Mrs. Harry Gunby
the person who discovered the Great Fire of 1925 · active 1925
Named in the Worcester Democrat of 2 January 1926 as the person who found the fire that destroyed three blocks of Ocean City: "it was discovered about 11 A. M. in the small room adjoining the engine room, by Mrs. Harry Gunby." No other detail about her is given, and no source read in this pass supplies her own given name — she appears in the record only as her husband's wife, and only for one sentence, at the moment the town's history turned.
In the record (2)
1925 · 1925-12-29
Mrs. Harry Gunby found the fire about eleven in the morning, in a small room off the engine room of the Eastern Shore Gas and Electric plant.
Worcester Democrat, 2 January 1926: "Just what caused the ignition in the Power plant is not known, but it was discovered about 11 A. M. in the small room adjoining the engine room, by Mrs. Harry Gunby. The resulting flames raged till about 3 o'clock, four hours after their discovery." The Milford Chronicle agreed on the seat of the fire: "The fire originated in the engine room of the power plant, according to the firemen, who discovered the rear portion of the building in flames." The Associated Press, filing while it burned, reported that Snow Hill and Salisbury "reported that the flames, originated in the electric plant at the eastern end of Baltimore avenue, were working into the residence district."
A woman whose given name nobody printed is the first person on the record to see the fire that ended Ocean City's first fifty years.
Eastern Shore Gas and Electric Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1925 · 1925-12-29
The Great Fire: on Tuesday 29 December 1925 three blocks of ocean-front Ocean City burned, taking the Atlantic Hotel, the Seaside, the Pier, the Casino, Dolle's and the power plant.
The Worcester Democrat and the Ledger-Enterprise of 2 January 1926 ran it across page one: "FIRE DESTROYS TWO HOTELS, THE PIER, AND SEVERAL OTHER BUILDINGS AT OCEAN CITY — Conflagration Of Tuesday Last Sweeps Heart Of State's Summer Resort — POCOMOKE FIRE COMPANY HELPS FIGHT BIG BLAZE." "A disastrous fire visited Maryland's only seaside resort, Ocean City, last Tuesday, laying waste property valued at between $300,000 and $400,000. The buildings destroyed were the Power plant, Seaside Hotel, Atlantic Hotel, the Pier, the Casino, the building containing the flying horses, and the candy-making establishment adjoining." The Milford Chronicle of 1 January 1926 headlined it "DISASTROUS FIRE SWEEPS HOTEL AREA AT OCEAN CITY, MD. … RESORT IN DARKNESS" and reported that "Three blocks of ocean-front property at Ocean City, Maryland, were destroyed on Tuesday by a [fire] which, aided by a thirty-five-mile wind, raged for two hours"; that the blaze spread from the power plant to the Seaside Hotel adjoining, "then leaped Baltimore avenue to the Atlantic Hotel, spreading over that entire square," next to Dolle's Candy Shop, "then leaped to the Casino Building, where several amusement devices are located, across the boardwalk to the pier"; and that "The boardwalk was burned for the entire distance of three blocks." Firemen stopped it at Wall's Hotel, just south of the pier. The Associated Press had the story running the same day: the Washington Evening Star of 29 December 1925, page one — "BLAZE IS SWEEPING MARYLAND RESORT — Ocean City Isolated—Two Hotels and Several Homes Appear Doomed" — datelined Baltimore, 29 December: "A section of Ocean City, Md., including two hotels and several residence blocks, appeared doomed by fire at noon today."
Fifty years and six months after the Atlantic Hotel opened, the building Ocean City was built around burned down in an afternoon, and took the pier and three blocks of boardwalk with it.
Atlantic HotelOcean City BoardwalkEastern Shore Gas and Electric CompanyOcean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentDr. Charles Washington Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-06