John Tracy
hotelier · active 1875–1877
The earliest named hotel operator in Ocean City's record, and the man who ran the Atlantic Hotel through the resort's first three seasons. Proprietor of the Peninsula House at Salisbury — the junction town where Ocean City traffic changed trains — he bought the Atlantic's furniture in November 1875 with partners McDermott and Dougherty as John Tracy & Co. and leased the house for its second season, promising to run it 'on different principles' and to add billiards, pool tables and a stocked bar: the first documented drinking establishment in Ocean City. In July 1876 the house was run by 'Messrs. Tracy & Dougherty of Salisbury'; by 1877 he held it alone under lease from the Atlantic Hotel Company, with S. C. Beckwith as chief clerk. A visiting editor that summer described him seeing his guests off with champagne and called him a generous host. His 1877 terms were $2.50 a day and $10–$12.50 a week, pitched to 'boarders, family and invalid guests.' At the close of the season a Delaware paper reported he was said to have cleared $10,000 above expenses. — 1892 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11: The record gives activeYears 1875–1877 and describes him as 'the earliest named hotel operator in Ocean City's record' who ran the Atlantic through the resort's first three seasons. He was still on the beach in 1892, running the SEASIDE. The Democratic Messenger of 30 July 1892: 'The Seaside Hotel at Ocean City is being conducted better this year than we have ever found it before... Mr. John Lacy, the proprietor, is giving his personal attention to the requirements of his many guests.' His own advertisement, running from July: 'Terms—$2.50 per day. $10, $12.50 and $15 per week. JOHN TRACEY, Propr., OCEAN CITY, MD.' And on 1 October the deed column: 'John Tracy from Thomas Humphreys and wife all that lot and parcel of land situate at Ocean City, being lot No. 56 as it was originally laid out by Stephen Taber. Consideration $40.' Extend activeYears to at least 1892 and add the Seaside. Note the three spellings — Tracy, Tracey, Lacy — in one year of one paper.
Ocean City's first hotelier ran the whole town's hospitality out of a Salisbury railroad hotel.
In the record (31)
1876 · 1876-07-22
Three hundred guests, four bowling alleys, and a register with names from Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana and Paris — the Atlantic Hotel's second season.
The Atlantic Hotel in July 1876 was run by "Messrs. Tracy & Dougherty of Salisbury, the latter formerly from Wilmington," had "comfortable rooms for more than three hundred guests," and was "nearly full, about three hundred persons being present." In the evening "the large dining room is cleared of the array of tables, and 'the dancers dancing in tune' to good music furnish a scene of gay delight till a late hour"; "four good bowling alleys are well patronised by those who wish for innocent and muscular amusement." Visitors came "principally from Wilmington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and the surrounding country," but "the Register chronicles the arrival of guests from Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana and other Western and Southern States, not to omit one sojourner for a week from the metropolis of France." One guest ranked it against the competition: "the only hotel at Cape May that surpasses this in convenience and accommodation is the Stockton House."
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1877
Board at the Atlantic Hotel in 1877: $2.50 a day, or $10 to $12.50 a week, one hundred yards from the breakers.
John Tracy's advertisement — "ON THE BEACH AT OCEAN CITY" — ran in the Wilmington papers through the summer of 1877: "The ATLANTIC HOTEL, this new and popular sea-side resort, is now open for the reception of boarders, family and invalid guests. Only 100 yards from the breakers. Bathing unequalled on the Atlantic Coast. Accessible daily via Philadelphia Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad direct. Finest yachting bay in the world, within two minutes walk of hotel. Excellent gunning and fishing. Board per day $2.50, per week, $10 to $12.50." Tracy also ran the Peninsula House at Salisbury, and the ad quoted the round-trip rail ticket from Wilmington at $5.50. A shorter version in the Daily Gazette's summer-resorts column reads: "This Hotel is the largest one in city, and fronts direct on the Ocean. Terms $2.50 per day."
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1877
June 26, 1877: fifty Baltimore notables and a party of editors ride 236 miles to Ocean City, bathe until sundown, and file the first detailed description of a night at the Atlantic Hotel.
H. F. Kenney, superintendent of the P.W.&B., organized a promotional excursion from Baltimore on Tuesday, June 26, 1877. Special cars went on the 9:55 a.m. express from President Street depot carrying "over fifty guests from Baltimore city, comprising some of her most prominent citizens" — Hon. Charles G. Kerr, Hon. R. T. Banks, Henry Clay Dallam, James Hodges, Professor Powhatan Clarke, Judge Henry F. Garey among them. The Westminster editor joined at 6:20 a.m. and reached the beach at 5 p.m., 236 miles, on a day the thermometer showed 92 degrees in the shade; the train once ran 25 miles in 27 minutes and twice stopped to cool its journal boxes. Within half an hour of arrival "a number of the excursionists were out in the surf, and the broad beach was a lively scene, till the going down of the sun." Then supper in the Atlantic's "spacious salon," euchre in the parlors, promenaders on the porticos, and — the line worth keeping — "at eleven the first snore of the season at Ocean City broke the sweet, sad monotony of the moaning surf." Breakfast next morning was Spanish mackerel, fried oysters, stewed chicken, hot rolls, waffles, cakes, toast, coffee, tea, milk and butter, consumed "in alarming quantities," and "mine host Tracey was made to tremble for his larder."
The single most vivid page in Ocean City's early record, and it was written by a Westminster newspaperman on a free ticket. Read it as advertising and it is still the only surviving account of what the Atlantic Hotel smelled, sounded and tasted like in its third summer.
Atlantic HotelH. F. KenneyDr. Hilary R. Pitts
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1877
What Ocean City actually was in June 1877: hotels, four cottages, a drug store, a post office, a fruit store, two ten-pin alleys, billiard rooms and three bars.
The Wilmington Daily Gazette's excursion correspondent walked the place on June 27, 1877 and counted it: "At the present time the city consists of [thr]ee hotels, the finest and largest being the Atlantic, built by the R.R. Company, and leased by John Treacy. This hotel is situated almost immediately upon the beach, and a large porch extends all the way around it… A few yards further back is situated the Sea Side Hotel, leased by S. J. Massey. Another hotel not yet named, and which has just been finished, will be opened on Monday next… The place also contains a drug store, post office, fruit store, and several other places of business. So far there has been four cottages erected, but most of the lots have been sold and a large number of cottages will be erected during the [season]. For the amusement of guests there are two ten pin alleys and billiard rooms. For the thirsty there are three bars, at two of which the Diamond State beer is sold." Two weeks later the same paper wrote that "there are now on the island five good hotels, and they are apparently doing as well as the hotels at other watering places."
Two ten-pin alleys and three bars in a town of four cottages. Ocean City's amusement-to-residence ratio was set in year three and has never really changed.
between three and six hotels were open at Ocean City in 1877 — contemporary counts differ, probably because boarding houses were counted as hotels by some papers and not others
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1877
John Tracy is said to have cleared $10,000 above expenses at the Atlantic Hotel in the season of 1877.
"It is said that John Tracy, the proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel, at Ocean City, has realized ten thousand dollars, above all expenses, this season" — Smyrna Times, September 12, 1877. Whatever the exact figure, the season ended with the resort's builders acting on the same belief: Massey planning to enlarge the Seaside House, a large new hotel "talked of" for next summer, and T. B. Merritt of Wilmington's U.S. Hotel announcing he would build one.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1878
The Atlantic Hotel holds its rate for a fourth season — $2.50 a day, $10 to $12.50 a week, John Tracy proprietor.
"ATLANTIC HOTEL, OCEAN CITY, MD. Board, $2.50 per day, $10.00 to $12.50 per week. Appointments first class. Finest and largest house. Two daily trains from Wilmington direct to the beach. All the delicacies of the season. JOHN TRACY, Proprietor." The card ran in the Wilmington Daily Gazette all summer, from July 12 to September. It is word-for-word the 1877 rate: after a season in which a Delaware paper said Tracy had cleared ten thousand dollars, he did not raise his prices.
Four seasons in, the flagship hotel's rate has not moved a nickel — and it now has competition at two dollars.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1878
The Atlantic Hotel advertises "two daily trains from Wilmington direct to the beach" — two years after Ocean City had one weekly excursion.
John Tracy's 1878 card for the Atlantic Hotel closes with the line the whole resort depended on: "Two daily trains from Wilmington direct to the beach." In 1877 the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore had run one advertised excursion a week down the Delaware Railroad and the Wicomico & Pocomoke; by the summer of 1878 the hotel could sell daily service, and the excursion ads still promised that "first class cars run directly through to the Surf" — the trains crossed the trestle over Sinepuxent Bay and put passengers out on the sand.
Two trains a day from another state, to a town with four cottages three summers earlier.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore RailroadWicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1879
August 1879: John Tracy renews his lease of the Atlantic Hotel for five years from 1880, and the house is to gain a hundred more rooms.
"Tracy has renewed his lease of the Atlantic Hotel at Ocean City for the term of five years, beginning 1880. The hotel will be improved by the addition of one hundred more rooms." Tracy had run the Atlantic since the town's founding season and was reported in 1877 to have cleared ten thousand dollars above expenses; this is the first evidence of the railroad's hotel committing to a second five-year term and to a physical expansion on a scale that would roughly transform the building. It is also the clearest sign that 1879's two drownings did not shake anyone's confidence in the resort's economics.
Atlantic HotelAtlantic Hotel Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1880 · 1880-06-23
The Atlantic Hotel adds 100 rooms and a dancing pavilion for a 600-guest capacity, and Congress Hall opens as the beach's third big house — 1880 is the year Ocean City gets a hotel row.
Work on the Atlantic's addition was announced in early March — "the carpenters will soon be at work on the proposed addition to the Atlantic Hotel, which is to make it one of the largest and most" [complete of the resort's houses] — and by June the hotel was advertising the result across Maryland, Delaware and the District: "OPENED for the reception of guests June 23rd, with greatly increased facilities for the accommodation of pleasure seekers. The capacity of the house has been increased to 600 guests by the addition of 100 new rooms, new bath houses and a pavilion for dancing, with eminent musical talent, are among the attractive features." The Smyrna Times version put it plainly: "100 New Rooms have been added. New Bath Houses and Ball Room are among the latest improvements. THE BEST MUSIC That has ever been on the Beach is secured." Terms were $2.50 per day and $10 to $12.50 per week — the same rate card as 1877, three years and a hundred rooms later. John Tracy was still proprietor; S. C. Beckwith was chief clerk. Two days later a brand-new competitor opened: "Congress Hall, Ocean City, Worcester Co., Md. SEASON OF 1880, NOW OPEN. Commanding an Ocean view from all parts of the house. Good Fishing and Boating. An excellent Orchestra will be in attendance during the Season. The table will be supplied with all the delicacies of the season, Oysters, Fish, Crabs and Terrapins being in abundance... TERMS $12.50 and $10.00 per Week, according to location. Transient board, $2.50 per day. WM. B. R. SELBY, Proprietor. THOMAS FARLEY, Manager." The Evening Star's version of the ad dates the opening to June 25, 1880. With S. J. Massey & Co.'s Seaside Hotel opening June 15 "100 yards from the breakers," the July excursion party found three hotels to split among — and by 1881 Congress Hall, in only its second season, would be called the most popular house on the beach.
Atlantic HotelCol. Wm. B. R. SelbyThomas FarleyS. J. Massey
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1880 · 1880-07-14
Fifty prominent Marylanders ride a railroad agent's free special to Ocean City in July 1880 — forty miles in an hour, and dinner at Congress Hall.
"An excursion to Ocean City was given to a number of gentlemen from Maryland and Delaware this week by I. N. Mills, Esq., superintendent of the Delaware division of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad. The company was composed of about fifty gentlemen," among them Congressman Stevenson Archer, Judge J. D. Watters, Major Wm. H. Dallam, Col. Otho S. Lee, Hon. Murray Vandiver, Thos. G. Hayes and a working press contingent from the Harford Republican and the Baltimore Herald. The party left Baltimore about eight in the morning and reached Ocean City at 2:30 in the afternoon "after a run of 237 miles from this city"; the Ocean City correspondent of a Wilmington paper reported that "the train which brought the delegation here made the quick time of forty miles in an hour." On arrival the excursionists split among the three hotels — "the Atlantic Hotel, John Tracy, proprietor; Seaside Hotel, S. J. Massey & Co., proprietors; and Congress Hall, Wm. B. R. Selby, proprietor" — dined together at Congress Hall on Thursday, and held a meeting in the parlors of the Seaside afterwards. The same correspondent: "Crowds are daily arriving, and the season promises to be a remunerative one for the capitalists who have invested their money in Ocean City."
Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore RailroadI. N. MillsS. J. MasseyCol. Wm. B. R. Selby
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1881
The Atlantic Hotel enters its sixth season with a hundred new rooms and a Mansard roof — capacity six hundred guests — a new ocean-facing dancing pavilion and new bath houses. John Tracy, proprietor.
The Atlantic's season advertisement, standing in the Democratic Messenger from 18 June to at least 13 August 1881: "The proprietor of the 'Atlantic', in entering upon his sixth year at this famous Southern watering place, begs to say that he will make greater exertions than ever to contribute to the comfort and pleasure of his guests. The improvements made last season were costly and extensive, consisting of the addition of one hundred new rooms and a Mansard roof, whereby the capacity of the house was increased to SIX HUNDRED GUESTS. An elegant new Dancing Pavilion looking directly out upon the ocean was erected, and new and commodious bath houses were put up... HOTEL BOARD $2.50 per day, $10.00 and $12.50 per week... JOHN TRACY, Proprietor." The Wheeling (W.Va.) *Daily Intelligencer* carried a condensed version on 20 July, signed by B. O. Beckwith, chief clerk — Ocean City advertising four hundred miles inland in its sixth summer.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1882
Ocean City drills for fresh water: 74-foot wells at the Atlantic Hotel and Congress Hall, and the beach finally has something to drink.
In mid-June 1882 both big hotels sank deep wells. The Democratic Messenger's Peninsular Items column reported: "There is an abundance of fresh water at Ocean City. The Atlantic and Congress Hall each has a well, opened last week, which furnishes pure water of excellent quality." The Somerset Herald credited G. A. Maddox, a Worcester County artesian-well builder, with the Congress Hall well — "over seventy feet deep" — and noted he was "acquiring a reputation as a well constructor." The Atlantic made it a selling point in every advertisement it ran that summer: "Fresh water has been obtained by means of a well 74 feet in depth and is cold and pure." For contrast, the Bel Air Aegis reported that on the mainland in Worcester County the wells averaged twelve or fifteen feet.
A barrier island is a bad place to be thirsty. 1882 is the year Ocean City stopped hauling its drinking water and started pumping it.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1882 · 1882-08-25
"Three hotels, some cottages, a life-saving station and livery stables comprise the city" — a visitor's inventory of Ocean City in 1882.
A traveller writing "Ocean City and Vicinity" for the Bel Air Aegis & Intelligencer, August 25, 1882, gave the most complete surviving description of the town in its eighth season. On the naming: "A peculiar custom prevails in that section. They call all the new towns cities, and seem to imagine the more dignified name compensates the deficiency in extent and population. A stranger is rather surprised on his arrival at Ocean City to find that three hotels, some cottages, a life-saving station and livery stables comprise the city, which the habit of putting a literal meaning on words of that character had led him to expect." He named the three houses — the Atlantic under Tracy, Congress Hall under Rennert & Co., Massey's Seaside — placed the town "on the Isle of Wight" between Synepuxent Bay and the ocean, dated the hotels to "about seven years ago," and put Berlin, the junction town, at about a thousand people.
The whole city, in one sentence, by a man who expected more. Three hotels, a few cottages, the surfmen, and somewhere to hire a horse.
Atlantic HotelOcean City Life-Saving Station MuseumS. J. Massey
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1883 · 1883-06-26
The Atlantic Hotel opens for the season on June 26, 1883 — "many improvements have been made, buildings painted" — John Tracy still proprietor.
The Atlantic advertised in the Washington Evening Star through June and early July 1883: "ATLANTIC HOTEL, OCEAN CITY, MD., will open June 26th. Many improvements have been made, buildings painted, etc. For circulars apply to the Star office or JOHN TRACY, Proprietor, Ocean City, Md." The ad carries the keyline "je1-1m" — first inserted June 1, booked for one month. Tracy had run the house since at least 1877, and 1883 makes his seventh straight season; the copy is markedly quieter than 1880's hundred-new-rooms advertising, promising maintenance rather than expansion.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1884
The storm report is the earliest known description of plank "board walks" at Ocean City — including a walk from Twichell's hotel to the railroad depot built of heavy bridge timber.
The January 1884 damage list names three separate walkways: "all the board walks on the beach", the latticework in front of Tracy's hotel, and "part of the walk from Twitchell's to the depot, which [was] built of heavy bridge stuff and supposed strong enough [for] any storm". These are private plank walks laid by the hotels between the beach, the houses and the depot — not the municipal Boardwalk, whose first planks are conventionally dated to about 1900–1902. But they establish that by the winter of 1883–84 Ocean City already walked on wood, that the wood ran all the way inland to the train, and that a storm could take all of it in a night. — 1895 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Unchanged as to 1884, but the intervening record is now denser at both ends of the 1890s: a north end at a named cottage in July 1893 (Cecil Whig), the town relaying the front walk in June 1894 (Messenger), and a stretch south of Congress Hall carried away by a December 1895 storm (Annapolis Evening Capital). The walk is continuously attested from 1884 to 1895 and never once described as being built.
The Boardwalk's grandfather: a bridge-timber sidewalk from the sportsmen's hotel to the train station, and it lasted until the first big tide.
Train Depot SiteAtlantic HotelM. V. B. Twichell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1884
A January storm puts the whole island under water, washes out the railroad and destroys every board walk on the beach.
The Salisbury Advertiser's report, reprinted in the Delaware Gazette and State Journal of January 24, 1884: "On Tuesday night of last week a severe storm passed [over the] whole island [at] Ocean City. The [island was] covered by several feet of water and in the post office building the water stood 4 or 5 inches above the floor. The railroad above Tracy's ice house, all the board walks on the beach and the latticework in front of Tracy's hotel were washed away. Part of the walk from Twitchell's to the depot, which [was] built of heavy bridge stuff and supposed strong enough [for] any storm, also washed away. For a long distance the sand is washed from under the railroad and it is impossible for trains to pass." One of the life-saving station men was knocked down by the wind and carried a number of yards before he could regain his feet. A week later the Port Tobacco Times carried the same story for its own readers: "the beach at Ocean city was several feet under water, and the floor of the post office building was overflowed. The board walks were demolished and part of the railroad was washed away."
Forty-nine years before the storm that made the inlet, a January nor'easter walked straight over the island and took the trains with it. Nobody died and nobody wrote a book about it.
Atlantic HotelOcean City Life-Saving Station MuseumTrain Depot SiteM. V. B. Twichell
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1884 · 1884-06-26
The Atlantic Hotel opens its tenth season on June 26 under John Tracy, "many improvements... buildings painted".
The Atlantic advertised through the Evening Star's own office all summer: "ATLANTIC HOTEL, OCEAN CITY, MD. Will open June 26. Many improvements have been made, buildings painted, &c. For circulars apply to the Star office, or JNO. TRACY, Proprietor, Ocean City, Md." By July 28 the Delaware Gazette's correspondent put about 200 guests each at the Sea Side and the Atlantic, and by late August the Star was listing Washington arrivals at the house by name. Where the 1882 advertisement had sold a seventy-four-foot well and a dancing pavilion and no rates at all, the 1884 one sold fresh paint.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1885
The Atlantic Hotel prints its 1885 terms in the Washington papers: $10, $12.50 and $15 a week, depending on the room.
John Tracy's display advertisement ran in the Evening Star and the National Republican through July and August 1885: 'ATLANTIC HOTEL, OCEAN CITY, MD. $10, $12.50 and $15 per week, according to location of rooms.' The same advertisement gives the two ways to get there. By boat and rail: take the 3:15 p.m. Express on the B. & O., connect with the steamer Enoch Pratt leaving Baltimore, Pier 4, Light Street wharf at 5 p.m., for Ocean City via Salisbury. All-rail: take the 5:30 a.m. New York Express on the B. & P., connecting at Wilmington with the Delaware Division. The Star's own editors vouched for the house in a news note on July 18: 'Ocean City is a favorite resort with large numbers of Washingtonians, and the Atlantic is a well-conducted establishment.'
The 1882 season advertised a 74-foot well and no prices at all. Three years on the Atlantic is quoting a three-tier rate card in a Washington daily — the room you got depended on what you paid, which is the first sign of a resort with a pecking order.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1885
The Atlantic Hotel advertises for 600 guests in Baltimore's German-language daily — 'one of the largest on the coast south of Cape May.'
Through August 1885 Der Deutsche Correspondent, Baltimore's German-language daily, carried a resort notice for the Atlantic: the house at Ocean City, Md. holds 600 guests ('welches 600 Gäste fassen kann'), is one of the largest hotels on the coast south of Cape May, sits close to both the beach and the railroad depot, and is admirably managed. Sailing, fishing and shooting are all recommended. The proprietor is named as 'der greise Eigenthümer' — the venerable owner — Mr. John Tracy. German-Baltimorean guests appear in the paper's own resort registers the same month: A. A. Hack, Otto Sutro, August Jösting and the Reinhardt family all logged at Ocean City in early August.
Ocean City was courting Baltimore's German community in German, in their own paper, in 1885 — and a house that opened in 1875 with a few dozen rooms was now claiming a capacity of six hundred.
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1886 · 1886-06-24
The season opens about June 24 with the Atlantic Hotel, and Wilmington's Prof. A. S. Webster takes the dancing pavilion.
A letter datelined "Ocean City, Md., July 1" in the Delaware Gazette and State Journal reported that "the season [opened] a week ago with the opening of the Atlantic Hotel, and a large number of guests are already established in the popular hostelrie... The Atlantic Hotel especially caters to the public in offering superior accommodations, an unexcelled cuisine and varied entertainments for guests. A. S. Webster of Wilmington will have the dancing in charge, and music will be furnished by an orchestra of excellent musicians." Webster's engagement had been announced in Wilmington back in April: "Prof. A. S. Webster has been engaged by John Tracey, proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel, at Ocean City, Md., to take charge of his ball room and dancing pavilion the coming season." Tracy's own advertisement, running in the Evening Star from July 15, is four lines long: "ATLANTIC HOTEL, OCEAN CITY, MD. NOW OPEN. NOW OPEN. For circulars, apply to JOHN TRACY, Proprietor." — no rates at all, for the fifth season running.
Atlantic HotelAtlantic Hotel Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1887
In December 1887 the Atlantic Hotel's directors buy John Tracy out for $7,800 — furniture, dancing pavilion, bath houses and ten-pin alleys — ending a twelve-year tenancy.
The Smyrna Times of December 28, 1887: "The directors of the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, have purchased from John Tracy, the lessee of the hotel for the past few years, all the furniture and fixtures, the dancing pavilion, bath houses, ten-pin alleys, etc. The price paid was $7,800. The old furniture will be sold and the house refurnished and renovated." Tracy's lease had run only to January 1, 1888. It is the end of the longest single relationship in the resort's first dozen years — he had bought the Atlantic's furniture in November 1875 as John Tracy & Co. and held the house, on and off, ever since. The inventory also tells you what an 1887 Ocean City hotel actually was: a dining room, a dance floor, bath houses on the beach, and a bowling alley.
The company that had leased its hotel to somebody else since 1875 bought the fittings back and decided to run it itself. That is the moment the Atlantic stops being a landlord's asset and starts being a business.
Atlantic HotelAtlantic Hotel Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1887
John Tracy renews his lease on the Atlantic Hotel for $1,200 a year — the first Ocean City rent this campaign has documented.
The Baltimore County Union's "Over the State" column of May 21, 1887 reported that "Mr. John Tracey, who has had charge of the Atlantic Hotel at Ocean City for the last five years, has renewed his lease until January 1st, 1888, for $1,200 per year." It is the first figure this campaign has found for what it cost to hold Ocean City's founding hotel, and it also dates Tracy's continuous tenure: "the last five years" puts his current run from 1882, on top of the 1875–79 seasons already documented.
Twelve hundred dollars a year for the only first-class house on the beach. Eight months later the company bought him out for six and a half times that.
Atlantic HotelAtlantic Hotel Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1887 · 1887-06-24
The Atlantic Hotel opens for its thirteenth season on June 24, 1887, John Tracy proprietor.
From May 28 the Washington Evening Star's Summer Resorts column carried the card daily: "ATLANTIC HOTEL, OCEAN CITY, MD. Will open for the season of 1887 June 24. Circulars at this office. JOHN TRACY, Prop." From June 29 the same card read "Is now open for the season of 1887," and it ran without interruption into late August. As in 1884 the Atlantic advertised through the Star's own office rather than a Baltimore agent — Washington, not Baltimore, was the market it was buying.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1888 · 1888-03-24
John Tracy, who ran the Atlantic Hotel for a decade, gives it up and moves to Atlantic City.
"Mr. John Tracy, for many years lessee and manager of the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, has gone to Atlantic City, N.J., to live. He has taken the Edison House, on Michigan and Pacific Avenues." The Messenger added that no successor was known, though "there comes a report that Col. Coleman of the Carrollton Hotel, Baltimore, will probably be the man" — he was not. Tracy had opened the house in June 1884 advertising fresh paint and improvements when it was the only hotel in town advertising at all; four years later he left for the resort that the Delaware papers had been saying would bury this one.
Atlantic HotelAtlantic Hotel Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1889
C. W. Spofford of Washington's Riggs House leases the Atlantic Hotel for five years — and brings the capital's trade with him.
In February 1889 the Snow Hill Democratic Messenger reported from Berlin that "the prospects for Ocean City seem brighter now than for a long time. The Atlantic Hotel at that place has just been leased to Mr. C. W. Spofford, of the Riggs [House], Washington, D.C. ... Mr. Spofford is a well known [hotel] man and will undoubtedly be the [cause] of quite a number of Washingtonians spending next summer at Ocean City." The Smyrna Times of February 20 carried the lease term: "The Atlantic House at Ocean City has been leased to C. W. Spofford, of the Riggs House, Washington, for five years." By March 30 I. N. Mills, superintendent of the Delaware Railroad, had run a special train down to Ocean City with Spofford aboard, and Hon. George W. Purnell had been elected a director of the Atlantic Hotel company. John Tracy, who had run the Atlantic since at least 1882, moved across to the Seaside for 1889.
The proprietor of the Riggs House — the hotel where presidents' cabinets ate — took a five-year lease on a hotel on a sandbar. Washington's summer colony had been coming to Ocean City for a decade; in 1889 Washington's hotel trade came too.
Atlantic HotelAtlantic Hotel CompanyGeorge W. Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1889 · 1889-09-10
The September 1889 hurricane cuts temporary inlets clean across the island, destroys every bath house, and ends the season three weeks early.
The storm ran from Sunday, September 8 to about Thursday, September 12. The Democratic Messenger's Ocean City report is the best account: "At Ocean City the storm raged fiercely all day Tuesday and Wednesday. A high sea commenced rolling in on Sunday night and soon the waters of the Synepuxent Bay and the Atlantic Ocean met in the low places, forming inlets across the beach. The water rose higher and higher at each tide thereafter until it swept through the lower floors of the cottages... In the afternoon at 4 o'clock, five hours before high tide, the beach was covered with water and at 9 o'clock p.m. it was waist deep from one side of the island to the other. The bath houses were all torn down by the fury of the breakers and washed away, while the waves were washing over the porches of the Atlantic Hotel, breaking in the doors of Congress Hall and damaging the Atlantic's pavilion." A Salisbury dispatch of September 10 reported "a perfect hurricane" and "several lives... in peril"; the Westminster Democratic Advocate said the water crossed the beach "to a depth of over three feet," that "the railroad bridge across Synepuxent bay was under water," that "the wind was 80 miles an hour for nearly two days," and that on Wednesday "the several hotels and life saving station were flooded, the doors and windows being battered in." The Smyrna Times added that "bath houses, pavilions and stables disappeared," that Tuesday's breakers "reached the second floor of the Atlantic hotel," and that everyone left on the island was taken off on Tuesday afternoon "except John Tracy and wife, L. W. Coulbourn and wife, and Wm. Purnell, who moved to the second floor of the Seaside Hotel. These refused to come away." The final reckoning, from Ocean City on September 13, was milder: "The damage to property here is not so great as at first anticipated. The bath houses have disappeared, but the cottages and hotels are not greatly injured. The Seaside Hotel seems to have fared better than any of the others." The season ended with it: the Ocean City trains from Georgetown, Nos. 480 and 481, were withdrawn on Monday, September 9, and "the seaside hotels at Rehoboth and Ocean City have closed for the season of 1889." The Baltimore & Eastern Shore ran a sightseeing excursion from Salisbury on September 14 so people could come and look. Ocean City's wreckmaster, Thomas J. Hudson, said "the beach all the way to Ocean City is washed and changed more in appearance than he ever knew it to be before."
Ocean and bay met across the beach in 1889 and the papers used the word that matters: inlets. Temporary ones, closing behind the tide — but forty-four years before the storm of 1933 finally cut one that stayed, and three years after the State of Maryland had offered half the bottom of Synepuxent Bay to any company that could do it on purpose.
Atlantic HotelOcean City Life-Saving Station MuseumBaltimore and Eastern Shore RailroadUnited States Life-Saving Service
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1890 · 1890-07-01
Three hotels advertise the 1890 season: Congress Hall at $8 and $10 a week, and the Atlantic reopening with 'old popular prices restored.'
The Washington Evening Star carried all three of Ocean City's houses through the summer of 1890. The Atlantic, under a new manager, advertised from late May that it would 'open July 1st, 1890. Largest and best located house on the beach. Fine bathing, gunning, fishing and sailing; electric bells; no mosquitoes; good music; old popular prices restored. Address T. P. Welch, Manager' — the sentence about prices appearing only from June 5, after the hotel changed hands twice. Congress Hall was open and specific: 'Bathing Unsurpassed; Good Boating, Gunning and Fishing. Terms $8 and $10 per week. Selby, Powell & Co.' And the Sea Side Hotel advertised simply that it 'is open' — with John Tracy, who had run the Atlantic through the resort's first seasons, now named as its proprietor. Eight dollars a week is two dollars below the Seaside's 1886 rate; in the fifteenth season the Ocean City price of a week at the sea was falling, not rising.
Atlantic HotelCol. Wm. B. R. Selby
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1892 · 1892-07-30
$2.50 a day at the Seaside Hotel, Ocean City — and the county paper's editors say they stopped there and it was better than ever.
John Tracey advertised in the Democratic Messenger through the second half of the 1892 season: "Terms—$2.50 per day. $10, $12.50 and $15 per week. JOHN TRACEY, Propr., OCEAN CITY, MD." — with an editors' endorsement set beneath it: "We have stopped at this hotel this season and found it better than ever before. The table is supplied with all the luxuries of the season.—EDS." The paper named the house in its local column on July 30: "The Seaside Hotel at Ocean City is being conducted better this year than we have ever found it before and it is being well patronized by the best people of the Shore and the State. Mr. John Lacy, the proprietor, is giving his personal attention to the requirements of his many guests and they are loud in their praise of the menu of the establishment. For rates see advertisement in this issue of the MESSENGER." In October he bought in: "John Tracy from Thomas Humphreys and wife all that lot and parcel of land situate at Ocean City, being lot No. 56 as it was originally laid out by Stephen Taber. Consideration $40." A Delaware paper closes the identification: “The Hotels at Ocean City are all crowded to overflowing. The Sea Side has not had such a season since Mr. [T]racy has had charge” (Smyrna Times, 17 August 1892). Tracy had charge of the Seaside, and 1892 was its best season under him.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1892 · 1892-09-17
A trustees' sale advertisement names the town's founding plat: Stephen Taber's deed of 28 July 1876, Liber I.T.M. No. 4, folio 536, and the fifty acres it laid out.
The plat behind every Ocean City block-and-lot number is cited in full in the Democratic Messenger's own advertising columns. Trustees George W. Purnell, R. Jinkins Henry and L. Stanley Toadvin advertised a sale "OF VALUABLE LOTS AT OCEAN CITY" for Saturday, September 17, 1892 at 2 o'clock at the Atlantic Hotel, selling "by virtue of authority contained in a deed from Stephen Taber and wife dated the 28th day of July A.D. 1876, recorded [in Worcester] county in liber I. T. M., No. 4, folio 536... all those lots which are situated at said Ocean City, being part of the original fifty acres conveyed by said Stephen Taber and wife by the above-named deed, and are numbered on the plat of the said fifty acres as follows: 76, 84, 121, 97, 106, 109, 112, 136, 143, 144, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 160, 161, 162, 166, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205." A second document in the same year points at the same record: the Circuit Court order nisi of May 10, 1892 describes the lot the town's tax collector had sold as "Lot No. 119 on the plat of said Ocean City, which is recorded among the land records of said Worcester county, in Liber I. T. M., No. __ folio __." And an October deed sells "lot No. 56 as it was originally laid out by Stephen Taber." The plat is therefore not a lost document: it is a recorded exhibit to a deed of 28 July 1876 in the Worcester County land records, and 1892's deeds run to at least lot 205 on it, with blocks numbered both North and South of the town.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1893
Three hotels open the eighteenth season, and the Atlantic Hotel company rents Congress Hall as well.
"The Atlantic Hotel, at Ocean City, was opened for the reception of guests on the first day of June," the Democratic Messenger reported on June 3. "The hotel company have rented Congress Hotel for the season, and will run it on the European plan." Theodore L. Page managed the Atlantic and a Baltimore Sun correspondent singled him out in July as a man who "has put his house on the same plane as the best houses at any" resort. The Sea Side Hotel "was opened to guests by Proprietor John Tracey" on Tuesday June 13; the Sun's man called Tracy "the veteran Salisbury hotel keeper... who has been doing business every summer at Ocean City with success, for the past fifteen or twenty years." Congress Hall's arrangement changed hands over the summer: on June 24 "Will Rayne has leased Congress Hall, Ocean City, for the season," and on July 8 "Congress Hall, Ocean City, opened on Saturday last with William E. Rayne proprietor and John L. Nock clerk." Billy McKew took the Hotel de Purnell. By July 1 there were "about two hundred people at the various hotels, more than usually found at Ocean City so early in the season," four cottages were building, and "many improvements have been made about the beach." George W. Purnell announced he would build "a handsome cottage at Ocean City between now and next season" on "one of the choicest lots on the beach," and William Warrington, secretary of the Sinepuxent Beach Company, meant to put up a cottage on Atlantic Avenue. — 1893 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The Congress Hall conflict has a third state that resolves the shape of it: Rayne did not only lease, he bought. A Baltimore Sun correspondent reprinted in the Messenger of 15 July 1893 names "Mr. William R. Rayne, who has just bought of William B. R. Selby's estate the large hotel known as Congress Hall and proposes to put $10,000 worth of improvements on it." So the sequence is: the Atlantic Hotel company rented Congress Hall for the season on 3 June; Will Rayne leased it on 24 June and opened it on 1 July; and within a fortnight of opening he bought the freehold out of the Selby estate. The two claims in the conflict are both true and sequential. Add also that by late October the hotel was in winter care: "Mr John Willet moved his family to Ocean City Wednesday, and will take care of Congress Hall during the winter." And in March 1893 the Baltimore & Ohio had sent an agent to Ocean City "to examine the Congress Hall property with a view to purchasing the same" — a railroad nearly bought the hotel five months before Rayne did.
Congress Hall changed hands between June and July 1893 — the hotel company took it first, Will Rayne ran it
Atlantic Hotel CompanySinepuxent Beach CompanyTheodore L. PageWilliam E. RayneGeorge W. PurnellWilliam Warrington
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1893 · 1893-07-15
William R. Rayne buys Congress Hall out of the Selby estate and promises $10,000 of improvements — he had only leased it a month earlier.
A Baltimore Sun correspondent's piece, reprinted in the Messenger of 15 July 1893 under the heading "OCEAN CITY. She is Going Ahead and Promises Well for the Future," turns on the mayor's theory of the town: "Mayor Wilson, in talking of the progress which Ocean City has made, said it is due to the fact that the men who are pushing the interests of the place are working men. 'The working man,' Mr. Wilson says, 'will always get there.'" The working men he then names are the town's three hotel keepers: Theodore L. Page of the Atlantic, "who has put his house on the same plane as the best houses at any other seaside resort"; John Tracy of the Sea Side, "the veteran Salisbury hotel-keeper... who has been doing business every summer at Ocean City with success, for the past fifteen or twenty years"; and "Mr. William R. Rayne, who has just bought of William B. R. Selby's estate the large hotel known as Congress Hall and proposes to put $10,000 worth of improvements on it." That last clause changes the year's hotel story. The campaign has Congress Hall as a lease — the Atlantic's company rented it on 3 June, Will Rayne leased it on 24 June and opened it on 1 July — and has the disagreement filed as a conflict. It was not only a lease. Inside a fortnight of opening, the lessee bought the freehold from the estate of the man who had run it, and announced a sum for improvements larger than the whole Scott's Beach property fetched that autumn.
William E. RayneTheodore L. PageWilliam Sydney Wilson
Source · checked 2026-08-11