and no rent is legislated off the boards. The same meeting patched the holes in Caroline Street for John Hagan and fixed the lifeguards' wages.

    Ocean City BoardwalkJames D. JarmanClifford P. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

43. 1944 · 1944-04-19

    Ocean City voted the Chamber of Commerce $1,850 for 1944, asked for in person by John B. Lynch, Dr. C. W. Purnell and C. Parker Smith.

    John B. Lynch, Dr. C. W. Purnell and C. Parker Smith came before the council asking a continuance of money to finance the Chamber of Commerce - $1,850 for the year - and the council agreed. Lynch was elected to the council four months later and made its president; Purnell became secretary of the town's first Zoning Commission in 1945. In April 1945 the same Chamber asked $3,500.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceJohn B. Lynch

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

44. 1944 · 1944-10-24

    Ocean City's property owners were invited to say how the Boardwalk should be rebuilt, and what they asked for was concrete.

    The council left the City office for the Firemen's room to debate the best means of building boardwalk and to hear the invited property owners: Thomas Shill and wife, Elizabeth Strohecker and daughter, Dale Showell, A. M. Jackson, Chas. J. Jackson, F. W. Truitt, H. J. Cropper and wife, Cullen Jenkins, John Hagan, Dr. C. W. Purnell, Jr. Evans, Harry Gunby, Earl Conley and A. W. Ball. Mayor Trimper gave a financial statement, then handed the hearing to the President of Council, John B. Lynch, who gave the estimated cost of building the walk at present prices and asked the owners for the best method and materials. Dr. Purnell, Earl Conley, Tom Shill, Frank Truitt and John Hagan spoke, wanting to investigate the cost of a cement walk, which they said could be built much cheaper and last longer. The council agreed to investigate the concrete idea. The record of the storm broadcast was played for the gathering. Earlier the same evening the council had ruled that any pile driven east of the walk in front of the 16th Street walk was to be driven 8 feet 6 inches from it.

    Ocean City BoardwalkDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.John B. LynchHarry J. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

45. 1945 · 1945-05-10

    Ocean City's first Zoning Commission organised on 10 May 1945 with Frank Waller as president and Dr. C. W. Purnell as secretary.

    The council met at 8 PM for the purpose of getting the Zoning Commission organized. Clark Gardner and Purnell were present to outline the programme, as was Attorney Wm. Price to aid in setting up the proper procedure. The members present were Harland R. Huston of Salisbury, W. A. Jarman, J. P. Whaley, Frank Waller and Dr. C. W. Purnell - the five men Mayor Trimper had been sent on 10 April to ask whether they would serve, and whom the council voted to accept on 24 April. Mr. Whaley read the law on the zoning set-up and Mr. Gardner went over the entire matter for the commission to consider, after which the commission organised by electing Frank Waller president and Dr. C. W. Purnell secretary, and set its next meeting for 24 May. It is six months to the week since the council first asked John S. Whaley to draft a zoning ordinance.

    Ocean City Zoning CommissionClark GardnerJohn P. Whaley

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

46. 1945 · 1945-08-27

    Ocean City's Zoning Commission delivered its preliminary report on 27 August 1945, and the council voted only to receive it.

    The council met at 8:30 PM with the Zoning Commission - Mayor Trimper, Councilmen Dolle and Savage for the town, and Attorney Wm. Price with chairman Frank Waller, Harland Huston, C. W. Purnell and J. P. Whaley for the commission. Attorney Price read a report of the work done by the commission and discussion followed, after which R. Dolle moved and C. O. Savage seconded that the Zoning Commission's preliminary report be received and that it receive consideration. Receiving is all the council did. The report itself is not bound into the minutes, and within eight weeks its zoning map was being used to decide a night-club permit.

    Ocean City Zoning CommissionRudolph DolleCranford O. SavageJohn P. Whaley

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

47. 1945 · 1945-10-30

    A Chamber of Commerce delegation asked Ocean City in October 1945 to keep minors out of the dance halls and night clubs where beer was sold.

    Mrs. Virginia Ayers, Dr. C. W. Purnell, Robert Cropper and Parker Smith came from the Chamber of Commerce. Mrs. Ayers's request was that the council do something towards keeping minors out of dance halls and night clubs where beer was sold. C. Parker Smith wanted better water. Dr. Purnell spoke on the building permit asked by Granville Trimper. Bob Cropper wanted a house moved on the City dump to help in his proposed air field, and also spoke of getting legislation towards State aid in keeping up the Boardwalk. The council's answer to Mrs. Ayers is not recorded. The same meeting received the 1945 financial report as audited by A. M. Ball, and asked Granville Trimper to wait until the zoning bill was completed to see if broader regulation could be made in Amusement Areas.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceMrs. Virginia AyersGranville Trimper

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

48. 1945 · 1945-11-20

    Ocean City's first zoning ordinance ran to thirty-eight pages, was read aloud in a single afternoon, and was signed over to the council after a steak dinner at City Lunch.

    The council met the Zoning Commission at 3 PM on Tuesday 20 November: Mayor Trimper with Dolle, Lynch and Savage; Frank Waller, Harland Huston, Walter Jarman, J. P. Whaley and C. W. Purnell for the commission, with Clark Gardner, Purnell, Wm. Price and John Whaley. Chairman Frank Waller called the meeting to order and Wm. Price read and commented on the 38-page document, finishing at 6:30, at which point the meeting adjourned to go to City Lunch for a steak dinner. Afterwards the members returned to the council office, had further discussion, and the document was signed by the Zoning members and turned over to the City Council. The mayor and council then arranged for a public hearing and its advertising, to be held on the afternoon of Wednesday 19 December and the morning of Saturday 22 December 1945. On 26 November the council resolved unanimously, John B. Lynch moving and R. Dolle seconding, that the report be accepted.

    Ocean City Zoning CommissionClark GardnerJohn S. WhaleyJohn P. WhaleyDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

49. 1946 · 1946-05-28

    Ocean City told a 6th Street hotel to move its porch off the sidewalk in ten days and was told the supports had stood there for twenty years - so the council sent its surveyor to find out where the street actually was.

    A letter went out on 21 May to Mary B. Cormine about her building on 6th Street being partly on the sidewalk, asking that she remove it within ten days. On 28 May Dr. C. W. Purnell and Mrs. Carmine were before the council about the Normandy's porch supports being on the sidewalk; they stated the supports had been there for twenty years and that they had done nothing toward building that required a permit. The council told the secretary to have Bert Cropper give the proper line for 6th Street, and said they would look the property over after the street line was marked. It is a small case with the year's two big themes inside it: a new permit regime meeting a twenty-year-old building, and both sides deferring to a surveyor because nobody was sure where the line ran.

    The clerk spelled the same woman's name two ways a week apart - Cormine and Carmine.

    G. Bertrand Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-15

50. 1946 · 1946-10-01

    Ocean City's first Board of Zoning Appeals was confirmed on 1 October 1946 with the man who had chaired the Zoning Commission as its chairman - and one seat already changed hands before the board was ever listed.

    'The appointment of Mr. James Farlow to take place of Mr. Harland Huston on Zoning Appeal Board for one year was approved', and the clerk then set the board out in full: James Farlow, one year; Walter H. Jarman, one year; Dr. C. W. Purnell, two years; Franklin Waller, three years; John P. Whaley, four years. Mayor Trimper named Waller chairman. Ordinance No. 99 required exactly this - five members, staggered two/one/one/one at one, two, three and four years, one designated chairman by the Mayor - and the council's instinct on 21 May had been simply 'to ask the same members to serve that were on the Zoning Board'. It substantially did: Waller chaired the Zoning Commission organised in May 1945 and Purnell was its secretary, so the men who wrote the ordinance now sat on the board that heard appeals from it. The substitution was made before the meeting: on the lawyers' draft of 4 May, 'Harland Houston' is struck through in manuscript with 'James Farlow' written above it, and the two-year seat there reads 'John W. Purnell'.

    Ocean City Board of Zoning AppealsOcean City Zoning CommissionFrank WallerJohn P. WhaleyDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.

    Source · checked 2026-08-15