Robert Lee Cropper

In the record (20)

1. 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 PurnellHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsFrank SaleaJohn B. LynchJ. Edward White (magistrate)William H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

2. 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 PurnellFrank SaleaHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1940 · 1940-11-06

   The council would not simply refuse Mrs. Bassett's two new stores at the Roosevelt Hotel; it invented a compromise and went to look at the property the next morning

   A notice dated 2 November 1940 called a meeting for the evening of Wednesday 6 November 'to consider the granting of permit to Anna Bassett to build and enclose porch on south side of Roosevelt hotel for purpose of making two stores with entrance from Division Street.' At the meeting, 'Mrs. Edna & Claud Bassett were present in interest of building enclosed porch on South Side of Roosevelt Hotel. Mrs. C. P. Cropper, Mrs. Walton & Elizabeth Powell, who represented Sarah I. Carey, were present opposing the structure, and after discussing same at length suggestion was made by Councilman Robert L. Cropper that Mrs. Bassett drop back 8 ft to the regular Building line and leave open porch on remainder of Building, and the Council agreed to look the property over Thursday morning.' The minute does not record what they decided after looking. The same evening the council awarded George L. Elliott the contract to paint both water tanks for $450.

   The mayor's wife was one of the objectors, three of the four people who turned out against the building were women, and one of them was there on behalf of another woman who did not come. Ocean City's building hearings are usually a list of surnames; this one is a room, and the compromise a councilman thought up on the spot - drop back to the building line and leave the rest of the porch open - is the town governing itself at the scale of eight feet.

   Edna BassettClifford P. Cropper

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

4. 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. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

5. 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. CropperHarold J. RayneWilliam H. Scott

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 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 CityHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

7. 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.

   Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsClifford P. Cropper

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

8. 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 BoundsHarold J. RayneClifford P. Cropper

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

9. 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. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsWilliam H. Scott

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

10. 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 BoundsHarold J. RayneHerman D. ParsonsClarence WrightCharles T. JacksonJohn J. RayneEdward WhiteEdmond H. JohnsonJ. M. MumfordL. B. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

11. 1946 · 1946-04-25

    Ocean City's rebuilt Boardwalk cost the town $18.00 a running foot and the abutting owners were billed $15.50 - $775 for a fifty-foot lot.

    'Board Walk Cost was presented and Secretary ordered to bill the property owners $775. for 50 ft lot, which is $15.50 running foot, and the Walk cost $18.00 per foot.' The figures are internally consistent - fifty times $15.50 is $775 exactly - and the town absorbed $2.50 a foot. It is the first per-foot figure the campaign has for the walk wrecked by the hurricane of 14 September 1944, rebuilt in wood because concrete was prohibitive, and widened on 5 November 1945 to thirty feet from North Division to South Division Street. The same meeting granted building permits to two sitting councilmen without any recusal recorded - R. Dolle to build next to the Comfort Station and five feet from the Barber Shop, with a cement wall next to the Comfort Station, and J. B. Lynch for an ice box - voted $5,000 to the Chamber of Commerce, and heard Bob Cropper ask for somewhere for teen-age children to meet, 'after much debate nothing was decided on'.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceRudolph DolleJohn B. LynchMiss Elizabeth Laws

    Source · checked 2026-08-15

12. 1946 · 1946-04-25

    Ocean City voted the Chamber of Commerce five thousand dollars 'to operate on' in April 1946 - five times what it had budgeted the Chamber the summer before.

    Bob Cropper, Mr. Harris and Elizabeth Laws were present in the interest of finances for the Chamber of Commerce, and after going over the several items the council, on motion by John B. Lynch seconded by C. O. Savage, passed an order to give them $5,000 to operate on. In July 1945 the town's own reckoning had budgeted the Chamber $1,000 against the $3,500 it asked. Three weeks later, on 14 May, Dale Showell and Chas. Jackson got another $500 out of the council for the Business Men's Association, to be matched by them for an advertising fund to be used in 1947 and paid by 1 September. By 26 November the town had taken the Chamber onto its own books entirely.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceOcean City Business Men's AssociationMiss Elizabeth LawsJohn B. LynchCranford O. Savage

    Source · checked 2026-08-15

13. 1946 · 1946-08-05

    Ocean City returned its whole government at a four-hour poll in the fire house on 5 August 1946: Trimper beat Robert Lee Cropper 344 to 135, and the three sitting councilmen all beat the only challenger.

    'An election was held in the Engine room of Fire House on Monday August 5, 1946 for purpose of electing one person for Mayor and three persons for City Councilmen.' The polls opened at two and closed at six, kept by Election Judges Joseph Elliott, Horace H. Richardson and Chas. T. Jackson with J. M. Mumford as clerk, and 494 votes were cast. For Mayor: Daniel Trimper Jr. 344, Robert Lee Cropper 135. For City Council: Rudolph Dolle 403, Cranford D. Savage 341, John B. Lynch 335, John Sacca 165. The returns were properly made to the City Clerk and Trimper, Dolle, Lynch and Savage were declared duly elected for a two-year term to take office on 9 September 1946. It was held on a Monday in the first week of August, at the height of the season, in the engine room.

    The clerk recorded 494 votes cast and a mayoral tally that adds to 479 - the two figures in the same return do not close.

    Daniel W. Trimper, Jr.Rudolph DolleCranford O. SavageJohn B. LynchCharles T. JacksonJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-15

14. 1946 · 1946-08-27

    Twenty-two days after being re-elected, the President of the Ocean City Council laid a note on the table resigning both his remaining term and his new one, and walked out of a meeting that had never been called to order.

    The council met at eight on the evening of 27 August with Mayor Trimper, Lynch and Dolle present and Savage absent. While they waited for Savage, Robert Lee Cropper came in as President of the Chamber of Commerce and discussed the winter operating of the Chamber: he wanted to keep a girl on part time all winter to answer correspondence and wanted the City to put up the money for it, and he wanted to put on one or more exhibits in Washington or Boston at about $500 each. 'Nothing definite was promised on this.' Then, in the clerk's words: 'The meeting was not called to order or any minutes read when John B. Lynch said he wanted the attention of the Mayor & Council, and at that time laid on the table a note saying he was resigning as a member of Council both for the remaining term and the newly elected term. The members were taken by surprise at this and Mr. Lynch left the room, with Mayor Trimper and Dolle following soon thereafter, at about 9:15 o'clock.' Lynch had been President of the Council, had signed Ordinance No. 99 in that capacity three months earlier, and had polled 335 votes on 5 August. No reason is recorded and the note is not copied into the book. The seat was still empty at the last meeting of the year.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceJohn B. LynchDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.Rudolph Dolle

    Source · checked 2026-08-15

15. 1946 · 1946-11-26

    By the end of 1946 the man who had lost the mayoralty in August was building Ocean City an airport a mile and a half from the Boardwalk, and the town handed the federal aviation authority over to him.

    The last meeting of the year: 'Question of Air Field was discussed and decided to refer the Civil Aeronautics Administration to Robert Lee Cropper, who has started on building [an] air port.' A Maryland weekly had reported five days earlier that work had begun on an airport which would eventually give Ocean City a landing field for commercial and pleasure craft of all sizes, located 1.4 miles from the boardwalk, the field expected to be ready for small passenger planes by Thanksgiving Day and the promoters hoping for facilities to accommodate commercial airline service to nearby cities before the 1947 vacation season started. Six months earlier the same council had written to Lee Savage to tell him that no plane hangar would be allowed at 9th Street. Cropper had been asking the town about an airfield since October 1945, when he wanted a house moved off the city dump to help his proposed field; in 1946 he stopped asking and built one.

    Source · checked 2026-08-15

16. 1946 · 1946-11-26

    At its last meeting of 1946 Ocean City took the Chamber of Commerce onto its own books - salary, rent, booklets, postage and telephone - and named the woman who would run it through the winter.

    'On motion by Rudolph Dolle, seconded by Cranford D. Savage, that the City would pay Miss Elizabeth Laws [Salary], pay rent, booklets, postage, telephone; and to give Miss Laws [the] privilege of spending up to $50.00, and on bills over that to get [the] OK of City Council.' The word 'Salary' is interlined above the line in the clerk's hand. It grants, three months late, what Robert Lee Cropper had asked for on 27 August as President of the Chamber - to keep a girl on part time all winter to answer correspondence - and it names her: Elizabeth Laws, who in May had been raising the Honor Roll for the town's service men and in April had come before the council in the interest of the Chamber's finances. Cropper's other request, one or more exhibits in Washington or Boston at about $500 each, is not mentioned and was not funded in 1946.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceMiss Elizabeth LawsRudolph DolleCranford O. Savage

    Source · checked 2026-08-15

17. 1949

    More than forty Ocean City property owners voted $5,000 to build an airport on 200 leased acres — two years after this record says one was already approved

    On a Monday night in May 1949 more than forty property owners approved spending $5,000 to build an airport for the coming season, on about 200 acres just west of town leased from Robert Cropper, a local hardware dealer — $3,000 of the $5,000 being rent — and then went to the County Commissioners at Snow Hill to ask for help with the rest. This record states that an Ocean City airport was approved on 22 August 1947. Either that approval came to nothing or these are two different projects.

    Sources disagree on this.

    Source · checked 2026-09-02

18. 1957

    Ten years after its airport was "approved", the town was still looking for a site: Robert Cropper wanted $100,000 for his land, and the alternative needed a great deal of fill

    "Mayor Trimper stated that he had talked with Mr. Robert L. Cropper with reference to his property west of Ocean City with regard to its purchase. He stated that Mr. Cropper had quoted a price of $100,000.00 for the property. Mayor Trimper also stated that he and Mr. Drennan of the State Aviation Commission had visited other prospective sites … One of the sites visited was the farm owned by Mr. James R. Kelly on the Stephen Decatur Road. This site was desirable except for the fact that it would require a great deal of fill adjacent to the bay." The search runs across fourteen meetings. It took the Ash Wednesday storm of 1962 to produce the money.

    Source · checked 2026-09-02

19. 1960

    Cropper was a candidate for mayor of Ocean City in July 1960, and a councilman had resigned in June — but who won is not established

    The surname is that of the councilman who sat through the 1957 annexation and of Robert L. Cropper, who wanted $100,000 for the airport land. Laws was feted by the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce in August — the surname of the correspondent who wrote the town's weekly column for the Messenger until it stopped after 1951. The Easter Parade on 17 March was "like July week."

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceW. Preston Laws

    Source · checked 2026-09-02

20. 1962 · 1962-03-29

    It took the worst storm in the town's history to fund Ocean City's airport: $80,000 toward construction, and $35,000 more promised on a hard-surface runway

    In the same itemisation of the State's storm response: "Contributed towards the construction of new Ocean City Airport, the sum of $80,000.00. When the hard-surface runway is constructed (during 1962), additional State funds will be forthcoming in the amount of $35,000.00." This record has followed the airport since the town leased itself one in 1934 and since it was 'approved' in August 1947 — through $5,000 voted in 1949 to lease Robert Cropper's land, to 1957 when Cropper wanted $100,000 to sell and the alternative site needed $40,000 of fill. The money arrived as storm relief.

    Ocean City Airport

    Source · checked 2026-09-02