Capt. William I. Purnell

In the record (20)

1. 1917

   The Ocean City Coast Guard station advertises for men in the county paper: ordinary seamen $28.80 a month, one-year enlistment, apply to Keeper Purnell.

   In the spring of 1917 the Democratic Messenger carried a boxed advertisement headed "U. S. COAST-GUARD SERVICE": "Ordinary Seamen, month $28.80. Seamen, month, $36.00. Enlistment for one year. Apply to KEEPER PURNELL, Ocean City Coast-Guard Station, Ocean City, Md. In person or by 'phone." It runs on the page facing the paper's "GERMANS NEAR HERE!" story of 12 May 1917. This is the first documented pay scale for the Ocean City station in the campaign's record, the first appearance of a keeper named Purnell, and — with the Coast Guard about to pass under Navy control for the duration — the clearest evidence that the station was recruiting locally on a war footing. The Ocean City station had been a Life-Saving Service station under Capt. John B. Jones as late as 1913; the service was folded into the new Coast Guard in January 1915.

   United States Coast GuardUnited States Life-Saving Service

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1919

   Jacob Coffin, eighteen, drowns diving from a springboard into the bay; the Coast Guard crew recovers the body.

   The Messenger of 19 July 1919: "Jacob Coffin, 18 years old, son of Thomas H. Coffin, a farmer near Ocean City, was drowned while bathing in the bay Sunday. He, with two other young men, was diving from a springboard, and when Coffin dived it is thought he got stuck in the soft bottom. The body was recovered by Capt. W. I. Purnell and crew of the Ocean City Coast Guard Station. Young Coffin was a popular young man with a great many friends, who are sorrow stricken at his untimely death." The initials are the find: the 1917 pass could establish only "Keeper Purnell" at the Ocean City station, and asked for his given name. He is Capt. W. I. Purnell.

   United States Coast Guard

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1920 · 1920-02-05

   "The worst storm in the history of this place" — on 5 February 1920 the ocean crossed the sandbar into Sinepuxent Bay for the first time in living memory, and Mayor Scott put the loss at $300,000.

   The dispatch, datelined Ocean City, Md., 5 February, went out on the wire and ran in Cambridge, Annapolis, Alexandria, Washington and Wilmington: "The worst storm in the history of this place is now raging. For the first time in knowledge of anybody here, the ocean has rolled over the sand strip on which the town is built into Sinepuxent Bay. There is no building that has escaped damage from the beating of waves. E. M. Scott, Mayor of the town, estimates the property loss at $300,000. Loss of life was only prevented by the life guards stationed here under Capt. William I. Purnell. The guards have been on the alert night and day since Sunday, when the storm began, and since yesterday afternoon have been constantly taking persons from houses destroyed by wind and the beating of the waves." All day the town was without fresh water: a buoy broke from its ocean moorings, drifted in and struck the water main. It was repaired that night. This was a three-day Atlantic gale that also wrecked Rehoboth Beach and broke the Indian River inlet, and it is the largest single disaster in Ocean City's record between the founding and the 1933 hurricane.

   United States Coast GuardEdward M. Scott

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1920 · 1920-07-18

   On 18 July 1920 Boatswain's Mate T. T. Moore left his lookout post at Ocean City, swam 200 feet to the outer bar and brought in a 14-year-old Wilmington girl.

   "Helen Weiss, aged 14 years, of Wilmington, was rescued from drowning at Ocean City, Md., the afternoon of July 18, by the coast guard, according to their official report to headquarters here today. Boatswain's Mate T. T. Moore, on lookout, saw the girl struggling on the outer bar 200 feet off shore and some distance from other bathers. He immediately left his post and swam out to her, bringing her in safely." It is the only 1920 Ocean City item in the corpus that reads out of an official Coast Guard report, and it names a surfman — the second Ocean City coastguardsman this pass has recovered, after Capt. William I. Purnell. Set it beside the July item from Salisbury: "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hastings, Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Hastings, of this city, and an unknown man and woman narrowly escaped drowning at Ocean City when they ventured beyond their depths while bathing. Their cries for help were heard by hundreds of people on the shore. Mrs. Charles Hastings, becoming hysterical, clutched at her husband who was attempting to save her as she was sinking from view, and her weight carried him beneath [the water]. … The life guards searched beneath the water and after finding the bodies carried them ashore where they were resuscitated." Eleven years after Charles S. Richardson demanded that the town pay somebody to watch the bathing, and ten years before the Beach Patrol, 1920 has life guards on the beach and a Coast Guard lookout above it, and the corpus records four rescues and no drownings.

   United States Coast GuardOcean City Beach Patrol

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

5. 1922

   A whale washes up at Ocean City in February 1922 and hundreds drive down through a storm to look at it — in cars, buses and commercial trucks pressed into passenger service.

   The Democratic Messenger of 11 February 1922, under AT OCEAN CITY TO SEE WHALE — "Hundreds of People Went There In Storm Last Sunday to See The Monster": "Hundreds of people braved the storm Sunday to visit Ocean City to view the whale which seems to be an attraction. Automobiles of every description, busses and trucks which are used for commercial purposes during the week began early in the morning to arrive loaded with passengers, most of them only remaining a few minutes. Capt. William I. Purnell, the keeper of the Coast Guard stationed there, requested the Coast Guard Service to send a boat to remove the carcass. As yet no boat has been available for this purpose and it is understood all the boats attached to the Lewes station are engaged in cleaning up and locating disabled shipping after the recent storm." The item does two things at once: it names the keeper of the Ocean City Coast Guard station in full for the first time in this campaign's record, and it shows a February Sunday crowd at a resort that a decade earlier could only be reached by train.

   The clearest single measure of what the bridge did: in the dead of winter, in a storm, hundreds of people drove to Ocean City to look at a dead whale for five minutes.

   United States Coast Guard

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

6. 1923

   The Ocean City Coast Guard turns out in its high-power boat to a barge tug caught in fog — and the town's water main bursts the same week.

   Worcester Democrat, 3 February 1923, from Ocean City: "A barge tug was caught in the heavy fog of Friday night and signaled for the Coast Guard, who turned out in their high power boat and rendered assistance." The same column notes the town went without water "because of the bursting of the water main above Third street; but repairs have been made under the skillful supervision of Mr. Robert Hartman, who volunteered his services." A year earlier, when a whale washed up in February 1922, Capt. Purnell had had to ask the Coast Guard Service to send a boat because none was available at Ocean City.

   United States Coast Guard

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

7. 1923 · 1923-04-28

   Capt. William I. Purnell, keeper of the Ocean City Coast Guard station, opens a 22-room hotel across the road from it — the Maryland Inn.

   The 'Ocean City News' column of 28 April 1923: "Mr. Charles S. Powell, contractor, has finished and turned over to its owners the new hotel of Capt. William I. Purnell, opposite the Coast Guard Station. It contains 22 rooms with bath and surf accommodations, and will be known as the Maryland Inn." By late July the Inn was the town's ceremonial room: Purnell gave a terrapin dinner there for Mayor McCabe and friends from Salisbury, and the Children's Guild of St. Paul's-by-the-Sea held its bazaar there.

   The man paid by the federal government to pull people out of the surf spent 1923 selling them rooms with a view of it.

   Built or substantially rebuilt in 1923 by a Purnell — the same paper gives the initials as both W. I. and W. T., and calls the work both new construction and a remodeling.

   United States Coast GuardWilliam W. McCabe

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

8. 1923 · 1923-07-28

   Senator John Walter Smith and Mrs. John Waggaman sign the Plimhimmon's register, and the Coast Guard keeper gives a terrapin dinner for the mayor.

   Worcester Democrat, 28 July 1923: "Captain William I. Purnell gave a terrapin dinner to a number of his friends at the Maryland Inn, among whom were Messrs. F. W. C. Webb, W. G. Gordy, Marion Humphreys, Graham Gunby, of Salisbury, and Mayor Wm. W. McCabe of Ocean City. Recent visitors at the Plimhimmon during last week were Senator John Walter Smith, of Baltimore; Mrs. John Waggeman, of Annapolis, and Mrs. McCallum of Philadelphia; Mrs. William Price of Centreville, and Mr. and Mrs. Walter V. Harrison, of Baltimore." Earlier in July the Plimhimmon had registered "Mrs. Charles E. Bentley, of New York… for the summer," entertaining friends from New York.

   Plimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaJohn Walter SmithJohn F. WaggamanWilliam W. McCabe

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

9. 1924

   E. W. Townsend of the Ocean City Coast Guard station is promoted and sent to New York to learn the engines of the new rum-chasing speed boats.

   Milford Chronicle, 30 May 1924, from Lewes: 'Speed up the preparation for placing crews on the speed boats, check the rum-runners in the Delaware Bay and River. Garwood Thomas and Clarence E. Rickards [of] the Lewes Coast Guard Station and E. W. Townsend of Ocean City Coast Guard Station have been promoted to motor-machinist mates, first class, and sent to New York for instruction in the operation and installation of engines such as are going to be used by the Coast Guards in their new speed-boats in an endeavour to break up the rum-running in the Sixth Coast Guard District. Captain James P. Phillips, superintendent of the Sixth Coast Guard District, has enlisted thirty additional surfmen to be distributed for duty at the various stations in the district.' In March the same paper had recorded that 'Walter W. Tingle of the Ocean City Coast Guard Station has sold his cottage at Dewey Beach.' The station that had been a lifesaving crew since 1878 is being retooled as a naval police force.

   United States Coast Guard

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

10. 1924

    Washington's resort columns carry about eighteen Ocean City houses, a golf course with 'New Tea Room attached', and for the first time a restaurant open day and night.

    The Evening Star's standing banner is unchanged from 1923 — 'OCEAN CITY, MD. Finest and safest bathing beach on Atlantic coast; ocean on one side, bay on other; cool; golf, tennis, fishing, boating and dancing' — but the golf line has grown: 'Ocean City Golf Course. New Nine-Hole Course. New Tea Room attached.' The 1924 houses, across the Evening Star and the Washington Times: MT. PLEASANT ('NOW OPEN … most exclusive', S. M. Mason); THE GABLES ('Centrally located. Home cooking … New management. O. M. Chandler, Prop. Tel. 45'); THE SEASIDE ('American plan; running water; private baths … garage free to guests', H. G. Cropper) — new; HOTEL HAMILTON ('OCEAN FRONT', J. L. Massey & Son) — new; THE AVONDALE ('Open now. Accommodations for tourists and week-end parties', G. W. Rounds) — new; TARRY-A-WHILE ('Cool, attractive rooms near water front', Mrs. T. J. Cropper) — new; THE CASINO RESTAURANT ('A place at Ocean City to get a real meal and some good home cooking. Open day and night', W. M. Ruark) — new; THE MARYLAND INN ('On the Boardwalk; comfortable outside rooms; American plan', Mrs. W. I. Purnell); THE RIDEAU (La Fayette Johnson); THE IDYLWILD (Dr. E. L. Brittingham); KAYE COTTAGE; THE DEL-MAR ('Second house from Boardwalk … Homelike Maryland Cooking. Private Bathhouse', Mrs. S. I. Carey, opening 15 June); THE BELMONT (L. H. Hearne); THE ATLANTIC (C. W. Purnell); THE HASTINGS ('Newly painted and renovated. Garage in connection', Mrs. Charles Ludlam); THE BREAKERS ('Rebuilt … Golf. Phone 76', C. H. Timmons); THE SHOREHAM (Mrs. K. C. Hastings); THE DENNIS ('Comfortable and homelike. Enlarged … Special rates to auto parties', Mrs. R. J. Dennis); THE PLIMHIMMON ('Ocean front. Best service. Orchestra. Ballroom. Grill. Tearoom. Golf. Garage.'); THE COLONIAL ('Boardwalk; strictly modern. Special rates to July 15'). Private baths and golf privileges were the 1923 boast; in 1924 the new words are garage, tea room, and open day and night.

    Plimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaAtlantic HotelOcean City BoardwalkMrs. S. M. MasonDr. Charles Washington PurnellLafayette Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

11. 1927

    Capt. William I. Purnell is still in charge at Ocean City in 1927, and is vice-president of the district's keepers.

    Two independent 1927 sources put Purnell in command. The Evening Star of 28 August 1927, reporting the Coast Guard convention banquet at the Atlantic Hotel: "Capt. William I. Pennell, in charge of the Ocean City station, was master of ceremonies at the banquet, and Mrs. Pennell acted as hostess to the 40 or more ladies who had accompanied the officers from stations from Maine to Key West, Fla." And the Peninsula Enterprise of 3 December 1927, listing the officers of a Coast Guard keepers' association: "Capt. Lloyd Doughty, Cobbs Island, President; Capt. W. J. Purnell, Ocean City, Vice President; Capt. Irving Steele, Lewes Coast Guard Station, Secretary; Capt. G. H. Bromley, Metompkin Coast Guard Station, Treasurer."

    The campaign has had this man since 1917 and has never been sure of his surname, because papers print Purnell and Pennell alike. Two 1927 sources a hundred miles apart, one of them a list of association officers rather than a society column, settle it as Purnell — and put him in the room when the Commandant came to town. He would help found the Ocean City Beach Patrol three years later.

    United States Coast GuardOcean City Beach Patrol

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

12. 1927

    The Commandant of the Coast Guard brings a national convention to Ocean City, and closes it with a banquet in the rebuilt Atlantic Hotel.

    On the evening of Wednesday 24 August 1927 the second annual convention of the Atlantic Coast Guard closed with a banquet in the dining room of the Atlantic Hotel at Ocean City, Md., attended by 100 members of the Coast Guard and their families, with officers from stations "from Maine to Key West, Fla." Rear Admiral F. C. Billard, Commandant of the Coast Guard, and Mrs. Billard travelled from Washington as guests of honour. "The dining room of the Atlantic Hotel was gay with gladioli, dahlias and shasta daisies, and the official flag of the Bear, the famous cutter, floated over the speaker's table with the Stars and Stripes." Capt. William I. Purnell, in charge of the Ocean City station, was master of ceremonies; Mrs. Purnell was hostess to the forty or more ladies who had come with the officers. Speakers included Representative Robert G. Houston of Delaware, O. M. Maxam (chief of the division of operations at Coast Guard headquarters), State Senator Louis Drexler of Delaware, Comdr. Louis Oliver Osborn of the Sixth Coast Guard District, S. R. Sands of Portsmouth, N.H., Edward Rasmussen of Asbury Park, N.J., and T. E. Tunnell of Delaware. State Senator Harrison of Maryland represented Governor Ritchie; District Commander John W. Richardson of Baltimore and Mayor William McCabe of Ocean City made the addresses of welcome.

    Twenty months after the town's fire department was called practically useless and its hydrants froze, Ocean City was hosting the Commandant of the United States Coast Guard, and the room it happened in had been ashes. Two rebuildings in one sentence.

    Atlantic HotelUnited States Coast GuardRear Admiral Frederick C. BillardWilliam W. McCabeOrlando Harrison

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

13. 1930

    The Ocean City Beach Patrol is dated to 1930 by every published account — and appears in not one page of the year's contemporary record.

    704 pages matching "ocean city" in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and the District were read in full for 1930. The phrase "beach patrol" occurs on exactly one of them, the Milford Chronicle of 25 July, and it means the Rehoboth Beach Patrol Guards under Captain Frederick Homan, demonstrating drowning rescues at a Delaware Safety Council event. "Life guard" occurs once, at Herald Harbor on the Chesapeake. "Lifeguard", "life-guard", "life saver" and "life savers" occur nowhere. A relevance query for "beach patrol" plus "ocean city" over 1929–1931 across all of Chronicling America returns that same single Milford page. No drowning at Ocean City, Md. is reported in any of the 704 pages. The received account — that Mayor W. W. McCabe and Coast Guard Capt. William Purnell organised the patrol in 1930 because the beach had narrowed and bathers had drifted north beyond North Division Street, out of sight of the Coast Guard tower on Caroline Street, and that Edward Lee Carey was hired as the first guard — rests entirely on modern secondary retellings. ⚠ THE NEGATIVE STANDS FOR 1930 AND MUST NOT BE WIDENED. 1932 supplies what 1930 could not: life guards and posted warning flags at Ocean City, Md., in the Evening Star's account of an August 1931 rescue. Recorded so no later pass repeats the search — a corpus-wide query for "beach patrol" with "ocean city" across 1931–1933 returns FOUR pages: Washington Times 20 Aug 1931 p.18, Smyrna Times 3 Feb 1932 p.2, Washington Times 17 Jun 1933 p.8, Washington Daily News 28 Jun 1933 p.6. The Smyrna Times page was read and is the NATIONAL GUARD's beach patrol at Bethany Beach, not Ocean City's. THE OTHER THREE ARE UNREAD and are the cheapest outstanding lead on this question in the whole campaign. ADD: the same silence holds through 1931. Across all 699 pages of the 1931 Ocean City corpus, 'beach patrol', 'life guard', 'lifeguard' and 'life saver' occur on eight pages and NOT ONE is Ocean City, Maryland. ADD, and close the lead: the Washington Times of 20 August 1931, p.18 — logged by the 1932 pass as one of three unread 'beach patrol' pages — is 'Girls Bring Trouble For 2 Life Guards', datelined OCEAN CITY, N. J., about two members of the Ocean City (New Jersey) Beach Patrol suspended for letting girls sit on their stands. ADD the one 1931 surf rescue that does appear: a 14-year-old Washington Boy Scout, Robert P. Harbaugh, swam out and brought a drowning woman ashore at Ocean City, Md. in early August 1931 (Evening Star, 8 August). No guard is mentioned.

    The campaign asked 1930 to source its most famous institution and 1930 declined. Worse for the received story: the one contemporary description of the beach that year says the opposite of its premise. The Washington Daily News of 18 June 1930 reports under its own subheading that "the bathing beach has been widened, and now has shallow ocean waters for a long distance, average bathing temperatures, and few dangers from undertow." That is not proof the founding story is wrong — promotional copy would say that whatever the sand was doing — but it is the only contemporary evidence either way, and it points the other way. Note also that Elisha Victor Bunting was already "a member of the Ocean City guard" in 1927, so whatever happened in 1930 was very likely a formalisation rather than an invention.

    Ocean City Beach PatrolWilliam W. McCabeElisha Victor Bunting

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

14. 1930 · 1930-01-03

    Coast Guardsmen under Capt. William Purnell take 1,850 cases of Canadian liquor on the beach four miles south of town — and by March forty men, thirty-six of them Ocean City residents, are indicted.

    The seizure was made on Monday 30 December 1929 and the story broke on 3 January 1930. Milford Chronicle, 3 January: "COAST GUARD SEIZES $250,000 WORTH OF RUM AND 36 MEN — Twenty-three alleged rum runners were captured and 1,850 cases of choice liquors… confiscated on the beach four miles south of Ocean City, Md., by United States coast guards, on Monday. The capture of the rum runners marks the first instance of this kind in the sixth coast guard district." A tip from Halifax had put a lookout out; guardsmen stopped a Camden-bound truck carrying 400 cases and took its four men, then went down Sinepuxent Bay by motor boat and crept "through the sand dunes… dodging behind beach grass and in sand holes" onto the other nineteen. "Captain William L. Purnell, keeper of the Ocean City coast guard station, in charge of 36 coast guardsmen from Fenwick Island, Ocean City, North Beach and Isle of Wight stations… All surrendered without any show of resistance." A federal blanket complaint against thirty-six followed, U.S. Commissioner Louder T. Hearn at Salisbury fixing bail at $50,000 for each of four alleged leaders; "the other thirty-two persons are all residents of Ocean City and immediate vicinity." Six motor trucks and four boats were impounded. Local men named in the warrants include Charles Hastings, Joe Bunting, Joshua Bunting, Ralph Richardson, Sim Harmon, Alfred Quillen, Will Mumford and Ned Lynch. The nineteen locals were held in the Ocean City jail, released overnight and ordered to report to the Coast Guard station at eight each morning.

    The largest single body of documented fact about Ocean City in 1930 is a criminal case, and it names more residents of the town than any other source of the year. Thirty-two of the men caught unloading a rum ship on their own beach lived there.

    United States Coast Guard

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

15. 1930 · 1930-03-28

    Capt. Purnell escorts thirty-five of his own prisoners to Easton, where a jury takes fifteen minutes to convict the four ringleaders and thirty-four Ocean City men plead guilty.

    Washington Times, 24 March 1930, special, datelined Ocean City: a customs agent "arranged to transport 35 men from this vicinity indicted in connection with recent rum smuggling operations on this coast, to Easton, Talbot County, Md.… Each faces four counts growing out of the $150,000 rum cargo seizure on December 30 last. Capt. William I. Purnell, keeper of the Ocean City coast guard station under whose supervision the rum seizure was made, escorted the defendants to Easton." It was only the second time the federal court had ever sat at Easton; U.S. Attorney Amos W. W. Woodcock brought the case and Judge Morris A. Soper presided. On 26 March the first jury disagreed and was dismissed. On 27 March a second jury convicted the four in fifteen minutes; they were sentenced to fifteen months to two years in Atlanta penitentiary. The Evening Star of 29 March: "The 38 men convicted in the $150,000 Ocean City liquor-smuggling case were to be brought to Baltimore City Jail from Easton… The 34 who pleaded guilty to helping load and transport the liquor from the beach at Ocean City were given sentences varying from 2 to 4 months." On 4 April Judge Soper paroled Charles Quillen, "a jockey now riding at Bowie and one of 40 men arrested in a raid at Ocean City in December, when 1,800 cases of liquor were confiscated," for two years.

    The keeper of the Coast Guard station personally drove his neighbours to their trial. In a town of 946 people, thirty-four guilty pleas is something like one household in seven.

    United States Coast Guard

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

16. 1936 · 1936-03-17

    Ocean City had the only high school in Worcester County without a gymnasium, and in 1936 the town went to Snow Hill to ask for one

    A delegation of Ocean City residents representing the town's civic organisations - Dr. Charles W. Purnell, Capt. W. I. Purnell, Franklin Upshur and others - waited on the Board of County Commissioners at Snow Hill at five o'clock on Tuesday 17 March 1936 and asked for about $8,000 in the next annual levy toward a gymnasium annex at Ocean City High School, promising to raise the balance of the $11,000 estimated cost themselves. 'Every High School in Worcester County has gymnasium facilities except Ocean City, the Commissioners were informed.' The commissioners promised favourable action and asked for an accurate estimate and the Board of Education's approval; the June levy carried $5,000 for a Recreation School building at Ocean City, to be paid only if additional WPA or federal funds were secured. Two days after the delegation, the town's Parent-Teachers' Association appointed a Gymnasium Finance Committee and voted to ask the Board of Education to require all pupils in District 10 to attend the Ocean City school.

    County Commissioners of Worcester CountyBoard of Education of Worcester CountyDr. Charles Washington PurnellFranklin Upshur

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

17. 1936 · 1936-11-17

    The new boardwalk was specified in creosote and no old lumber: 8-inch piling two feet down, caps 8 by 10, and a deck of dense square-edge sound lumber at $57.55 a thousand

    Ocean City's boardwalk committee - Dr. C. W. Purnell, Horace O. Cropper, Edgar J. Ijams, John B. Lynch, Franklin Upshur, Edmond Johnson and Capt. W. I. Purnell - met the council three times in November 1936 to choose what the new walk would be made of. On 9 November they decided unanimously that it should be built of creosote piling and caps: piling of 8-inch butts driven two feet down, caps 8 by 10 for the 24-foot walk and 6 by 8 for the 16-foot walk; the motion was made by H. O. Cropper and seconded by Dr. C. W. Purnell. On 10 November representatives 'from the Wolmanized Salts people', Mr. Clifton of the Wood Preserving Corporation of Baltimore and Mr. Powell of the Adkins Company came to argue the various treatments of lumber and were asked to quote prices. On 17 November their bids were opened: Adkins at $53.25 a thousand for Wolman treatment, $60.50 on round square edge, $62.00 on long leaf and $52.00 on short-leaf heart at 85 per cent heart; the Wood Preserving Company at $57.55 a thousand Wolman treated and $66.00 for creosote stringers. Capt. Purnell moved and Dr. C. W. Purnell seconded that the city buy creosote stringers; Franklin Upshur moved that dense structural square-edge sound lumber be bought for the decking at $57.55, and that no old lumber be used in the construction of the new walk. — 1937 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The specification is now documented from the outside as well as from the minutes. Democratic Messenger, 11 March 1937: 'Fine creosoted-treated piles with the specially chemical-treated sills and stringers placed on the pilings, have been driven. Fourteen-inch drift iron pins have been used in the construction of the sub-walk. The boardwalk will be so strongly built ... that it will take a very severe storm to tear it from the 18-foot pilings.' The lower section, from Dr. F. J. Townsend's drug store to the Coast Guard Station, was finished by 21 January 1937 and 'guaranteed for twenty years'; top decking was Southern pine, delayed by floods in the middle West; and the walk was storm-tested and held on 26 April 1937.

    This is the moment the Ocean City boardwalk stops being a wooden sidewalk that keeps washing away and becomes an engineered structure: pressure-treated piling, specified caps, and a rule against reusing a single old board.

    Ocean City BoardwalkDr. Charles Washington PurnellFranklin Upshur

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

18. 1937 · 1937-07-05

    Ocean City's Fourth of July crowd in 1937 broke every record and two thousand cars never got into town

    The town expected to 'far surpass last year's record crowd of approximately 50,000', and Red Star Lines put on seven extra buses from Baltimore. It did. 'OCEAN CITY REPORTS AN ALL-TIME RECORD', the Salisbury Times headed its report of 6 July; officials' estimate of the crowd reads as 125,000. Getting out again took 'from an hour and 40 minutes to 2 hours to cover the eight miles from Ocean City to Berlin', and 'State police estimated that 2,000 cars failed to get into the city Monday. All parking places were filled.' Capt. William I. Purnell, president of the Chamber of Commerce, called it the largest crowd ever to visit the resort. The previous year 7,000 cars had come on the Fourth; in 1937 a third of that number again could not get in at all.

    A town with one two-lane bridge and no parking discovered on 5 July 1937 exactly how big it was allowed to be — which is the argument for the new bridge, made by traffic rather than by anybody's speech.

    Ocean City Chamber of Commerce

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

19. 1937 · 1937-07-24

    Ocean City's fire chief and delegate, Ralph R. Dennis, died of a heart attack an hour after carrying a hose to the roof of the George Washington Hotel

    'RALPH R. DENNIS DIES SUDDENLY AT OCEAN CITY - Succumbs After Over-Exertion With Fire Department At A Hotel Fire. WAS MEMBER OF THE MARYLAND LEGISLATURE.' The Worcester Democrat of 30 July 1937 gives the whole of it. 'On Saturday night last, about 7:30, the fire siren sounded at Ocean City, Md. The scene of the fire was the George Washington Hotel, where it was found the chimney was on fire. The volunteer company was led to the hotel by the Chief, Ralph Dennis, who has been chief for the past 10 1/2 years. Rather than have some of the men climb the fire escape with the hose, he elected to do the duty himself ... He climbed four flights up with the hose slung over his back.' Dr. Robert Bay of Baltimore, who had a summer cottage on the boardwalk, was called in consultation. 'The violent coughing spell had ruptured a blood vessel, which in turn had caused a blood clot. Mr. Dennis died in the apartment above his store. He was 49 years of age. He was connected with the public schools of Worcester County for 13 years, teaching at Ocean City. He graduated from the Ocean City school and Charlotte Hall.' In May he had been named one of Ocean City's three white school trustees, with Edwin P. Calhoun and Franklin Purnell. In March 1936 he had introduced in the House of Delegates the bill to let the Mayor and Council of Ocean City 'license, regulate, control and tax games and gaming devices' - the town's first attempt to regulate rather than suppress the boardwalk slot machines. A. C. Davis was appointed in his place on 13 August 1937 by Capt. W. I. Purnell, the fire company's president, who was himself dead within three months. The Democratic Messenger, reporting the same succession on 19 August, could name the new chief only as the town barber.

    A confectioner, a schoolteacher, a legislator and a volunteer fire chief of ten and a half years, all the same man, killed by carrying a hose up four flights of the tallest building on the boardwalk rather than send somebody else.

    George Washington Hotel SiteOcean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentRalph R. Dennis

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

20. 1937 · 1937-11-02

    Capt. William Isaac Purnell, who came to Ocean City a year after it was founded and ended as president of its Chamber of Commerce, was buried with full military honours

    'Capt. William Isaac Purnell, 65-year-old retired Coast Guard keeper ... buried with full military honors ... at St. Paul's-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church.' He had been keeper of the Ocean City Coast Guard station from 1917 to 1930, and afterwards, the Salisbury Times reported, 'For the past four years he had been president of the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce' and 'also president of the Ocean City Volunteer Fire Department'. 'At the age of 1 year he moved with his parents to Ocean City, one year after the Maryland resort was founded in July 1875.' In July 1937 he had told the Democratic Messenger that the Fourth of July crowd was 'the largest ever to visit here'; in August he had appointed the man who replaced the dead fire chief; in September he called the closing weekend 'a wonderful season'. He was the last public man in Ocean City whose own life was as old as the town.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceOcean City Volunteer Fire Department

    Source · checked 2026-08-11