Harold J. Rayne

In the record (44)

1. 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 ElliottE. Raymond BoundsClifford P. CropperFrancis J. TownsendStephen J. QuillenHorace O. CropperC. Parker Smith

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

2. 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. JohnsonClifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsWilliam H. ScottStephen J. QuillenJ. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 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. JohnsonClifford P. CropperE. Raymond Bounds

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

4. 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.

   Clifford P. CropperEdmond H. JohnsonWilliam H. Scott

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

5. 1939 · 1939-02-07

   In February 1939 an Ocean City councilman asked the War Department whether it intended to do anything at all about the north jetty

   The minute of 7 February 1939 records: 'By request of Councilman Rayne, Secretary instructed to write Col Johnson of War Department asking if they were going to do any work on North Jetty at Inlet.' No reply is recorded in any later 1939 minute. The Corps' own report for that fiscal year confirms that nothing but surveys was done at Ocean City in the twelve months to 30 June 1939.

   The town was right to ask and the answer was no. What makes the entry worth keeping is that it was asked at all: the inlet the Corps had cut and the town had spent a decade being grateful for had gone quiet, and a councilman had to write to Baltimore to find out whether it was still anyone's project.

   J. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 1939 · 1939-04-18

   From 1939 the telephone operator in Ocean City could set off the fire alarm herself

   The minute of 18 April 1939: 'Ordinance passed to have C&P Telephone Co put in alarm plug in in Central office so operator could set off alarm.' On 3 March the council had resolved to buy a new American LaFrance Foamite pumper for $8,500 and the old truck, in three annual payments; notes for $2,833 each were signed by the mayor and treasurer on 23 May, the machine to start 1 July at 6 per cent. In December the town granted the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company a franchise ordinance for its poles and conduits, section 3 of which reserved space on one crossarm or in one duct, free of charge, 'for the purpose of carrying wires of any fire alarm or police telegraph system owned and maintained by said City'.

   Fourteen years after the fire that took the downtown, Ocean City's fire alarm finally stopped depending on somebody running to it. The town put the switch in the one building that was staffed all night and never closed - and then wrote free wire-space for it into the telephone company's franchise, which is a small town making certain the thing can never be taken away.

   Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone CompanyAmerican LaFrance Foamite Inc.Archie DavisT. J. Moore

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

7. 1939 · 1939-05-23

   Ocean City sold $10,000 of sewerage bonds in May 1939 to run lateral sewers off the plant it had just built

   Chapter 269 of the Acts of 1939 (House Bill 598), approved 13 April as an emergency law, empowered the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City to issue coupon bonds to the amount of ten thousand dollars 'for the purpose of improving the sewerage system of said town by construction of lateral sewers to connect with the sewerage disposal system recently completed in Ocean City under a Public Works Administration project'. They were to be styled 'Ocean City Sewerage and Improvement Bonds of 1939'. The council passed the sale ordinance on 18 April, coupons dated 1 May and 1 November and one bond retiring each year from 1940 to 1949 inclusive. Bids were opened at the meeting of Tuesday 23 May: Marburg, Price & Co. 101.699; Mackubin, Legg & Co. 103.2799; Stein Bros. & Boyce 103.939. On Rayne's motion, seconded by Bounds, the sale was made to Stein Bros. & Boyce.

   The plant was finished in 1937 and the town spent 1938 discovering it could compel people to connect to it. 1939 is the year it borrowed to build the pipes that would let them - which is to say the sewer took three years and three separate acts of will, and the order was backwards throughout.

   Stein Bros. & BoyceE. Raymond BoundsClark Gardner

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

8. 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 CommerceClifford P. CropperEdmond H. Johnson

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

9. 1939 · 1939-07-18

   Ocean City priced bingo at $500 a season, then cut it to $150 when it was pointed out that bingo could only pay off in merchandise

   Both 1939 licence schedules carry, under concessions, 'Bingo, Radio, Fortune, Keno, Po-Keno and similar games $500.00' - by a wide margin the highest fee in the ordinance, more than three times the $150 for a night club and ten times the $50 for a circus. On 18 July Dale Showell came before the council asking that the licences on theatres and bingo be reduced. The minute: 'After Considering the Licence on Bingo and the method which had to be of paying off with Mdse. only the Council decided fair to amend the Licence ordinance' - and on Rayne's motion, seconded by Bounds, item 11 was amended to read $150 instead of $500, with a new sub-head 11B covering 'Game Known as penny Boards' at $100. Passed unanimously.

   Five hundred dollars was not a fee, it was a discouragement - the price you set when you would rather the thing did not happen. What changed the council's mind was not principle but arithmetic: a game that can only pay out in merchandise cannot carry a gambling-sized licence. The town wanted the amusement and had accidentally taxed it as a vice.

   E. Raymond Bounds

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

10. 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.

    Clifford P. CropperEdmond H. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

11. 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. JohnsonClifford P. CropperJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

12. 1940 · 1940-07-08

    Ocean City put its tax rate up to $1.20 in July 1940 and wrote down exactly why: the county's assessment came in lower than the town's, and the new wells still had to be paid for

    The council met at three on Monday afternoon 8 July 1940 and discussed the rate. The minute is unusually explicit about the arithmetic behind it: 'finding that the assessment was considerably lower by taking the County assessment, even with the properties built in 1939 added, and that the cost of the new wells for north Pump Station would have to be carried over for 1940, it was necessary to increase the rate to care for retiring the notes given to pay for the wells and expense of water & new pump.' On Rayne's motion, seconded by Bounds, 'the tax rate for 1940 was made $1.20 per hundred assessment,' and the clerk was instructed to send the bills out accordingly. Five assessments were ordered on to the books the same afternoon, including a hotel at $1,500 in the names of Minnie Hearn Jones and Marvin Elgin, two entries for Dr. F. J. Townsend at $2,900 and $5,750, and $7,000 of stock for Harry J. Cropper. — 1941 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The rate held. On 12 May 1941, on Harold Rayne's motion seconded by Robert L. Cropper, the Ocean City council set the tax rate for 1941 at $1.20 per hundred — the same figure it had adopted on 8 July 1940 to carry the notes for the north pump station wells — and the clerk was instructed to make up the tax books accordingly. The 1940 increase was therefore not a one-year expedient.

    Ocean City's rate went 100 cents, 85 cents, 100 cents, 120 cents across four years - and 1940's rise is the only one the minute book explains. The town had been made to adopt the county's assessment by law on 2 January, discovered in July that the county valued Ocean City lower than Ocean City did, and had to raise the rate on the smaller base to pay for a well it had ordered in January. Being assessed by somebody else cost the town twenty cents on the hundred.

    E. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

13. 1940 · 1940-08-05

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

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

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

    Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentClifford P. CropperDr. Charles Washington PurnellE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee CropperFrank SaleaJohn B. LynchJ. Edward White (magistrate)William H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

14. 1940 · 1940-08-08

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

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

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

    Clifford P. CropperDr. Charles Washington PurnellRobert Lee CropperFrank SaleaE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

15. 1940 · 1940-10-14

    Four objecting households turned out against a ninety-by-seventy-five-foot store building at Ninth Street, and the council granted the permit anyway

    The 250-foot notice machinery ran once in 1940 and it ran for Irving T. Faustin. On 2 October the council considered his application to move a bungalow off the Boardwalk on to Ninth Street next to the alley and to build 'a one Story building 90x75 ft on the 2 lots' of the Crook property, and instructed the secretary to notify all property owners in the two blocks of a hearing. Two typed notices dated 3 October went out over the clerk's name: 'There will be a hearing on the application for building permit of Irving Faustin for permit to build on cor. 9th street and Atlantic Ave. on the Crooks property a building 90x75 ft. for stores. Hearing will be held Monday Evening October 14th 1940 at 7 P.M. at the City Council Office.' At the hearing 'objectors present were Mr. & Mrs. Benson, Della K. Powell, Phil. C. Dennis & wife, and Mr. Sam Faustin was present in interest of permit. After hearing the objections, motion by Harold Rayne, seconded by R. Bounds, permit was granted.' The permit application itself, dated 30 September with the year corrected from 1939 to 1940, survives in the file, marked 'Granted Oct 24 1940' over the signature of E. R. Bounds as President of the Council: a one-storey building for stores, ninety feet by seventy-five, piers under it and a built-up roof.

    Ocean City's permit rule let the neighbours be heard and then let the council decide, and in 1940 it decided for the applicant over four households. That is the control the campaign needs for 1938: the same machinery that refused a Colored Recreation Hall on the objection of six white neighbours granted a white applicant a building four times its size on the objection of four. The rule was never the rule. Who was asking was the rule.

    Irving T. FaustinE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

16. 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. ScottClifford P. CropperRobert Lee CropperE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

17. 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 CompanyClifford P. CropperRobert Lee CropperWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

18. 1941 · 1941-04-21

    Ocean City borrowed four times in 1941 to keep its own books straight, and was still signing papers to get money out of a bank that had failed.

    The town's cash position runs through the year like a pulse. On 12 March the council resolved 'that City borrow up to $5,000 as needed by May 1st from Bank of Ocean City'. On 21 April it borrowed $5,000 more on notes of the First National Bank. On 11 December, in the same minute that created the home defence council, it resolved to borrow from the Bank of Ocean City 'to care for bonds and cupons due Jan.1st'. And on 21 April, between the borrowing and the mini-golf licence, sits a single sentence of Depression aftermath: 'Resolution passed for Clerk to sign papers in distribution of tied up funds in Bank. Carried.' Eight years after the bank holiday of 1933 the town's own money was still coming back to it in instalments. In January 1942 the council resolved to join with other towns 'in pooling their material on hand to aid each other' — the same thin balance sheet, now with a war on it.

    Bank of Ocean CityRobert Lee CropperE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

19. 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 BoundsClifford P. CropperJames D. JarmanG. Bertrand Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

20. 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.

    Robert Lee CropperE. Raymond BoundsClifford P. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

21. 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 SavageE. Raymond BoundsClifford P. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

22. 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. CropperE. Raymond BoundsArchie DavisClifford P. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

23. 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.

    E. Raymond BoundsClifford P. CropperWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

24. 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 BoundsClifford P. CropperRobert Lee Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

25. 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 CityClifford P. CropperE. 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

26. 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.

    Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

27. 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)Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee CropperWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

28. 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 CouncilClifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsWilliam H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

29. 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. PriceClifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsL. B. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

30. 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. CropperE. Raymond BoundsDavid M. NicholsM. Dale Ayres

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

31. 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.

    E. Raymond BoundsClifford P. CropperEdmond H. JohnsonJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

32. 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 WatsonClifford P. CropperE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

33. 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.

    Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

34. 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.

    Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsHerman D. ParsonsClarence WrightCharles T. JacksonJohn J. RayneEdward WhiteEdmond H. JohnsonJ. M. MumfordL. B. CropperRobert Lee Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

35. 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.

    Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsL. B. CropperJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

36. 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.

    Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsHerman D. Parsons

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

37. 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 DepartmentClifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsHerman D. ParsonsEdmond H. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

38. 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 DepartmentClifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsHerman D. ParsonsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

39. 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 CommissionClifford P. CropperHerman D. ParsonsE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

40. 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. CraigClifford P. CropperHerman D. ParsonsE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

41. 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 MasseyHerman D. ParsonsClifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

42. 1944 · 1944-05-02

    Ocean City refused Red Star Motor Coaches a bus terminal in May 1944 with eleven citizens standing against it - two of whom were on the council that granted it nine months later.

    Red Star Motor Coaches Inc. applied for a building permit for a bus terminal in Block 20, lots 2-3-4-5. Mr. Bennett and Attorney Robbins appeared for the company. Opposing in person were Rudolf Dolle, Frank Sacca, H. D. Cropper, C. D. Savage, Owen Mumford, Mrs. Torpy, Myrtle Brittingham, Savannah Dennis, Elizabeth Powell, Thelma Dennis and Marion Elgin 'representing Citizens', with a letter from Dodd Shuster read against it. On motion by Harold Rayne, seconded by H. D. Parsons, the application was refused. Bennett and Robbins then discussed arrangements to handle loading and unloading of their buses for the season, which was left open. Dolle and Savage, who stood against the terminal here as citizens, were elected to the council three months later; on 23 February 1945 Savage moved the permit that granted it and Dolle cast the only vote against.

    Red Star Motor Coaches, Inc.Rudolph Dolle

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

43. 1944 · 1944-06-14

    Ocean City set its 1944 tax rate at $1.20 per hundred - the fifth straight year at that figure.

    On motion by Rayne, seconded by Bounds, the council unanimously set the 1944 tax rate at $1.20 per $100 of assessed value and told the secretary to set up the tax books accordingly. The rate had been put up to $1.20 in July 1940 and held there through 1942 and 1943; it would be held again for 1945. At the same meeting Mrs. H. J. Cropper asked the council to take up with the proper officials the keeping of signs off the highway from Herring Creek to Ocean City, under a law passed in 1943, and Herman Levy was refused a permit to connect his boiler to the old chimney in his building.

    E. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-12

44. 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.Clifford P. CropperJohn B. LynchRudolph DolleE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-12