Henry G. Shirley
chief engineer, Maryland State Roads Commission · active chief engineer of the Maryland State Roads Commission in 1916
The state engineer whose cost estimate set the price of the Ocean City bay bridge. Senator Orlando Harrison asked him to have a sounding made at Ocean City to fix the depth of Sinepuxent Bay, and the $200,000 figure reported in April 1916 was described as "the estimated cost of such a bridge as furnished by State Roads Engineer Shirley." He visited Ocean City with Chairman Zouck in late May 1916 to select the site, and the State Roads plans for the Berlin-to-Ocean City road condemnations that autumn were approved over his name as Chief Engineer.
In the record (4)
1916
Senator Orlando Harrison secures a $200,000 appropriation for a concrete bridge at Ocean City — arguing that seven or eight hundred automobiles a day already reach the town in summer.
The Baltimore *News*, reprinted in the *Democratic Messenger* of 1 April 1916: Harrison secured $200,000 for a concrete bridge at Ocean City, "being the estimated cost of such a bridge as furnished by State Roads Engineer Shirley." At a conference of senators in the Governor's office he argued "conclusively that it was not a Worcester County matter" but that the bridge was badly needed as part of the State Roads system, "the present railroad bridge being insufficient to accommodate travel, and always dangerous because of the [heavy] train service over it. From every section of Maryland hundreds of automobiles come to Ocean City, as many as seven or eight hundred a day, most any Sunday during the Summer. They come from Easton, Cambridge, Salisbury and other towns in great numbers, and it is for this traffic that the bridge is to be built." In his own August letter Harrison set out the history: he had first offered a bill for $75,000, was told to abandon it for two years because of the state of the treasury, reintroduced it in the winter of 1916, got Chief Engineer Shirley to sound the bay at Ocean City, and found the true cost would run from $75,000 to $200,000 depending on what the federal navigation engineers demanded. The money came from an $850,000 bond bill he introduced covering roads and bridges, the Maryland Agricultural College building and three armories.
Maryland State Roads CommissionOrlando Harrison
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1916
The State Roads Commission picks the bridge site at the end of May 1916: about three hundred yards north of the railroad bridge, landing at the foot of Worcester Street.
The Cambridge *Daily Banner* of 2 June 1916, "SITE SELECTED FOR OCEAN CITY BRIDGE": F. H. Zouck, chairman of the State Roads Commission, H. G. Shirley, its chief engineer, and Col. John Biddle of the War Department went to Ocean City to choose the site. "It is pretty well understood that the bridge will be constructed about three hundred yards North of the railroad bridge, and will enter Ocean City at the foot of Worcester Street, which is one square South of the new railroad station at Ocean City. Some of the people wanted the bridge to cross the bay further up, but the cost of building across such a wide reach would be so much [greater]." The county delegation that went down to argue the placing: Wm. D. Corddry, J. Edward White, Harris Corddry and M. T. Hargis of Snow Hill; Senator Harrison of Berlin; Walter B. Miller of Salisbury. The approach from the bayside was to be tied into the existing macadam.
Maryland State Roads CommissionF. H. ZouckOrlando Harrison
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1916 · 1916-12-30
The bridge is bid, re-awarded and still unbuilt when 1916 ends: on 30 December the chairman of the State Roads Commission writes Harrison that work will start "next week."
The State Roads Commission advertised the job in October: "CONTRACT No. WO-[1]. WORCESTER COUNTY. Sealed proposals for the following: Fill across Sinepuxent Bay between end of State Road and Ocean City, approximately [—] cubic yards, will be received by the State Roads Commission at its offices, 601 Garrett Building, Baltimore, Maryland, until 12 M., on the 14th day of November, 1916." Ordered by the Commission on 4 October 1916; F. H. Zouck, Chairman, Lyon H. Wilson, Secretary. Ocean City had also been advertised for on the land side: in October a State Roads condemnation jury was summoned to meet on Mrs. Sarah Kenton Taber's land on 23 October 1916 for the road "leading from Berlin, in Worcester County, Maryland, to the Sinepuxent Bay and Ocean City," on plans approved by H. D. [H. G.] Shirley, Chief Engineer. Then, in the *Messenger*'s last issue of the year, under "Getting Ready to Build New Ocean City Bridge — Work Will Start At Once," Zouck's letter of 30 December 1916 to Senator Harrison at Berlin: "I have your letter of the 3rd inst., in which [you say] that the people of Ocean City are very much disappointed that the work has not been awarded for the approaches to the bridge. In replying thereto, I beg to advise you that the low bidder, Mr. Rich, could not furnish bond, and as his time limit expired last week, we, therefore, have awarded it to the next lowest bidder, F. B. Beasman Co. They expect to start work next week, and have agreed to do it within the original time limit."
This is the correction 1916 owes the registry. The bay bridge is dated 1916 because that is the year it was authorized, funded, sited, federally approved and put out to bid — but on 31 December 1916 not a yard of it had been built. The automobile era at Ocean City starts on paper in 1916 and in concrete in 1917.
Maryland State Roads CommissionF. H. ZouckOrlando Harrison
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1918 · 1918-03-09
The State Roads Commission's plan for carrying the state highways through Maryland's incorporated towns allots Ocean City $6,000.
In March 1918 the Commission endorsed the Municipal Congress of Maryland's plan for improving the state highways through incorporated towns and asked the legislature for $675,000. The schedule printed in the Messenger of 9 March 1918 gave, among many: Worcester Co. -- Snow Hill $25,000, Ocean City $6,000, Pocomoke City $15,000; against Salisbury $25,000, Cambridge $25,000, Easton $25,000, Crisfield $30,000, Cumberland $35,000. Senator Orlando Harrison had written to every mayor in the county: "I hope you will be present and have every member of your City Council with you, and every good road man in your section," for the joint hearing of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees at Annapolis on Wednesday 6 March. Ocean City's $6,000 is the smallest allotment of any incorporated Worcester town -- the same relative position it held in the 1917 Liberty Loan -- and it is the paving that would meet the bridge.
Maryland State Roads CommissionOrlando HarrisonF. H. Zouck
Source · checked 2026-08-06