Clarence W. Whealton
president, Ocean City Amusement Pier Corporation · active 1926
A Salisbury man, president of the Ocean City Amusement Pier Corporation chartered in December 1926 with authorised capital of $160,000 to rebuild the pier that burned on 29 December 1925. The corporation bought the old pier company's franchise; the town's ordinance gave it thirty days to start, set the building line fifty feet west of the boardwalk and capped the structure at 750 feet into the ocean. His officers were B. F. Shipley of Ocean City as vice-president and R. R. Dennis of Ocean City as secretary and treasurer, and the architect was Robert N. Walker of Washington.
In the record (3)
1926 · 1926-12-04
A $160,000 corporation is chartered in December to rebuild the pier on the old site, with a 1,000-seat theatre and bowling alleys.
Worcester Democrat, 4 December 1926, 'AMUSEMENT PIER WILL BE ERECTED AT OCEAN CITY — Incorporation Papers Granted Pier Amusement Co. Construction Starts Soon — SITE TO BE SAME AS FOR THE OLD PIER': 'Incorporation papers have been granted to the Ocean City Amusement Pier Corporation, with an authorized capital of $160,000. About $120,000 of the amount will be paid in when construction starts within the next month. The new corporation has purchased the franchise of the pier company whose property was damaged by fire at the resort last December.' Officers: president, Clarence W. Whealton of Salisbury; vice-president, B. F. Shipley, Ocean City; secretary and treasurer, R. R. Dennis, Ocean City. The town's ordinance granting the building permit required construction to start within thirty days, set the building line fifty feet west of the boardwalk and capped the pier at 750 feet into the ocean. Plans by Robert N. Walker, a Washington architect: 300 feet of frontage on a pavilion built out from the main boardwalk, a fishing pier at the rear reaching forty feet beyond the bar, and in the front portion a theatre and bowling alleys — 'The former will have a seating capacity of 1,000 and will be the largest auditorium at the resort. The theater and pavilion will provide much needed facilities for conventions, for which the resort is host for no small number during the summer season.' To be finished for the opening of the season 'late in June'.
Ocean City Amusement Pier CorporationOcean City Pier and Improvement Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
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 CorporationDr. Charles Washington Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1929
Ocean City has a pier again: a 700-foot fishing pier nearly finished by August, and the Atlantic Hotel advertises itself all summer as 'Near Fishing Pier'.
From early June the Evening Star's Ocean City hotel block carried 'Hotel Atlantic — NEW AND ON OCEAN FRONT … Music. Dancing. Near Fishing Pier.' On 10 August the Washington Times reported that 'work on the construction of a fishing pier reaching 700 feet out over the water of Sinepuxent is almost completed. Next year an amusement pier will be built … It will reach out over the ocean and will conclude with a T shaped pavilion.' In April a Delaware weekly had reported that work on 'Ocean City's new $200,000 fishing and amusement pier, to be constructed on the site of the old pier which was burned in December, 1925,' was to start that week under the Sinepuxent Beach and Development Company, headed by Clarence W. Whealton of Salisbury. By 25 September the builders are named as the Sinepuxent Pier and Improvement Company, then planning a $115,000 pier and amusement hall at the shore end of 'the present new Ocean City pier' for the 1930 season.
Four schemes and three corporate names since the fire, and in 1929 something is finally standing over water. The pier of 1929 is a fishing pier; the amusement hall at its landward end — what the town would come to call the Pier Ballroom — is next winter's work. Ocean City spent the back half of the twenties buying a pier in instalments.
Ocean City Fishing PierPier Ballroom & Bandshell SiteAtlantic HotelSinepuxent Pier and Improvement Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06