Clifford P. Cropper

In the record (68)

1. 1922 · 1922-08-07

   William W. McCabe is elected mayor of Ocean City on Monday 7 August 1922 with nobody running against him — the first uncontested municipal election there in years.

   The Democratic Messenger of 12 August 1922, under MCCABE ELECTED OCEAN CITY MAYOR: "Ocean City Municipal election was without a contest last Monday, the following ticket being unopposed: Mayor — William W. McCabe. Councilmen — E. J. Thomas, Clifford Cropper and John W. Mumford. This is the first time for a number of years that the election at Ocean City has not been a hot contest. All united on Mayor-elect McCabe and those elected with him to serve as Councilmen." This dates the start of the McCabe era exactly. His predecessor Elbridge E. Collins was still in office in June, when the Messenger reported "State's Attorney William G. Kerbin and Mayor Collins, of Ocean City" promising an investigation into the attack on the town lockup. McCabe would hold the office until 1934, through the 1925 fire and the 1933 storm, and would be the man who turned the storm-cut inlet into a permanent harbour.

   William W. McCabeElbridge E. Collins

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1923 · 1923-02-14

   The Ocean City Firemen's Association holds its annual chicken pot pie dinner, and the paper prints its whole slate of officers.

   Worcester Democrat, 17 February 1923, 'Ocean City Holds Annual Fire Association Banquet': "The Firemen's Association[,] one of the most important as well as one of the most active and efficient organizations of Ocean City, held its annual Chicken Pot Pie Dinner at the Fire House on Wednesday evening of this week… the social element was greatly enhanced because the wives and sweethearts of the valiant firemen were present. Speeches were made by the officers, led by Ralph Dennis, lieutenant; Clifford Cropper, president; Charles Cropper, chief; and Frank Truitt, secretary." Three weeks earlier the company had elected four boys — George Baaker, James Jester, Stacy Ludlam and Daniel Trimper, Jr. — as "runners," "to assist the firemen in case of fire in the way of alarms and the carrying of needed articles from the fire house."

   Seven months before the Mount Pleasant burned, the town's fire company was a dinner club with four teenage messengers. It was also, that night, enough.

   Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1924

   More than a hundred property owners renominate Mayor McCabe and his three councilmen by acclamation, and nobody stands against them.

   Worcester Democrat, 9 August 1924: 'Mayor And Council Of Ocean City Renominated — At an election held recently in Ocean City, Md., the Mayor and City Council were renominated without opposition on a non-partisan ticket. This means that the election of municipal officers August 12 will not be contested. The officials are William W. McCabe, Mayor, and John M. Mumford, Edward J. Thomas and Clifford Cropper, Councilmen. They have held office two years. They were renominated by acclamation at a meeting of more than 100 property owners of the seashore resort.' The same three men had been returned unopposed with McCabe in 1922; Chapter 405 of 1924, passed four months earlier, fixed the election for the first Monday in August, which fell on the 4th — the paper's 'August 12' is the only date printed and is recorded as given.

   August 1924 — the statute says the first Monday, the county paper says the 12th

   William W. McCabeE. J. ThomasJohn W. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1934 · 1934-01-16

   William B. S. Powell, twice mayor and proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel, was dead by the first council meeting of 1934

   The first item of business of 1934, after the boardwalk, was a vacancy. On 16 January 'Dale Showell was nominated by C. P. Cropper, seconded by John B. Lynch to fill the remainder of term as Councilman in place of W B S Powell, deceased, and question was voted on by Council and Mr Dale Showell was elected to fill the remainder of term as Council.' Powell had been mayor from 1912 to 1918 and had sat on the council ever since; he had owned the Atlantic Hotel until he sold it to Dr. C. W. Purnell in 1922. The minute gives no date or cause of death, only that it had happened by 16 January 1934. His name survives in the town's books for the rest of the year: the assessment revision of 15 August carries the line 'W B S Powell arena off, $2,000.'

   Atlantic HotelWilliam B. S. Powell

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

5. 1934 · 1934-09-13

   Hauling the town's garbage cost $10 a day in season and $4.50 a day out of it — the sharpest measure of what summer meant

   On 5 June 1934 the council opened bids 'for hauling garbage from June 16 to Sept 8 inclusive' and awarded the contract to James L. Clark at $10 a day. On 13 September, four days after the season contract expired, it opened bids again. Four men bid: Frank Hastings $7.00, L. J. Clark $8.00, C. P. Cropper $6.00 and George H. Jones $4.50. Jones took it. The winter rate was forty-five per cent of the summer rate, and the summer contract had been let without competition recorded while the off-season one drew four bidders — a resort's economy in two lines of a minute book. — 1935 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The 1935 figures make it a series. Summer 1935 (17 June – 14 September) went to George H. Jones at $13.00 a day, against James R. Kelly $19.00, C. P. Cropper $15.00 and James L. Clark $19.95; winter 1935–36 (16 September – 15 June) went to the same Jones at $4.90 a day against L. J. Clark's $8.00. Against 1934's $10.00 and $4.50, the season rate rose thirty per cent in a year and the winter rate barely moved — the sharpest available measure of how much faster the Ocean City season was growing than the town underneath it.

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 1937 · 1937-06-01

   Hauling Ocean City's summer garbage cost $24.50 a day; hauling it after Labor Day cost $7.50

   Bids for hauling garbage 'beginning June 16 and ending Sept. 16 inclusive' were opened on 1 June 1937: Geo Jones $34.00 per day, Gardner Ewell $35.00, L. J. Clark $27.00, C. P. Cropper $24.50. On W. H. Scott's motion the contract went to C. P. Cropper at $24.50 a day. On 7 September the council opened bids for the rest of the year - George Jones $7.50 a day, C. P. Cropper $9.00 - took no action that night because it 'wanted to consider the bids until Friday Sept 10th', and on 13 September awarded it to George Jones at $7.50. The town's rubbish cost it more than three times as much in July as in October, which is the clearest single measure of the size of the season the campaign has for 1937.

   George JonesWilliam H. Scott

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

7. 1938 · 1938-05-31

   Five men bid to haul Ocean City's summer garbage for ninety-one days in 1938, and the cheapest won at $25 a day

   'Bids for hauling garbage from June 16 to Sept 14 inclusive 91 days were opened & were: Raymond Bounds 26.50 per day; Geo H Jones 25.00; L J Clark 28.95; J H Trimble 28.00; C P Cropper 29.00. Mr. Jones was awarded the Contract.' Two of the five bidders were elected to the town council nine weeks later. The winter contract was let separately on 6 September: Ralph Trimble at $7.75 a day, George Jones at $7.50, and Jones took that too. The summer rate is fifty cents up on 1937's $24.50; the winter rate is identical to 1937's $7.50. Ocean City's garbage in 1938 therefore cost $2,275 for the summer season and about three-tenths as much a day for the other nine months - the sharpest single number the record gives for how completely the town emptied after Labor Day.

   George JonesE. Raymond Bounds

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

8. 1938 · 1938-08-01

   Ocean City turned out its mayor of four years in August 1938 and elected its own lawyer, on 323 votes cast between two o'clock and six

   The minute of 1 August 1938 records 'A Special town Election was held in Firemans Building for purpose of Electing one person for mayor and three persons for Councilmen to serve two Years'. The returns, filed by the election judges Stephen J. Quillen, Horace O. Cropper and Williams, were: 'For Edmund H Johnson for Mayor 323 Votes. Harold J Rayne for Councilman 219 Votes. E Raymond Bounds 216. C.P. Cropper 199. John D Ayres 149. C Parker Smith 136. Dr. Francis J Townsend 154. No other Votes were Cast. Election held from 2 O'Clock P.M. Until 6 O'Clock P.M.' Six men ran for three council seats and the sitting councilman, Dr. Francis J. Townsend, came fourth and lost. W. Thomas Elliott, mayor since 1934, does not appear on the return at all - no votes were cast for him, and he did not stand. The man who replaced him was the town's own solicitor, Edmond H. Johnson, who nine weeks earlier had been appointed the council's attorney to collect Ocean City's share of the Worcester County liquor profits and had been paid $915 for the work on 31 May.

   A four-hour poll in the firehouse, 323 votes, and the resort changed hands. Ocean City did not so much elect an outsider as promote its lawyer - and the councilman who had spent the year pushing sanitary ordinances the council would not second was the one the voters removed.

   Edmond H. JohnsonW. Thomas ElliottHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsFrancis J. TownsendStephen J. QuillenHorace O. CropperC. Parker Smith

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

9. 1938 · 1938-09-12

   The new mayor of Ocean City was sworn in with a bouquet of flowers and a wish for a 'Successful and Harmony Administration'

   'The new Mayor & Council met Promptly at 8 O'Clock P.M. and were sworn in by Magistrate Stephen J. Quillen. Soon as the Ceremony was completed the New Mayor Ed[mond] Johnson was presented with a large Boquet of Flowers by several ladies and gentlemen who expressed their desire to Mayor Johnson and members of Council for a Successful and Harmony Administration.' The councilmen sworn were Clifford P. Cropper, E. Raymond Bounds and Harold J. Rayne. Cropper was unanimously elected President of the Council and Rayne Treasurer; J. M. Mumford was reappointed City Clerk to June 1939; and William H. Scott, who had sat as a councilman under Elliott, was named City Attorney - so the outgoing solicitor became mayor and an outgoing councilman became solicitor. The council's printed letterhead by 20 October reads: EDMOND H. JOHNSON, Mayor; WILLIAM H. SCOTT, Solicitor; J. M. MUMFORD, Sec.-Treas.; COUNCILMEN: CLIFFORD P. CROPPER, Pres.; HAROLD J. RAYNE, Sec.-Treas.; E. RAYMOND BOUNDS.

   Edmond H. JohnsonE. Raymond BoundsHarold J. RayneWilliam H. ScottStephen J. QuillenJ. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

10. 1938 · 1938-11-22

    On 22 November 1938 Ocean City's council unanimously refused a permit for a Colored Recreation Hall, after six named white neighbours objected

    The application ran seven months and three meetings. On 4 April the council told Charles C. Richards to apply again on the proper form and it would notify every owner and set a hearing. On 10 November his application was 'Continued'. On the evening of 22 November it was the first item of business, and the minute is exact: 'Mr. Richards was present and explained he want to use the property for Colored Recreation Hall. Property owners objected by letter were Nancy Truitt & Ida Corey. And the following were present in Person Objecting to Granting of permit, Will Quillen and Windsor Resort. Council promised Mr. Richards they would decide on application within a week and before adjourning unanimously decided to Refuse permit.' Two letters, two men in the room, and a company. Counting the April objectors, six parties are named against the hall across the year - Trimper Bros., Mrs. Charles Hudson, Mrs. Nancy Truitt, Ida Corey, Will Quillen and the Windsor Resort - and not one person is recorded as speaking for it except Richards himself. The council did not even take the week it had just promised. — 1938 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: THE SILENCE IS NOW MEASURED ACROSS A SECOND COMPLETE NEWSPAPER. The 1938 pass established that the refusal appears in none of the 588 pages of the Democratic Messenger. It appears in none of the 704 harvested pages of the Worcester Democrat and the Ledger-Enterprise (sn89060127) either: the phrase 'recreation hall' returns ZERO pages, 'colored hotel' ZERO, 'colored dance' ZERO, 'Henry Hotel' ZERO, and the only 'Ludlam' in the 1938 run is a white Charles Ludlam of Ocean City whose wife was a Red Cross chairman for the town in November 1938. It also appears nowhere in the 1939 Ocean City minute book, in any of the 25 documents and 47 pages read: Charles C. Richards is not mentioned once in 1939, there is no second application, no appeal, and no permit for any recreation hall to anybody. AND IT IS ABSENT FROM THE BLACK PRESS TOO: a sweep of 59 located 1939 issues of the Baltimore Afro-American with 2,537 queries returns ZERO hits for Ludlam, Sam Ludlam or 'excursion Ocean City', and the seven Charles C. Richards hits spot-checked were column-break false positives.

    This is the clearest thing the campaign has ever found about how segregation actually worked in Ocean City, and it is not a sign on a door. It is a building permit, a hearing, a list of neighbours, and a unanimous vote - the ordinary machinery of a small town's planning power, turned on a Black social hall and used to stop it.

    Windsor Resort CompanyCharles C. RichardsMrs. Nancy TruittIda CoreyWill QuillenEdmond H. JohnsonHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

11. 1938 · 1938-12-27

    Ocean City ended 1938 threatening an injunction against a foundation four feet over the building line on the street it had just given the state

    The council's last act of 1938 was a special meeting called by its president on the evening of 27 December. 'The Question of Mrs. L. M. Mumford building over the 8 ft Building Line on Phila. Ave. at Cor. of Caroline St. was discussed and Council notified that Secretary had notified Mrs. Mumford that they had located the foundation over the line by about 4 feet and required Mrs. Mumford to stop the building.' The Mumfords came before the council; Harold Rayne asked whether they could not build to the ordinance, 'as the City did not want to stop them from building and would like them to save time & money by Complying with the City Ordinance'; and 'After debating for some time the Council finally voted unanimously that the building could not go out 4 feet as started and if they did not move in the foundation the City would have to file an injunction and hold up the building.' The corner in question is Philadelphia Avenue at Caroline Street - one of the two streets the town had deeded to the State Roads Commission for the bridge approach in June, on the avenue it had deeded for the Coastal Highway in July.

    Harold J. RayneEdmond H. JohnsonWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

12. 1939 · 1939-06-02

    Ocean City put a price on thirty-five kinds of business in 1939, and the General Assembly had to give it the power first

    On 7 February 1939 the council passed a licence ordinance on third reading, to take effect 1 May, taxing bicycle stations at $250, dance halls at $150 or $25, rolling chairs at $2 a chair and bingo at $500. It was superseded four months later. Chapter 180 of the Acts of 1939 (House Bill 456), approved 3 May and effective 1 June, added Section 147A to the Ocean City sub-title of the Code of Public Local Laws 'relating to additional license fees which may be imposed by the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City'. On 2 June - the day after the act took effect - the council read a new licence ordinance for the third time and passed it unanimously on the motion of C. P. Cropper, seconded by Rayne. The engrossed copy in the minute file is headed 'ORDINANCE NO. ____' and the number is left blank; the clerk's longhand entry assigns one, and the digits read as 154, though the first character is not certain. The new schedule ran to thirty-five heads, made every fee due on 2 June and expiring 1 June following, required the licence to be conspicuously displayed, and fined $25 an offence with each day separate.

    The February ordinance was the town guessing at its own powers; the June one is the town exercising powers Annapolis had just handed it, one day old. That is the whole relationship between a Maryland municipality and the General Assembly in a single pair of dates.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceHarold J. RayneEdmond H. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

13. 1939 · 1939-07-22

    Ocean City raised its tax rate from 85 cents to a dollar in 1939, and its own budget sheet shows exactly why

    The clerk's typed 'REPORT AS OF JULY THIRTEENTH 1939' sets out the choice in two columns. Estimated 1940 income at the existing rate: licences $5,500, liquor store $3,000, comfort station $400, dog licences $75, water rent $13,500 and 'tax rate at 85cts' $26,477.65. Beneath it, in the same hand as the rest: 'If tax rate at $1.00 ... increase 4,684.29', bringing the total to $54,036.94 against estimated requirements of some $56,700. On Saturday afternoon 22 July the council met for twenty minutes and did nothing else: 'Question of tax rate was discussed and on motion by Clifford P. Cropper seconded by Harold Rayne Levy was passed to make the tax rate $1.00 per $100.' Adjourned 2:30 P.M.

    The striking of the levy had already been postponed once, on 18 July, because Cropper was absent and the mayor would not do it without a full board. Four days later they came in on a Saturday, took the vote, and went home. A town that will not raise a tax three-to-nothing is a town that knows what it is doing to people.

    Harold J. RayneEdmond H. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

14. 1939 · 1939-09-19

    Ocean City's council voted $250 for a radio broadcast in September 1939 and the mayor vetoed it

    The minute of 19 September 1939: 'C. P. Cropper offered Resolution, seconded by R. Bounds that City pay Broadcasting Station the Sum of $250.00 on program that was sent from Ocean City. Vote was taken and passed by Council, then Vetoed by Mayor Johnson.' The same meeting refused James D. Jarman's bill for salary as the town's fishing press agent while paying his $87.36 of expenses, and settled a boardwalk injury claim by Mrs. V. E. Landon - who had fallen on 24 August - by offering her $25; she held out and was paid $50 on 24 October.

    Three months later Johnson resigned. This is the only recorded veto of his mayoralty in 1939 and it was aimed at the one line of the budget the council never stopped feeding - advertising, which had already taken $250 for an outdoor show in January, $500 at Annapolis in March, $600 for the Chamber of Commerce office in May and would take $300 for a show in New York in December.

    Edmond H. JohnsonE. Raymond BoundsJames D. JarmanCapt. Crawford Savage

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

15. 1939 · 1939-10-24

    Ocean City contracted for four new artesian wells in October 1939 and deliberately took the cheaper bid without the guarantee

    Bids for drilling new wells at the north pump station were opened on 24 October. M. A. Pentz of Denton bid $3.00 a foot for a 6-inch well and $14.00 for screen. The Artesian Well Drilling Co. of Philadelphia bid $3.25 a foot on the well and $13.00 a foot on screen, guaranteeing 1,000 gallons a minute on four wells. The Shannahan Artesian Well Co. Inc. of St Michaels bid $3.40 a foot with screens at $10.75, on a guarantee of 1,000 gallons a minute - or, alternatively, $2.35 a foot on well and $10.75 on screen 'for each foot not guaranteed'. On C. P. Cropper's motion, seconded by Bounds, 'Contract was awarded Shannahan on non guaranteed Basis'. The specification had gone out on 3 October: four wells to supply 250 gallons a minute each. — 1940 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The four wells contracted in October 1939 on the cheaper, non-guaranteed bid were not enough. On 15 January 1940 the council unanimously resolved 'that the well contractor drive a fifth well to supply a sufficient quantity of water to the water tank at the south end of the town.' The cost then drove the tax rate: the minute of 8 July 1940 raises the rate to $1.20 partly because 'the cost of the new wells for north Pump Station would have to be carried over for 1940' and notes had been given to pay for them.

    The council took a dollar and five cents a foot off the price by giving up the guarantee that the wells would produce water. In a town whose budget sheet that summer showed three years of uncollected water rent, that is not thrift so much as a bet.

    Shannahan Artesian Well Co. Inc.E. Raymond BoundsWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

16. 1939 · 1939-12-11

    Ocean City's last council meeting of 1939 ended with the mayor telling them he would have to resign

    The minute of Monday evening 11 December 1939, the last meeting of the year, closes: 'Mayor Edmond H. Johnson told the Council he would have to hand in his resignation to take effect Dec. 30, 1939.' A line is then interlined above the signature in the same hand: 'Motion by Rayne sec'd by Cropper that Johnson's Resignation be accepted.' The meeting adjourned at 9:45 P.M. Johnson had presided over every one of the year's twenty-five meetings and had personally signed the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company franchise ordinance that same evening. The minute gives no reason. The council did not meet again in 1939. — 1940 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The 1939 fact ends with the mayor telling the council he would have to resign and no successor named. The 1940 record closes it: the office was declared vacant at 2 P.M. on Tuesday 2 January 1940 and filled the same afternoon by Clifford P. Cropper, President of the City Council, nominated by Harold Rayne, seconded by E. Raymond Bounds, elected unanimously for the unexpired term and sworn before J. Edward White, Justice of the Peace. The 1940 minute also gives the effective date of the resignation as 1 January 1940 rather than the 30 December 1939 the December minute anticipated. ⚠ The other half of the 1939 question - WHY he resigned - is NOT answered: the word does not appear again in the 1940 book, and Johnson is not mentioned in any 1940 document except the printed letterhead that had not yet been reset.

    The clerk wrote the resignation in as an afterthought, squeezed between the last motion and his own signature - which is either how fast it happened or how little he wanted to write it down. Whichever it was, Ocean City went into 1940, and into the last two years before the war, without the man who had run it.

    Edmond H. JohnsonHarold J. RayneJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

17. 1940 · 1940-01-02

    Ocean City's council filled the mayor's chair from among itself in a single afternoon sitting, and the man who took it was the man who had been chairing the meeting

    The first council meeting of 1940 opened at 2 P.M. on Tuesday 2 January with three councilmen present and no mayor. Clifford P. Cropper, President of the City Council, presided. 'By reason of the resignation of Mayor Edmond H. Johnson effective as of January 1, 1940, which had been accepted by the City Council, the President of the City Council declared the office of Mayor of Mayor and City Council of Ocean City vacant and asked for nominations for that office.' Harold Rayne nominated Cropper 'to be appointed Mayor to serve until the next election'; E. Raymond Bounds seconded; there were no other nominations, and Cropper was unanimously elected for the unexpired term. He then resigned as President of the Council, took the oath of office as Mayor before J. Edward White, Justice of the Peace, and as Mayor asked for nominations for his own vacated chair, to which Bounds was elected. The meeting adjourned at 4 P.M. The document exists in two forms: the clerk's longhand and a typed carbon on the town's own letterhead, which still prints 'EDMOND H. JOHNSON, Mayor' at its head.

    Three men, two hours, and the whole succession settled by nomination, second and oath - with the outgoing mayor's name still printed on the paper it was typed on. 1939 closed with Edmond H. Johnson saying he would have to resign and no reason given; 1940 opens with the council quietly promoting its own chairman and moving on to the school lunches. The reason he resigned is still not in the record.

    Edmond H. JohnsonJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

18. 1940 · 1940-01-15

    Thirteen days into the new mayor's term Ocean City repealed the ordinance that had handed the State the beds of North Division and Caroline Streets for its new bridge

    At a special meeting called by Mayor Cropper for 8:30 P.M. on 15 January 1940, with only two councilmen present and the reading of the previous minutes dispensed with, the council unanimously passed an ordinance repealing the ordinance of 6 June 1938. The engrossed copy filed with the minute recites the whole of what it undoes: an ordinance 'approving the construction of certain street improvements by the State Roads Commission of Maryland, in Ocean City, Maryland, and granting unto the State Roads Commission, or any successor agency of the State the title in and to the beds of North Division Street from Philadelphia Avenue to Synepuxent Bay and Caroline Street from Philadelphia Avenue to Synepuxent Bay, and relinquishing to the State of Maryland jurisdiction and control over the said streets in Ocean City to the extent necessary for the purpose of construction of a new bridge over the Synepuxent Bay into North Division Street and Caroline Street.' Section 1 repeals it and 'each section thereof'; section 2 makes the repeal effective on passage. It was signed by E. R. Bounds as President of the City Council, attested by J. M. Mumford as Secretary, and approved over the signature 'CLIFFORD P. CROPPER, Mayor'. Filed with it in the same document set is the State Roads Commission's own certified resolution of 27 July 1938 formally accepting the grant now repealed. On 12 March the council asked its attorney, Wm. H. Scott, 'to learn whether the cancelling ordinance to State Roads Commission to rights of street beds of North Div. street was valid or if the granting by previous council still held, and what rights the State Roads had in closing St. Louis Ave., if any.' — 1941 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The stakes of that 15 January 1940 repeal are now visible. On 9 December 1941 the Salisbury Times reported that 'Ocean City's new highway bridge today enters this Maryland resort at North Division Street, six city blocks north of the present highway bridge at Worcester Street.' North Division Street was one of the two streets — with Caroline Street — that the town had granted to the State Roads Commission and then repealed the grant of, and whose status it was still asking questions about in March 1940. The street the town took back from the State was the street the State's new bridge landed in.

    Ocean City voted four to one for Worcester Street in 1937, was overruled, signed away North Division and Caroline Streets in 1938, and in January 1940 took them back - and then, eight weeks later, had to ask its own lawyer whether it was allowed to. The bridge fight the campaign has been following since 1937 is not over in 1940; it has simply moved from the ballot to the ordinance book, and the town is no longer sure of its own ground.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

19. 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 DepartmentDr. Charles Washington PurnellHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee CropperFrank SaleaJohn B. LynchJ. Edward White (magistrate)William H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

20. 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.

    Dr. Charles Washington PurnellRobert Lee CropperFrank SaleaHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

21. 1940 · 1940-11-06

    The council would not simply refuse Mrs. Bassett's two new stores at the Roosevelt Hotel; it invented a compromise and went to look at the property the next morning

    A notice dated 2 November 1940 called a meeting for the evening of Wednesday 6 November 'to consider the granting of permit to Anna Bassett to build and enclose porch on south side of Roosevelt hotel for purpose of making two stores with entrance from Division Street.' At the meeting, 'Mrs. Edna & Claud Bassett were present in interest of building enclosed porch on South Side of Roosevelt Hotel. Mrs. C. P. Cropper, Mrs. Walton & Elizabeth Powell, who represented Sarah I. Carey, were present opposing the structure, and after discussing same at length suggestion was made by Councilman Robert L. Cropper that Mrs. Bassett drop back 8 ft to the regular Building line and leave open porch on remainder of Building, and the Council agreed to look the property over Thursday morning.' The minute does not record what they decided after looking. The same evening the council awarded George L. Elliott the contract to paint both water tanks for $450.

    The mayor's wife was one of the objectors, three of the four people who turned out against the building were women, and one of them was there on behalf of another woman who did not come. Ocean City's building hearings are usually a list of surnames; this one is a room, and the compromise a councilman thought up on the spot - drop back to the building line and leave the rest of the porch open - is the town governing itself at the scale of eight feet.

    Edna BassettRobert Lee Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

22. 1941 · 1941-03-12

    The town told its solicitor to write a charter bill on 12 March; the General Assembly passed exactly the two changes he was asked for, and the Governor approved them on 28 April.

    This is the cleanest two-source chain the campaign has for how a small town legislated. On 7 January 1941 the council 'discussed the need for new legislation and was decided to go over the entire charter and decide just what changes were needed'. On 12 March: 'Changes in Charter were discussed and attorney Wm. H. Scott instructed to prepare bill for same. Changes were in Holding Election, and printing city audit.' Both landed. Chapter 573 of the Acts of 1941 (Senate Bill 474) added Sections 135A and 135B to the Ocean City sub-title of Article 24 of the Code of Public Local Laws: a candidate for Mayor or Councilman must now file a written statement of candidacy with the City Clerk five days before the election, and the official ballot must list every qualified candidate alphabetically by office, with write-ins permitted. Chapter 568 repealed and re-enacted Section 150 with amendments, 'changing the date of publication of annual receipts and expenditures of Mayor and City Council of Ocean City' — an itemised statement of every dollar received and spent, published in a Worcester County newspaper by the first week of November each year. Both were approved 28 April 1941 and took effect 1 June 1941. The election bill is the town's answer to 1940, when a council seat had turned on a single vote and the fifth candidate's own surname could not be read the same way twice.

    William H. ScottHarold J. RayneRobert Lee CropperE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

23. 1941 · 1941-03-21

    The town leased a corner of its own land at Philadelphia Avenue and North 14th Street to the Eastern Shore Gas Company for a storage tank — twenty years at a hundred dollars.

    On 12 March 1941 a gas company's offer to lease city property on the 14th Street side for a tank was discussed at $100 a year. On the evening of Friday 21 March the council met, granted Cullin S. Jenkins his building permit, heard a Mr. Wolf 'in interest of leasing 50 x 100 ft on city land' for a storage gas tank, adjourned at ten — and then, the clerk records, 'After adjurning Council went in Session again & recommended leasing City [land] for storage tank to Eastern Shore Gas Co. and lease and Resolution was prepared & signed.' The engrossed resolution, certified by the secretary on 26 March 1941, recites a quorum present and voting on Friday 21 March at 7:30, and authorises a lease to Eastern Shore Gas Company 'for a certain lot owned by the town, situated at the northwest corner of the intersection of Philadelphia Avenue and North Fourteenth Street... having a frontage of 50 feet on the west side of Philadelphia Avenue and an even depth westerly of 100 feet along the south side of North Fourteenth Street, and being a part of Lot No. 7 in Block No. 53 North as shown on the plat of the property of the Sinepuxent Beach Company of Baltimore City, for a term of twenty years at an annual rental of one hundred dollars ($100.00), payable semi-annually in advance.' A resort that had bought its light from a company that burned down in 1925 was now selling twenty years of its own ground for a bottled-gas tank, and the sixty-six-year-old Sinepuxent Beach Company plat was still the instrument that described where.

    Eastern Shore Gas CompanyRobert Lee CropperHarold J. RayneWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

24. 1941 · 1941-05-06

    Four men bid to haul Ocean City's garbage in 1941 and the clerk wrote down every price: Raymond Massey took it at $30 a day in summer and $12 in winter.

    The minute of Tuesday 6 May 1941 sets out the whole tender. 'Bids were opened on hauling garbage and Contract awarded to Raymond Massey for $30.00 day for summer & $12 daily winter hauling. Bids were as follows: James Trimble 35.00 day summer, 13.50 winter; Raymond Massey 30, 12.00; Vincent Lewis 31.95, 11.25; Ted Jones 40.00, 18.00.' The secretary was instructed to prepare the contract and have Massey sign it. Vincent Lewis had in fact bid lower for the winter work and higher for the summer; the town bought on the summer figure, which is where the volume was. Three years earlier E. Raymond Bounds had bid $26.50 a day for the same summer work and lost it by a dollar fifty — and was now sitting on the council that opened the envelopes. The same evening James Jarman and Bert Cropper asked for a reduction in the bicycle licence, and Salisbury wrote asking Ocean City to take part in the Strawberry Festival and appoint a Princess.

    Raymond MasseyE. Raymond BoundsHarold J. RayneJames D. JarmanG. Bertrand Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

25. 1941 · 1941-05-12

    Fortune telling, fifty dollars; every boat at a dock, a quarter, collected from the dock owner; and the tax rate held at $1.20 for a second year.

    On Monday evening 12 May 1941, with the full board present, the council went over the licence ordinance and amended it item by item: 'Item #6 to read $100.00; #7, 100.00; #11 fortune telling 50.00. All other Items to remain as passed on June 2nd 1939. Ordinance was also amended for Docks to Charge 25¢ for each boat to be collected from the Dock owner.' Then the tax rate: on Rayne's motion, seconded by Robert L. Cropper, 'that the tax rate be $1.20 per hundred' — the same rate the town had set in July 1940 to pay for the north pumping station's new wells — and the clerk was instructed to make up the tax books accordingly. The amendments were engrossed a month later: on Friday 13 June the council passed 'Ordinance # L-3... relateing to lisence on various business', to take effect on the date of passage. This is the first Ocean City ordinance the campaign has found carrying a number that is actually printed on it. The licence ordinances of 7 February and 2 June 1939 both survive headed 'ORDINANCE NO. ____' with the number left blank; by 1941 the town was numbering its licence ordinances in an L series.

    Harold J. RayneRobert Lee CropperE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

26. 1941 · 1941-06-03

    On 3 June 1941 Ocean City's clerk opened a new minute book and stopped writing by hand — and went on using letterhead that named a mayor who had resigned eighteen months earlier.

    The second page of the 3 June 1941 document is a flyleaf carrying five hand-printed words: 'MINUTE BOOK FOR MEETINGS OF MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL BEGINNING JUNE 3 - 1941'. Everything before it in 1941 — 7 January, 12 March, 21 March, 21 April, 6 May, 12 May — is J. M. Mumford's longhand in a ruled ledger. Everything after it is typed on the council's printed letterhead. Sixty years of Ocean City's record change hands from pen to machine on one Tuesday evening in the middle of the last pre-war season, and the change is worth knowing about because it changes what a later reader can do with the source: a page of Mumford's cursive must be read by eye, a typed page can be read by anyone. It also introduces a trap. The letterhead the town used through 1941 comes from at least three print runs, and the sheets used for the minutes of 15 and 25 September 1941 still carry 'EDMOND H. JOHNSON, Mayor' at the top left and 'CLIFFORD P. CROPPER, Pres.' among the councilmen — although Johnson had resigned with effect from 30 December 1939 and the body of both minutes names Mayor C. P. Cropper. The letterhead of an Ocean City minute is stationery, not evidence of who held office.

    J. M. MumfordEdmond H. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

27. 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. JarmanDr. Charles Washington Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

28. 1941 · 1941-06-03

    Ocean City ran its building permits by written notice to every neighbour and a public hearing, and the town clerk kept the tick-list — the surviving 1941 papers show the procedure working twice.

    The town had no zoning ordinance in 1941 — the council had only begun to talk about one in 1940 — but it had a procedure, and 1941 is the year the paperwork survives. On 15 March 1941 the clerk sent out a printed notice: 'The Council Will Consider the application of Cullin S. Jenkins for building permit for store and apartment building 40 by 70 ft located on lot No. 5 block No. 3 adjoining property of Chas. Parker Jr. on the South and Willie Ludlam on the North. Hearing will be at 730 O'clock on Friday evening March Twenty First.' Below it the clerk listed the twenty people he posted it to — Jarman & Timmons, Willie Ludlam, Rata Tyndall, Harriet Dashiell, Floyd Watson, Francis Cloud, Laura McColley, Wm. & Carrie Turner, Chas. Parker Jr., Lillian D. Purnell, Charles S. Powell, R. B. Jenson, Irma K. Mumford, L. Franklin Purnell, S. J. Quillin, Clara Powell, Etta & James Conner, Willimina Harris, Chas. T. Jackson — and ticked or annotated them by hand as the replies came in, one of them marked with an objection. At the hearing on 21 March the council heard the property owners who came, and granted the permit. On 3 June the same machinery is described in the round: on Wm. Dale's application for a filling station on the John Jones property, with Mrs Samuel Quillin objecting and Win Wallace not, 'the Council stated there were thirteen property owners notified and only two appeared with only one objection so motion was made... that permit be granted.' Two appearances out of thirteen notices was, to this council, a mandate.

    Willie LudlamJ. M. MumfordL. Franklin Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

29. 1941 · 1941-07-30

    A year after the town tried to fund its advertising by licensing the fishing boats, Capt. Crawford Savage came and asked that the boats be let off altogether — and the council voted the Chamber of Commerce another $500 to cover its deficit.

    In May 1940 the advertising committee had proposed to raise $2,000 by licensing the sport fishing boats at $10 for a native boat and $25 for a foreign one, and the town spent the rest of that year looking for the legal power to do it. On the evening of 30 July 1941, with only the mayor and two councilmen present, 'Crawford Savage was present asking that fishing boats be relieved of any lisence for this year and on motion by Rayne seconed by councilman Bounds council agreed to help the Chamber of commerce not exceeding $500. addition to what was guaranteed to settle their deficit and they were to cut their budget according to the money they have to spend.' The clerk has run the request and the motion into a single sentence, so what the council actually decided about the boats is not recorded — only that it reached again for its own pocket to cover the Chamber's shortfall. The scheme to make the charter fleet pay for the town's advertising had failed twice in fifteen months.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceCapt. Crawford SavageHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

30. 1941 · 1941-09-15

    The fire company asked for room to house another engine; the town found it by tearing out the heating plant, and paid Harry J. Cropper $975 to do it.

    On Monday evening 15 September 1941, 'Fire chief Peacock and Allen Quillen were present asking that room be provided for housing another engine and council agreed to see if space could be provided by changeing heating plant and secretary ordered to secure prices on makeing the change.' Ten days later, on 25 September, 'Heating plant was discussed with Harry J. Cropper and he offered to make the change for $975. and on motion by Harold Rayne seconed by Raymond Bounds that order be given to Ma.Cropper for plant.' Nine hundred and seventy-five dollars is most of what the town had just voted the Chamber of Commerce, and it bought floor space rather than apparatus. Twelve weeks later Morris Peacock was one of the two men the council put over the Department of Fire Protection of its new home defence council, alongside Archie Davis, who had been the company's chief in 1939. The same statutory year had already brought the company money from Annapolis: Chapter 37 of the Acts of 1941, approved 15 April, required three-quarters of the sums raised in Worcester County to be divided equally among the incorporated volunteer fire companies of Ocean City, Berlin, Newark, Snow Hill, Stockton, Bishopville and Pocomoke City.

    Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentMorris PeacockHarry J. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsArchie Davis

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

31. 1941 · 1941-09-25

    The town sold something it called 'kits hill' to James R. Kelly for three hundred dollars, and the minute says nothing else about it.

    The whole entry, from the typewritten minute of 25 September 1941, is: 'Motion was made by Harold Rayne seconed by Raymond Bounds that city sell kits hill to James R.Kelly for $300. was carried.' Nothing in the Ocean City record before or after 1941 explains what Kit's Hill was, where it stood or how the town came to own it — and on a barrier island whose highest natural ground is a dune, a place named a hill is worth finding. The same meeting granted John D. Ayers a dwelling on lot 1 block 20, let Wm. Hasting move his house, and let John Jones move his from North Division Street to 6th Street on condition the solicitor drew the permit and Jones signed an agreement protecting the city from any damage — North Division Street being, by then, the street the new bridge was about to land in.

    Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

32. 1941 · 1941-09-29

    Ocean City's council met fourteen times in 1941, none of them in August, and agreed to a fifteenth meeting with its former mayor for which no minute exists.

    The IQM2 archive holds seventeen documents for the town in 1941 and the first week of 1942. Two of them are not meeting minutes at all — a hearing notice of 15 March and an engrossed resolution certified on 26 March — so the year's actual count is fourteen council meetings, on 7 January, 12 March, 21 March, 21 April, 6 May, 12 May, 3 June, 13 June, 30 July, 15 September, 25 September, 31 October, 13 November and 11 December, with a fifteenth sitting reconvened after adjournment on the night of 21 March that appears on no calendar. Every stated weekday in the year's minutes is correct for its date, which is worth recording because it is not usual: 1938 and 1939 each contained meetings mis-filed by the archive, one of them onto a Sunday. What 1941 has instead is a gap. On 25 September the council read 'Letter from Edmond Johnson asking for meeting with Council on Monday Morning at 9 O'clock A.M. Monday Sept.29th' and 'Council agreed to the meeting.' There is no document in the archive for 29 September 1941 and no calendar entry for it. The town's previous mayor, who had resigned with effect from 30 December 1939 for reasons the record has never given, asked the sitting council for a nine o'clock morning appointment; they said yes; and whatever passed between them is not in the book. The other gaps are seasonal and tell their own story — nine weeks between 7 January and 12 March, six weeks over the height of the season between 30 July and 15 September, and no meeting at all in August, the month two Ocean City women were killed on the road west of town.

    Edmond H. JohnsonJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

33. 1941 · 1941-11-13

    Mrs George Purnell would build on 9th Street only if the town bulkheaded the end of it; the council agreed to fifty feet if she paid for twenty-five.

    On Thursday evening 13 November 1941, with the full board present for the first time since June, 'Mrs George Purnell asked for permit for building on lot 34 on 9th street provided Council would bulkhead 9th street and after discuss[ion] motion was offered by Raymond Bounds Seconed by Harold Rayne that ci[ty] agree to bulkhead 9th street of 50 foot across end of street provide[d] Mrs Purnell would build 25ft on 9th street as a tie back at her ex[pense] and that the lots south bulkhead so as to protect both her property and 9th street. Motion was carried.' It is a small bargain with the bay: a woman would not put a building at the end of a street the water was taking, and the town bought her investment with fifty feet of timber. Two weeks earlier the council had given George Elliott the job of painting and cleaning the town's tanks for $450. Ocean City spent 1941 holding its edges — bulkheading the bay side, painting the water tanks, and watching the ocean side reclaim the Inlet jetties it had settled below sea level.

    E. Raymond BoundsHarold J. RayneRobert Lee Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

34. 1941 · 1941-12-11

    Four days after Pearl Harbor and on the day Germany declared war, the Ocean City council sat down and organised a home defence council — eleven departments, twenty-two names, and a Department of Evacuation.

    The 1940 minute book does not mention the war once, in the year of the fall of France. The 1941 book does not mention it either — until 11 December. The council met at 7:15 on Thursday evening with Mayor C. P. Cropper and Councilmen Harold Rayne and Raymond Bounds, granted a building permit to Chas. S. Powell for a two-apartment dwelling on the alley between 11th and 12th Streets, let the English Diner move to a site next to the Post Office on Dr. Chas. W. Purnell's ground, and resolved to borrow from the Bank of Ocean City to meet bonds and coupons due 1 January. Then: 'Mr. S. Earl Tromley, John I. Timmons and Miss Lena Riggin were present to help in organizeing home defence council and the following were selected to head the orginization.' Those three were not helpful neighbours. As the Worcester Democrat printed a week later, they were the entire executive of the Worcester County Council of Defense — Tromley its Executive Director, Timmons its Chief Air Raid Warden, and Miss Lena H. Riggin its Executive Secretary, all three of Snow Hill — going town to town. They were carrying an order. The same paper prints the telegram that sent them: 'Supplementing my telegram December 10, immediate arrangements must be made to hold blackouts just as quickly as possible. No delay in this matter, as conditions are very serious. Let me know when ready. Col. Henry Barrett, Director of air raid Precaution Service for Maryland.' The roster Ocean City adopted that night, verbatim from the minute: John B. Lynch, Commander. Harold Rayne and L. B. Cropper, Dept. of Public Safety. J. M. Mumford and Robert Allen, Dept. of Public Works. Dr. F. J. Townsend and Guy R. P. Dennis, Dept. Public Health. Archie Davis and Morris Peacock, Dept. Fire Protection. D. Trimper Sr. and Denard Baker, Dept. Transporation. Arthur Davis and Preston Laws, Dept. Gen. Supplies. Rev. Dewees and F. W. Truitt, Dept. Evacuation. Willie Ludlam and Gladys Jackson, Red Cross. E. M. Scott and Chas. J. Jackson, Communication. Bob Jackson and Wm. H. Purnell, Air Wardens. The council adjourned at eleven. Pocomoke City's mayor and council met specially the same Thursday evening and resolved to organise a Civilian Defense Corps of their own, and Pocomoke's published department list — Public Safety, Evacuation, Transportation, Communications, Public Works, Fire Protection, General Supply, Public Health — is the same scheme under the same headings. So the eleven departments were a template handed down, not a local invention; what Ocean City supplied was twenty-two names, and the names are the whole value of the document. By 18 December the county could report that Home Defense Corps in Snow Hill, Pocomoke City, Berlin and Ocean City were 'now complete in every detail', and Mayor Clifford P. Cropper sat on the county council himself.

    Ocean City Home Defense CouncilWorcester County Council of DefenseBank of Ocean CityHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsJohn B. LynchS. Earl TromleyMiss Lena H. RigginGladys JacksonMorris PeacockWillie LudlamFrancis J. TownsendArchie DavisL. B. CropperRobert AllenJ. M. MumfordDaniel Trimper, Sr.W. Preston LawsF. W. TruittEdward M. ScottWilliam H. Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

35. 1941 · 1941-12-14

    Three days after naming them, Ocean City sent its mayor, its defence Commander and one of its two air wardens to a 'Council of War' with the Governor in Annapolis.

    On Sunday 14 December 1941 Governor Herbert R. O'Conor held a 'Council of War' in Annapolis for the counties' Local Directors, Chief air raid wardens, State and District defense council members 'and many county and municipal authorities'. Thirteen Worcester County men and women went. From Snow Hill: Mayor John O. Byrd, S. Earl Tromley, John I. Timmons, Samuel E. Shockley and Miss Lena H. Riggin. From Pocomoke City: Eldred C. Hill, Henry P. Walters, Fred U. Henderson, Lacey F. Dryden and William H. Hancock. And from Ocean City: 'Mayor Clifford P. Cropper, John B. Lynch and William H. Purnell' — the mayor, the man the council had made Commander of its home defence council seventy-two hours earlier, and one of its two Air Wardens. The roster written down in the municipal building on the Thursday evening was in the state capital by Sunday. It was the same weekend that the flashes appeared on the Atlantic horizon off the town they had left behind.

    Ocean City Home Defense CouncilWorcester County Council of DefenseJohn B. LynchWilliam H. PurnellS. Earl TromleyJohn I. TimmonsMiss Lena H. Riggin

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

36. 1941 · 1941-12-20

    Within a week the county reported itself organized 'in every detail': four Home Defense Corps — Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill and Pocomoke City — under a Worcester County Council of Defense on which Ocean City's mayor sat, waiting on a 'zero hour' for a total blackout.

    On Thursday 18 December 1941 the Worcester County Council of Defense announced that 'Organization of Home Defense Corps in Snow Hill, Pocomoke City, Berlin and Ocean City are now complete in every detail', and that its own members had been approved that week by the Board of Worcester County Commissioners. The Worcester Democrat printed the whole slate: Chairman, Maurice Costen of Pocomoke City; Executive Director, S. Earl Tromley of Snow Hill; Executive Secretary, Miss Lena H. Riggin of Snow Hill; Honorary Chairman, Charles L. Mason of Pocomoke City; Chief Air Raid Warden, John I. Timmons of Snow Hill; Chief of Public Utilities Service, R. Harlan Robertson; Chief of Public Information, Jack Culver; Chief of Emergency Service, G. Hale Harrison of Berlin; Chief of Police Service, J. William Hall of Berlin; Chief of Medical Service, Dr. Louis G. Llewelyn of Pocomoke City; and among the other council members Thomas F. Johnson, Samuel E. Shockley and Mayor John O. Byrd of Snow Hill, Dr. Thomas Y. Franklin and Mayor William Whaley of Berlin, Mayor E. Wilford Ross of Pocomoke City, and Mayor Clifford P. Cropper of Ocean City. Two days later, on 20 December, Tromley told the Salisbury Times that 'with defense in Worcester County completely organized', plans were almost ready for a complete air raid blackout across the county 'within the next few nights', which would 'press into action the four Home Defense Corps, now functioning in Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill and Pocomoke City, all to act simultaneously at a "zero hour".' The county's first blackout had already been rehearsed at Pocomoke City on the Wednesday night — 17 December — and 'the half-hour test proved successful'; Snow Hill's practice manoeuvre followed at one o'clock on the Sunday. After rumours of a surprise blackout, Tromley said, no test could be held in future 'without official sanction'. Nine days after the Ocean City council named its wardens, its corps was one of four in a county rehearsing for air raids, and its mayor was sitting on the body that ordered them.

    Ocean City Home Defense CouncilWorcester County Council of DefenseS. Earl TromleyMiss Lena H. RigginJohn I. TimmonsMaurice W. Costen

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

37. 1942 · 1942-01-06

    The first council meeting of 1942 gave a permit to tear down a building the town called 'the Virginia' and put a four-storey house on the site.

    On Tuesday evening 6 January 1942, three weeks after the town organised its home defence council and a fortnight after gunfire offshore shook its houses, the Mayor and Council issued two building permits. 'Building permits were granted to Crawford O. Savage to build 2 Apartment house on 7th street rear of Balto. Ave. house. Permit to James Jarman to tear down the Virginia and build 4 story house in place.' The clerk names the building without explanation, the way you name something everyone knows, and gives no street. Nothing else in the 1942 minute file identifies it. Building four storeys in January 1942 is itself remarkable — within months the War Production Board would be rationing the materials, and by December the town could not get fire hose without a federal priority rating. The same meeting passed a resolution 'that city join with other towns in pooling their material on hand to aid each other', the first wartime-scarcity measure in the book; answered the Chesapeake Air Line that the city had no ground that could be used as a landing field 'but would gladly aid what it could'; and refused Jacks Beach Service an exclusive franchise while offering to licence parts of the beach for such a service.

    Harold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

38. 1942 · 1942-03-13

    The U.S. Navy cleared Ocean City's boats to go on fishing in 1942 — the Coast Guard would inspect every marlin boat for seaworthiness first, and most of them were already enrolled in the auxiliary.

    'MARLIN FISHING NOT STOPPED BY THE WAR DANGER,' the county paper ran on 13 March 1942, over a subhead reading 'Fleet Of Vessels Has Been Given Clearance By Order United States Navy' and a second, 'FLEET TO BE SMALLER THAN IN PAST YEARS'. 'There's a Marlin fishing fleet being assembled at Ocean City, Md., in preparation for the coming season. The resort has been given a clearance Order by the United States Navy in commercial and sports fishing in Maryland waters. Perhaps it would be a good idea to put a gun or two on these boats and let 'em go fishing for subs.' The commercial men were setting their ocean pound nets for the March-to-November hauls and predicting record catches. The sport fleet, 'usually thirty-five cruisers', would be smaller, 'and captains expect that an increased demand will make the season a busy one for the fewer available boats.' Some feared the war would thin the tuna, bluefish, bonito and marlin; 'but Mayor Clifford P. Cropper said there would be plenty of fish either in deep waters or close inshore.' Then the part that says what this coast had become: 'All Ocean City marlin boats will be inspected by United States Coast Guards. They must be approved as seaworthy before their owners may take them to sea. Most of the cruisers are already listed in the Coast Guard auxiliary unit, formed here last year, and have been kept in readiness for any emergency call since then.' The White Marlin Capital of the World spent 1942 with its charter fleet enrolled, inspected and on call, fishing a stretch of ocean in which a freighter was shot to pieces three weeks later.

    United States Coast GuardCoast Guard Auxiliary unit, Ocean City

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

39. 1942 · 1942-04-14

    In April 1942 Ocean City made Baltimore Avenue, Philadelphia Avenue, Caroline Street and North Division Street one-way, at the State Roads Commission's request, to handle traffic from a bridge that would not open for seven months.

    The new Sinepuxent Bay bridge had been structurally complete since 8 December 1941 and stood closed, waiting on the Herring Creek approaches; it did not carry traffic until 16 November 1942. That did not stop the State Roads Commission from arranging the town behind it. At the meeting of 14 April 1942, after the air-raid wardens had retired, 'the ordinance for placeing signs makeing Baltimore avenue, Philadelphia Ave., Caroline and North Div. streets one way street was read and passed', and the clerk added the reason in his own parenthesis: '(this ordinance was at request of state roads commission that they might put up the necessary signs to handle traffif from the new bridge.)' It is the town's whole future street pattern being set, in wartime, for a road nobody could yet drive. A letter from the same Commission about traffic signs and lights had already been read and answered by the town's attorney on 3 March. The same April meeting also closed a chapter: 'Motion was made by Rayne Seconed by Bounds that city sell the bank shares received in final settlement of the tied up funds.'

    Route 50 Drawbridge (Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge)Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee CropperWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

40. 1942 · 1942-05-02

    Ocean City's air-raid wardens had to argue the council into it, and then the town passed a blackout ordinance on a Saturday night in May and put a man on the payroll at forty dollars a week to screen the lights.

    The war had been in the minute book since 11 December 1941, but the machinery took five months to bite. On the evening of Tuesday 14 April 1942 the Mayor and Council did something they had not done before: they met with the wardens. The clerk's sentence is careful and it records a disagreement. 'After listening to arguments about ordinance being passed to enable the enforcement of blackouts the council assured the wardens that they would submit such an ordinance to our attorney and when put in proper form would pass same and would support the wardens in any thing reasonable.' The wardens then retired, and the council turned to one-way streets. It took two and a half more weeks. On Saturday evening 2 May 1942 the council met specially: 'Ordinance relative to air-raid precaution and blackout in Ocean [City] were read and on motion by Harold Rayne Seconed by Raymond Bounds Ordinance was passed.' In the same sitting the council hired the enforcement: 'Bert Cropper was present and council agreed to employ him at $40.00 week beginning May 11th until June 15th to direct the screenin of lights where they had to be shielded.' Forty dollars a week was more than the town paid its captain of lifeguards ($25) and twice what it paid a lifeguard ($20). Five weeks of it, ending 15 June — which is to say the lights were to be shielded before the season opened, not after. The police got a five-dollar raise from 1 June. Set the calendar against the water: the Atwater was shot to pieces twenty miles offshore on 2 April, the wardens came to the council on the 14th, and the ordinance passed on 2 May.

    Ocean City Home Defense CouncilHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsWilliam H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

41. 1942 · 1942-05-06

    With the coast dimmed out and bodies from a torpedoed freighter lately at its Coast Guard station, Ocean City hired a lifeguard captain, three extra policemen and voted $1,750 of public money to advertise the 1942 season.

    The clearest measure of what a resort does in the first summer of a war at its own beach is what it spends. At a special call meeting on Wednesday evening 6 May 1942 — four days after the blackout ordinance, five weeks after the Atwater — the council employed Thomas E. Price as captain of the life guard at $25.00 a week and set the men's pay at $20.00; decided to have McCabe repaint the peeling road signs and 'the new signs to let go for this year'; agreed, on Harold Rayne's motion seconded by Raymond Bounds, that 'the City agreed to finance them for $1750.00 for the season', 'them' being the Chamber of Commerce and its advertising; and told the chief of police to take on three extra police 'and if more were needed to try to secur more as needed'. Set that against 1941, when the town paid its lifeguards $17.50 a week: the men's wage rose to $20 in the year the visitors were least likely to come. The season was run, and it was run in the dark — on 11 September the council's own minute says 'we were dimed out and not sufficent light'.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceThomas E. PriceHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsL. B. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

42. 1942 · 1942-05-15

    Ocean City ran its building permits by written notice to every neighbour and a public hearing, and in May 1942 a screened porch on 11th Street took two meetings and a Saturday-morning site visit.

    David M. Nichols applied on 13 May 1942 to close in the upper porch of his cottage on 11th Street — property sold to him by Upshur and Mary Morris, adjoining John Burbage on one side and Charles S. Powell on the other — the porch 'to be closed in with frames and glass' having 'been screened with wire for several years'. The clerk issued the notice the same day and the Mayor and Council gave the hearing on Friday evening 15 May at eight. 'Application for permit was read and Miss Dale Ayers was present sponsoring the application and Chas. S. Powell was present objecting to the granting of permit, arguments was listened to and Mayor Cropper and Council agreed to look the building over on Saturday morning and give their answer.' The answer is not in the file. It is the same procedure the town ran in 1941 — written notice to every abutting owner, a public hearing, the council sitting as a tribunal — applied to an enclosed porch in the second summer of the war, and it is the clearest picture the record gives of how small the government of this town was and how seriously it took its building line.

    Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsDavid M. NicholsM. Dale Ayres

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

43. 1942 · 1942-06-17

    Ocean City's 1942 tax rate was $1.20 per hundred, and by then the town had authorised borrowing $6,000 on notes from a bank in Berlin and sold the bank shares it took in settlement of its frozen deposits.

    Four minutes describe the town's money in 1942 and they run in sequence. On 3 March, 'resolution was offered by Harold Rayne and seconed by Raymond that city borrow on notes as needed up to $6000. from Exchange & Savin[gs] bank of Berlin Maryland, resolution carried' — authorised outside the town's own Bank of Ocean City, which had carried the 1941 note. On 14 April, 'Motion was made by Rayne Seconed by Bounds that city sell the bank shares received in final settlement of the tied up funds, motion carried' — the closing entry on money the town had had frozen, taken at last in stock and turned back into cash. On 17 June the council read the secretary's report of finances and resolved that 'Tax rate for 1942 be struck at $1.20 per hundred and that books be set up at that basis'. And the year's real revenue problem was three years old: on 11 November the council took up 'the question of 1939 taxes' and decided to write the delinquents; on 9 December it handed the statement of tax accounts round and instructed the secretary to have attorney Edmond Johnson write the 1939 delinquents if they had not paid by the last of the month; and on 3 January 1943 it decided to wait on Mr Ernest Hastings and Leroy Cropper until the next meeting. A resort with no visitors was still chasing the taxes of the year before the war.

    Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsEdmond H. JohnsonJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

44. 1942 · 1942-06-17

    Ocean City got its ambulance in 1942 as a private gift, and the council's only recorded act was to write and say thank you.

    At the meeting of 17 June 1942 'the question of letter to Mr. Lloyd Watson thanking him for his gift to the city of ambulance was discussed and secretary was instructed to write the letter expressing the thanks of the council for same'. The minute does not say when the ambulance arrived, what it was, or who was to drive it — only that it had been Watson's and that the town now had it. In a summer when the nearest hospital was in Salisbury, thirty miles inland, and the beach was under Coast Guard patrol, an ambulance was not a small thing to be given. The same meeting struck the 1942 tax rate at $1.20 per hundred and ordered the election notices published in both county papers for the last two weeks of July.

    Lloyd WatsonHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

45. 1942 · 1942-07-22

    Ocean City's 1942 boardwalk trade, priced by the council: fifty dollars to work a wagon on the Boardwalk, ten dollars to rent umbrellas, and the bingo licence left undecided until August.

    The council met at seven on the evening of Wednesday 22 July 1942 and adjourned at eight. 'Lisences was discussed and decided to wait until first of Augest and decide on amount to collect on the bingo games.' Then: 'James N. Jarman was present and council garnted him lisence for to use his wagon on the boardwalk for $50.00 and he was not to solicit business from in front of any property that was renting umbrellas and objected to his being in front of their property other renters of umbrellas were to be taxed $10.00.' It is the 1941 push-cart quarrel again, settled the other way. In 1941 a delegation of Boardwalk businessmen had got the council to licence umbrella hire at five dollars and to keep the trade off a push cart; in 1942 the wagon gets its licence at fifty dollars with a keep-away condition attached, and the fixed renters pay ten. That the council was still arguing about umbrella pitches in the summer of 1942, and that a mobile licence was worth fifty dollars, is itself evidence that somebody was on the beach. The same evening Mrs I. S. Mumford asked by telephone to build stairs to an upper apartment on Caroline Street and was refused in writing: the walk is only five feet wide and three feet inside the wall is city property.

    Harold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

46. 1942 · 1942-08-03

    Ocean City held a municipal election on 3 August 1942 and twenty-five votes were cast in four hours — every one of them for the unopposed slate.

    The polls opened at two in the afternoon in the engine room of the fire house and closed at six. Three judges sat: Clarence Wright, C. T. Jackson and John J. Rayne. 'Only 25 votes were cast and were all cast for' Clifford P. Cropper, mayor, 25 votes; E. Raymond Bounds, council, 25; Harman D. Parsons, 25; Harold J. Rayne, 25. Returns were properly made to the city clerk. A town of about 1,052 year-round people, in the first summer of the war at its own beach, returned its mayor to a third term on twenty-five ballots and no opposition. Robert L. Cropper, on the council since 1940 and still on the letterhead in 1942, does not appear among the elected; Parsons replaces him. The new board was sworn in on Friday 11 September before trial magistrate Edward White and organised itself in the city office in the fire house: Cropper mayor, Bounds president of council, Rayne treasurer, Parsons councilman, Edmond H. Johnson city attorney, J. M. Mumford secretary-treasurer, L. B. Cropper chief of police — the same men who had run the town before, in the same order. The election judge C. T. Jackson matters beyond the arithmetic. A Chas. T. Jackson stood on the clerk's March 1941 list of neighbours notified of a building hearing, and he is a different man from the Chas. J. Jackson whom this council put on its Communication department on 11 December 1941. The 1940 census finds him: Charles T. Jackson, 72, head of household 161 in Ocean City, owner of a house valued at eight thousand dollars, with his wife Mabel and a son-in-law from North Carolina. — 1944 FULL PASS, 2026-08-12 [extended]: Turnout returned in 1944. Ocean City's municipal election of 7 August 1944, held in the Engine Room of the Fire House with polls open 2 to 6 PM, drew 452 VOTES - against the 25 cast in 1942. Daniel Trimper Jr. beat the sitting wartime mayor Clifford P. Cropper 231 to 160, and both sitting councilmen finished last of six for the three council seats.

    E. Raymond BoundsHarold J. RayneHerman D. ParsonsClarence WrightCharles T. JacksonJohn J. RayneEdward WhiteEdmond H. JohnsonJ. M. MumfordL. B. CropperRobert Lee Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

47. 1942 · 1942-09-11

    On 11 September 1942 the Ocean City council resolved to stop the autumn's 'colored days' — and gave the dim-out, rubber and gasoline as its reasons.

    For two consecutive years the Ocean City minute book had named no Black resident and no Black institution. In 1942 the silence breaks, and it breaks as an act of policy against Black visitors. The newly sworn council met on the evening of Friday 11 September 1942, and the clerk recorded this, verbatim: 'Councilman Harold J. Rayne reported that he had heard that some of the boardwalk stand people were trying to advertise that there would be colored excursions again this fall starting on Sept 24th and being the Gov. was requesting the saving of rubber and gas and as we were dimed out and not sufficent light that the city was justified in trying to stop the having of colored days and the secretary was instructed to get the chief of police to contact the parties that were advertiseing and request that they abandon the idea for this season.' Four things are in that sentence and each is a finding. First, Ocean City had colored excursions — 'again this fall' — so they were an established autumn trade and not a novelty. Second, the people advertising them were 'boardwalk stand people': white concessionaires who wanted the business, which means the council was overruling its own merchants to keep Black visitors off the beach. Third, every reason given is a war reason — the Governor's rubber and gasoline conservation, and the town being dimmed out with insufficient light — which is what makes the minute so useful: it shows a wartime emergency being picked up and used, and the councilman saying out loud that this made the city 'justified'. Fourth, the instrument was not an ordinance and not a refusal of a licence. It was the chief of police sent to 'request that they abandon the idea', which leaves nothing to appeal against and no record beyond this paragraph. Whether anything ran on 24 September 1942 is not recorded here.

    Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsL. B. CropperJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

48. 1942 · 1942-10-14

    Five weeks after telling itself the town was dimmed out, Ocean City voted to make the street light on Baltimore Avenue brighter.

    The minute of 14 October 1942 is in the clerk's longhand and it is short. 'Lights on street was discussed and it was decided that it would be wise to increase the street light on Baltimore ave to 250 Candle Power and Secretary was ordered to write the local office of Electric Co. requesting the la[mps] be changed.' On 11 September the same council had justified stopping the autumn's colored excursions partly on the ground that 'we were dimed out and not sufficent light'; on 14 October it asked the electric company for a stronger lamp on the town's main street. The two are not necessarily contradictory — a dim-out regulated light visible from seaward, and Baltimore Avenue is a block back from the ocean — but the sequence is worth having, because it is the same council, five weeks apart, treating the darkness as an obstacle when it wanted light and as a justification when it wanted to turn people away. The same meeting refused Chas. Clark leave to build a showcase on the old Denman store because it would extend beyond the building line.

    Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsHerman D. Parsons

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

49. 1942 · 1942-12-09

    Ocean City's fire hose failed in 1942 and the town could not simply buy more — the War Production Board had to rate it.

    The war reached the fire company through its plumbing. On 11 November 1942 a delegation from the Fire Company came before the council asking 'that the House manager be informed of his duties and that a check of the equipment be made by him on return of apparatus after being used'. The same minute records the substance: hose bought on 23 July 1940 having gone bad, the council decided to ship three sections back for examination and to ask that 600 feet be shipped at once to replace it. Four weeks later, on 9 December, the answer had come from two directions: 'Letters was read from War Production Board reference to rating on hose and from American La-France Foamite Corp. reference to finding of hose returned for inspection.' A town on a barrier island, whose whole history is fire, needed a federal priority rating to replace two-year-old hose. The matter was still unfinished on 3 January 1943, when a letter from Ryder about the hose was read at the first meeting of the new year. That 9 December meeting is the shortest in the 1942 book: convened at 7.30, adjourned at 7.45.

    Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsHerman D. ParsonsEdmond H. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

50. 1943 · 1943-02-10

    Ocean City voted $25 in February 1943 for a service flag for its boys in the forces, and in May the woman who had it made brought it to the council and asked for a ceremony to raise it.

    Mrs. Elizabeth StroheckerJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

51. 1943 · 1943-02-10

    In February 1943 a citizen asked the council to help get the Government to make Ocean City a training center for the WACs — the resort trying to be requisitioned rather than waiting to be.

    James D. JarmanJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

52. 1943 · 1943-02-10

    A P.T.A. and Woman's Club delegation asked the council in February 1943 to put the chief of police behind getting Ocean City's children back into school, and to ask the county to bring the Tenth District's children in too.

    Board of Education of Worcester CountyMrs. Elizabeth StroheckerMrs. Kathryn LawsCecil BlakeJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

53. 1943 · 1943-03-10

    The fire company came to the council in March 1943 for an additional fire alarm and got consent to spend up to $175 connecting it.

    Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentE. Raymond BoundsHarold J. RayneHerman D. ParsonsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

54. 1943 · 1943-03-17

    A special full-board meeting on 17 March 1943 passed an ordinance handing Caroline Street and North Division Street to the State Roads Commission — the two blocks that carry the bridge traffic onto Baltimore Avenue.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionHarold J. RayneHerman D. ParsonsE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

55. 1943 · 1943-04-14

    In April 1943 the town signed a lighting contract with the Eastern Shore Public Service Company 'to care for the change in lights for the duration' — the dim-out written into a utility bill.

    Eastern Shore Public Service CompanyJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

56. 1943 · 1943-04-26

    When the state OPA administrator enlarged Worcester's county rationing board without giving Ocean City a seat, the mayor said he would get the resort a board of its own if every resident had to go to Washington for it.

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

57. 1943 · 1943-04-30

    In the second wartime spring the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce and the Hotel Owners Association announced a season opening 29 May, with reservations ahead of 1942 — because Atlantic City's visitors had nowhere else to go.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceOcean City Hotel Owners' Association

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

58. 1943 · 1943-05-12

    The council offered the 1943 lifeguard captaincy to Robert S. Craig in April, then took it back in May because it 'desired to employ Home town Boy to take charge of Guard'.

    — 1944 FULL PASS, 2026-08-12 [extended]: The captaincy was contested again in 1945 and the minute book does not say who won it. James Parker asked for the job on 3 April 1945 and no action was taken; Gordon Shipley made formal application on 10 April 1945. On 15 May the secretary was told to answer the letters from boys asking for lifeguard jobs by saying the town would hear from them after 1 June. The 1945 crew went on at about six men over the Memorial Day weekend, a full crew from 15 June at $30 a week, and was kept on past 9 September.

    Ocean City Beach PatrolRobert S. CraigHarold J. RayneHerman D. ParsonsE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

59. 1943 · 1943-05-19

    Only one man bid to haul Ocean City's garbage in 1943, and Raymond Massey got the summer at $40 a day for 92 days and $20 a day for the thirty days after it.

    — 1944 FULL PASS, 2026-08-12 [extended]: In 1944 the price went the other way and fast. Chester A. Lynch took a two-year contract on 19 April 1944 at $50 a day summer and $20 winter; by 26 July he was on $60, by 29 July $72, and by 12 August $99 a day for three trucks and ten men - because, in the clerk's words, 'the garbage man could not get enough help at price he was receiving'. In February 1944 the town had asked for garbage bids and received NONE AT ALL.

    Raymond MasseyHarold J. RayneHerman D. ParsonsE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

60. 1943 · 1943-06-09

    Ocean City's 1943 beach patrol went on the sand on Friday 11 June with four or five men, to be added to 'as demand came'.

    Ocean City Beach PatrolJames ParkerHerman D. ParsonsE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

61. 1943 · 1943-06-09

    The council held Ocean City's 1943 tax rate at $1.20 per hundred, the same as 1942 — unanimously, in the middle of the war.

    — 1944 FULL PASS, 2026-08-12 [extended]: Held again twice. The 1944 rate was set at $1.20 per $100 on 14 June 1944, unanimously, on motion by Rayne seconded by Bounds. The 1945 rate was set at $1.20 on 24 July 1945, on motion by Savage seconded by Dolle - the sixth consecutive year at that figure and the first of the peace.

    Herman D. ParsonsE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

62. 1943 · 1943-07-02

    By the night of 2 July 1943 Mayor Cropper reckoned about 3,000 people had already reached Ocean City for the Fourth — a rush that arrived the same weekend the State Guard pretended the town had been shelled.

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

63. 1943 · 1943-08-11

    In the middle of the war, with no tourists to speak of, the council spent an August evening on the need for rebuilding the old Boardwalk and for examining the town's water supply.

    E. Raymond BoundsHerman D. ParsonsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

64. 1943 · 1943-09-15

    On 15 September 1943 the council wrote to both Maryland senators, its congressman and its state senator asking that the bay channels be redredged, the steel jetty be connected to the Coast Guard base and the inlet jetties be raised.

    Herman D. ParsonsE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

65. 1943 · 1943-12-01

    Ocean City spent the back half of 1943 asking whether its wells could be blown clear and what two more would cost — and in January 1944 decided to try flowing them itself and save the money.

    Shannahan Artesian Well Co. Inc.J. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

66. 1944 · 1944-02-15

    A sitting Ocean City councilman applied to put a chicken-dressing plant in the old laundry building on Talbot Street, and a hall of his neighbours voted him down.

    The council held a public hearing at the Firemen's Hall on the application of E. Raymond Bounds - a sitting councilman - for a chicken-dressing plant in the Old Laundry Building on Talbot Street. Mayor Cropper and the full council attended, and about twenty-two citizens are named in the minute, among them Hugh T. Cropper, Les Bunting, Turner Cropper, Jackson Bunting, Mamie Townsend, F. W. Truitt, Owen Mumford, Cranford Savage, Talbot Bunting, Maud and Charles Clark, Mrs. John Rayne, Savannah Dennis, Ella E. Dennis and Marion Hearn. 'Arguments were heard and on vote from citizens it was more unanimous that they did not want the plant at that location.' Mayor Cropper told the citizens the meeting was over.

    E. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

67. 1944 · 1944-08-07

    Ocean City cast 452 votes on 7 August 1944, turned out its wartime mayor and both sitting councilmen, and made Daniel Trimper Jr. mayor.

    The municipal election was held in the Engine Room of the Fire House, polls open 2 to 6 PM, with Clarence Wright, Joseph Elliott and Charles Clark as judges. 452 votes were cast. For mayor: Daniel Trimper Jr. 231, Clifford P. Cropper 160. For council: John B. Lynch 268, Rudolph Dolle 200, Cranford O. Savage 199, Henry J. Burbage 175, Harold J. Rayne 159, Herman D. Parsons 102. The sitting mayor lost and both sitting councilmen finished last. Dolle and Savage had both stood against the Red Star bus terminal as private citizens three months earlier. Trimper, Lynch, Dolle and Savage took office on 1 September 1944 for a two-year term. Bound with the return is a typed letter of 3 August 1944: 'Gentlemen kindly accept my resignation from being a member of your Council as of August 3 1944, AS my duties are of such nature they so compel me too.' - E. Raymond Bounds, resigning four days before the poll.

    Daniel W. Trimper, Jr.John B. LynchRudolph DolleHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

68. 1944 · 1944-08-12

    Ocean City's garbage bill went from $50 a day to $99 in eighteen days in the summer of 1944, because the contractor could not hire men at the price he had bid.

    On 26 July the council paid Chester A. Lynch $10 more a day, making $60, for July, August and through Labor Day. On 29 July the clerk could get only Mayor Cropper and Herman Parsons to attend: 'The garbage man could not get enough help at price he was receiving', so he was told to get two more men, the city paying $6 each a day until after Labor Day - $72 a day. On 12 August the City Clerk called the Mayor and Councilmen and could not get a meeting at all, and was told over the telephone to have the garbage man get an extra truck with driver and two men at $27 a day until Labor Day, making $99 a day for three trucks and ten men. The contract signed in April had priced the same work at $50.

    Chester A. Lynch

    Source · checked 2026-08-12