History

Edna Bassett

proprietor at the Roosevelt Hotel, Ocean City · active 1940

Applied in the autumn of 1940 to build and enclose the porch on the south side of the Roosevelt Hotel at Ocean City in order to make two stores with an entrance from Division Street. The council called a special hearing for the evening of 6 November 1940. She attended with Claud Bassett; three women appeared against the application, one of them the mayor's wife and one representing an absent objector, Sarah I. Carey. Councilman Robert L. Cropper proposed that she drop the building back eight feet to the regular building line and leave the remainder of the porch open, and the council adjourned agreeing to look the property over the following morning. The minute does not record what they decided.

In the record (1)

  1. 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.

    Robert Lee CropperClifford P. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11