David M. Nichols
cottage owner, 11th Street, Ocean City · active 1942
Applied on 13 May 1942 for leave to close in the upper porch of his cottage on 11th Street, Ocean City — a property sold to him by Upshur and Mary Morris, adjoining John Burbage on one side and Charles S. Powell on the other, its porch screened with wire for several years. Powell appeared at the hearing on 15 May to object; Miss Dale Ayres appeared to sponsor the application; the Mayor and Council went to look at the building the following morning. Their answer is not in the town's file.
In the record (1)
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.
Clifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsM. Dale Ayres
Source · checked 2026-08-11