T. Alan Goldsborough
congressman · 1877–1951
Thomas Alan Goldsborough, Democrat of Caroline County, represented Maryland's First District — the entire Eastern Shore, Worcester County included — in the U.S. House from 1921 until 1939, when he resigned to become a federal judge in Washington. He was Ocean City's procedural champion in the long pre-storm inlet campaign: he secured the 1927 act ordering an Army engineers' survey of a proposed Sinepuxent inlet, repeatedly delayed an expected unfavorable report (which would have frozen the project for four years), and in May 1931 — armed with the Maryland legislature's new $500,000 appropriation — won a fresh, complete survey from the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors.
In the record (11)
1925 · 1925-07-13
Governors Ritchie of Maryland and Robinson of Delaware, two congressmen and a Virginia gubernatorial candidate all spoke at Ocean City in one evening, 13 July 1925.
The Maryland Press Association and the Del-Mar-Via Press Association held their joint summer outing at Ocean City on 12–14 July 1925, more than eighty newspapermen, entertained free of charge by the Board of Trade and the hotel proprietors. Monday's meeting was in the auditorium of the State School building, decorated with flags and bunting; the address of welcome was made by Mayor William McCabe, with responses from Ridgely Melvin of Annapolis and Edwin H. Brown of Centreville, presidents of the two associations. State Comptroller William S. Gordy, Jr. "explained why the several counties had not received their full quota of school funds." Charles A. Carter of the Colonial Hotel, "a former western newspaper man," welcomed the visitors for the hotel men; "The formal welcome on behalf of the Board of Trade was made by Dr. Charles W. Purnell, its president, and also proprietor of the Atlantic Hotel." At noon the party took a motor-boat cruise down Sinepuxent Bay to the inlet, "enlivened by a jazz orchestra," and landed at "Eagle's Nest," the bayside lodge of W. H. Kearfott about three miles below the town, for a crab feast on the lawn. In the evening Governor Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland and Governor Robert P. Robinson of Delaware spoke, with Congressmen T. Alan Goldsborough and John Philip Hill; G. Walter Mapp, candidate for governor of Virginia, was also on the programme. The invitation had been extended the previous January at Salisbury by Clarence L. Vincent, editor of the Snow Hill Democratic Messenger, and the associations chose Crisfield for 1926.
Two sitting governors, two congressmen and a would-be third governor, on a beach that fifty years earlier had one hotel and no road.
Atlantic HotelMaryland Press AssociationDel-Mar-Via Press AssociationBoard of Trade of Ocean CityAlbert C. RitchieRobert P. RobinsonWilliam W. McCabeDr. Charles Washington PurnellW. H. KearfottCharles A. Carter
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1925 · 1925-10-24
Ocean City lobbied hard for the Maryland National Guard's state encampment, offering a farm at $50 an acre six miles from the beach.
Worcester Democrat, 24 October 1925, page one. General Reckord inspected the "Genezer tract" near Sinepuxent, ten feet or more above sea level, "in close reach to the bay or ocean… and can be brought very close to Ocean City, by stone road, which Commissioner Mackall says will be built, and by the B. C. & A. railroad. Besides, the purchase price is quoted at the cheap rate of $50 per acre." The Democrat argued the six or seven miles was no objection since "the resort furnishes all the amusements which are really required in a community such as a soldier camp." "Ocean City's claims for the camp were presented by Mayor W. C. McCabe; Dr. C. W. Purnell, president of Ocean City Chamber of Commerce, and Capt. William B. Powell. Hale Harrison, president of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce, acted as spokesman for the delegation." Salisbury sent its Chamber manager, Senator Charles R. Disharoon and fifty others; Snow Hill sent Mayor W. D. Corddry; Pocomoke sent Edward J. Clarke of the Worcester Democrat; Berlin sent Mayor E. E. Burbage and Gen. H. M. Creel, U.S.A., retired. T. Alan Goldsborough came for Caroline County and spoke for the Ocean City site. Rival sites were on Kent Island and the Choptank River.
The whole lower Shore turned out to sell the Guard a sandy farm, on the argument that the soldiers could go to the beach.
Ocean City Chamber of CommerceMaryland State Roads CommissionBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayWilliam W. McCabeDr. Charles Washington Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1925 · 1925-12-12
In December 1925 Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough introduced a bill directing the Secretary of War to survey Synepuxent Bay "from the inlet north to Ocean City."
Worcester Democrat, 12 December 1925, page one, "Goldsborough Asks For Synepuxent Bay Survey": "Representative T. Alan Goldsborough has introduced the following bill into the House, and it was referred to the Committee on Rivers and Harbors: 'To authorize a preliminary examination and survey of Synepuxent Bay from the inlet north to Ocean City, Maryland. Be it enacted… that the Secretary of War be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to cause to be made a preliminary examination and survey of Synepuxent Bay from the inlet north to Ocean City, in the State of Maryland.' Mr. Goldsborough is always alive to the interests of the State, and can be depended to look after the special interests of the Eastern Shore."
Eight years before the storm cut the inlet that made Ocean City a port, its congressman was already asking the Army to survey the water it would open into.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1931 · 1931-04-17
Chapter 511 of 1931 creates the $500,000 "Ocean City Inlet Loan of 1931" — approved 17 April, effective 1 June, and conditional on a federal third.
In its 1931 session, the Maryland Legislature passed a bill appropriating $500,000 to be turned over to the United States on condition that the federal government build the proposed inlet from Sinepuxent Bay to the Atlantic at Ocean City to completion. The act had immediate leverage in Washington: on April 3 the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors had told Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough its (expected unfavorable) survey report had to be filed by May 15, but 'upon representations of the Act of the Maryland Legislature' the Board agreed to withhold the report and make another examination. When the August 1933 hurricane cut the inlet for free, this standing state commitment became part of the funding package Mayor McCabe pivoted into jetty money. ADD the chapter and volume: Chapter 511, Laws of Maryland 1931, Archives of Maryland Online volume 580, pages 1277-1283. Approved 17 April 1931. Effective 1 June 1931. (The wiki's own still-open list has asked for this chapter number since 2026-08-05.) CORRECT the condition. The current detail says the money was 'to be turned over to the United States on condition that the federal government build the proposed inlet... to completion', which is the Midland Journal's paraphrase. The Act says the State pays 'not exceeding TWO-THIRDS of the cost' and that 'no part of said loan shall be issued, and no part of the proceeds shall be paid over to the Government of the United States, or any agency thereof, UNTIL THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES SHALL HAVE MADE PROVISIONS TO PAY AT LEAST ONE-THIRD OF THE COST, AND FOR THE COMPLETION, of the improvements.' It is a RATIO, not a dollar figure. THEREFORE the widely repeated '$500,000 provided the Federal government should contribute $250,000' (Milford Chronicle, 24 June 1932, and the 1932 draft) is a press gloss that only works once the project is priced at $750,000. The statutory condition is one third of whatever the cost turns out to be. Record the $250,000 as a contemporary journalistic rendering, not as the terms of the Act. ADD the location, which the Act specifies and which matters: 'a canal or inlet SOUTH of Ocean City, in Worcester County... to connect the Atlantic Ocean with Sinepuxent Bay', with jetties, approaches, channels and appurtenances. Maryland put the inlet south of the town eighteen months before the Board of Engineers recommended a site five miles below it. ADD that the Board of Public Works could acquire the land 'by purchase, gift, condemnation or otherwise', and was not obliged to issue the whole $500,000.
The inlet Ocean City is built around was a line item before it was an act of God — the town had the check written two years before the storm delivered the goods.
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1931 · 1931-05-11
On 11 May 1931 the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors scraps the old report and votes a complete new survey of the Sinepuxent inlet.
The Midland Journal of Rising Sun, 22 May 1931, under the standing head "SINEPUXENT INLET": "Congressman Goldsborough was notified on May 12 by the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors that at a meeting held on May 11th it had been decided to make a complete survey of the proposed inlet from the Sinepuxent Bay to the Atlantic Ocean at Ocean City, Maryland. In 1927, Congressman Goldsborough secured the passage of a bill providing for a survey by the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors of this proposed inlet. Ascertaining that the report would be unfavorable he requested the report be delayed, because when an unfavorable report is once made another survey cannot be made of the same project for four years. In the last session of the Maryland Legislature, a bill was passed providing for an appropriation by the State of Maryland for $500,000 to be turned over to the United States providing the Government would build the inlet to completion. On April 3 last, the Board of Engineers notified Mr. Goldsborough that the report would have to be filed by May 15th. Upon representations of the Act of the Maryland Legislature, the Board agreed not to file its report..."
A four-year statutory bar on re-surveying is the reason a congressman spent four years keeping his own report unfiled, and the reason the Maryland appropriation had to arrive before 15 May 1931. Chapter 511 was approved 17 April. The Board voted the new survey on 11 May. The state's money bought the town not an inlet but a second opinion — and the second opinion is the file that reaches the Secretary of War in June 1932.
Ocean City Inlet & JettyBoard of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1931 · 1931-05-11
The Army's Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors votes to make a complete survey of the proposed Sinepuxent inlet.
At a meeting on May 11, 1931, the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors decided to make a complete survey of the proposed inlet from Sinepuxent Bay to the Atlantic Ocean at Ocean City; Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough was notified the next day. The decision capped a four-year procedural fight: Goldsborough had secured the original survey bill in 1927, then engineered delays of the expected unfavorable report — under the rules, once an unfavorable report was filed, no new survey of the project could be made for four years. The Board told him the new report could be ready in two to three months, in time for Congress's December session, where he planned to introduce legislation. The resulting report (unfavorable, as it happened) went to Congress dated June 18, 1932. CONFIRMED against the same Midland Journal page, re-read this pass: the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors decided on 11 May 1931 to make a complete new survey, and notified Goldsborough on 12 May. ADD the deadline that forced it: 'On April 3 last, the Board of Engineers notified Mr. Goldsborough that the report would have to be filed by May 15th' — i.e. Chapter 511 (approved 17 April) landed inside a twelve-day window. ADD the War Department's formal order, eight days later: Evening Star, 19 May 1931, p.5, 'Army Engineer Surveys Ordered' — 'the War Department has directed that surveys be made of Paris Creek, Md., and also of Ocean City Harbor and Inlet, Md.; Sinepuxent Bay, Md., "from the Inlet north to Ocean City."' CORRECT a characterisation: the detail calls the resulting report 'unfavorable, as it happened' and dates it 18 June 1932. The 1932 pass established the sequence more exactly — the DIVISION engineer reported FAVOURABLY in February 1932; the BOARD reported AGAINST on 27 March 1932 on cost-benefit grounds; and on 18 June 1932 the Chief of Engineers and the Secretary of War APPROVED a $750,000 project. 'Unfavorable' describes only the March board report.
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1932 · 1932-02-12
The Army's division engineer reports favorably on an Ocean City inlet, and Representative T. Alan Goldsborough sends it up to the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors.
The Midland Journal of Rising Sun, 12 February 1932: "Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough, of Maryland, was informed today that the project sponsored by him, providing for the completion of an inlet from the Atlantic Ocean to Sinepuxent Bay at Ocean City, has been favorably reported by the Division Engineer to the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors. Mr. Goldsborough feels that the project has such merit that the report of the Division Engineer will be adopted by the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, and so reported by the Chief of Engineers to the Committee on Rivers and Harbors of the House of Representatives." The Smyrna Times of 17 February adds that "at the request of the Maryland Representative, the district engineer at Wilmington several weeks ago was ordered to make a new examination and survey of the proposed project."
This is where the 1933 inlet campaign is actually built. Maryland had put up $500,000 in 1931 conditional on the federal government finishing the job; 1932 is the year the federal machinery is worked, item by item, by a congressman rather than by a storm. Note the word Goldsborough uses — "completion" — which treats the inlet as an unfinished piece of work rather than a new one.
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1932 · 1932-06-18
The Chief of Engineers and the Secretary of War approve a $750,000 inlet from the Atlantic into Sinepuxent Bay — a reversal, three months after the Engineer Board opposed it.
Milford Chronicle, 24 June 1932, page 1: "PLAN NEW INLET AT OCEAN CITY — Chief Engineer And Secretary Of War Approve Project Costing $750,000. MARYLAND TO AID. Brigadier General Lytle Brown, chief engineer of the army, and the Secretary of War have approved the recommendations of the district engineer for the construction of a proposed inlet from the Atlantic Ocean into Sinepuxent Bay, about five miles south of Ocean City, Md., which commits the government to one of the most important river and harbor projects on the Eastern Shore, so far as the fishing industry of that state, Delaware and New Jersey is concerned. Several weeks ago a representative delegation of citizens from Eastern Shore towns together with the two Maryland Senators, and Senator John G. Townsend, Jr., of Delaware, appeared before the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors and urged that the recommendations of the district engineer be accepted. Testimony at this hearing developed that such an inlet would greatly benefit fishermen from as far north as Massachusetts and as far south as Virginia. Senator Tydings of Maryland told the board that such an inlet would be the only safe harbor of refuge between the Delaware Bay and the Virginia capes." The continuation gives the dimensions: "In the construction of the Ocean City inlet, it is proposed that this would be 10 feet deep and 200 feet wide, also calls for a channel from the inlet in the Sinepuxent Bay 8 feet deep and 100 feet wide into Chincoteague Bay. Maryland has already agreed to share two-thirds of the cost of the Ocean City project. At the last session of the legislature an appropriation of $500,000 was authorized for this purpose, provided the Federal government should contribute $250,000."
The delegation — Eastern Shore towns, both Maryland senators, and a Delaware senator — went to the Munitions Building and won. Tydings's line is the argument that carried it: not that a Maryland resort wanted a harbour, but that four hundred miles of coast had no refuge. That is precisely the 'national benefit' the Engineer Board said in March did not exist. The financing is also now on the record in its exact conditional form: Maryland's $500,000 from the 1931 session, contingent on $250,000 federal.
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1936 · 1936-06-25
'The Convention City': in 1936 Ocean City took the Spanish-American War veterans, the rural letter carriers, the poultrymen and a four-town dual-highway dinner
'Ocean City is fast becoming known throughout the East as "The Convention City",' the Messenger wrote on 25 June 1936, and the season bore it out. Del-Mar-Va Camp No. 14, the only Spanish-American War veterans' unit on the Eastern Shore, hosted the state encampment on 20-21 June with Dr. C. W. Purnell of Ocean City as chairman and speakers including Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough, Mayor Howard Jackson of Baltimore, State Commander E. A. Mulrooney of the Delaware department of the American Legion and Past Department Commander James B. Freeland of the Spanish War Veterans of the District of Columbia; Col. Joseph M. Mann of Ocean City, who had been in Havana harbour when the Maine blew up, attended. Maryland's rural letter carriers held their annual convention there in early July and were praised by Goldsborough; Maryland poultrymen met on 29 July to consider a Consumer Research Bureau. And on 25 June the mayors and councils of Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill and Pocomoke City, with Selbyville, Frankford, Millsboro, Dagsboro, Georgetown and Milford in Delaware, sat down to a dinner meeting at the Hotel Commander to advocate a dual highway through lower Delaware and Worcester County over U.S. Route 113.
Rural Letter Carriers' Association of MarylandDr. Charles Washington Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1936 · 1936-07-16
The government lit the inlet and the bay channel in 1936, and made Daniel Trimper, Jr. the inspector of the lights
In April 1936 Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough announced that the United States had bought materials and equipment for channel markers to be erected in Sinepuxent and Chincoteague Bays between Chincoteague Island, Va. and Ocean City, on advice from L. M. Hopkins, Superintendent of Lighthouses. In July the Department of Commerce awarded the placing of twenty-nine buoys, ten of them lighted, in the Sinepuxent and upper Chincoteague bays between the Ocean City Inlet and Robins Marsh to the Marvin E. Cox Company of Nanticoke, and the Lighthouse Service appointed Daniel Trimper, Jr. of Ocean City as Inspector of the thirty-odd markers and beacons. 'Inspector Trimper has already taken over his new duties.' The markers stand half a mile apart at Buffington Point, Coffin's Point, Powell's Point, Nellie's Bar, Sandy Point and onward, with additional beacons at the inlet proper.
The man who ran the carousel was also, from July 1936, the federal government's inspector of the lights that told boats where the channel was.
Ocean City Inlet & JettyDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1936 · 1936-08-13
Washington raised Ocean City's sewer grant from $49,909 to $56,659, and the town accepted the amendment as Resolution No. 7
On 8 August 1936 the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works wrote to the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City over the signature of E. W. Clark, offering to amend the contract created by the town's acceptance of 17 October 1935 by striking the figures '$49,909' and inserting '$56,659', on condition that the applicant first deposit $8,250 in the construction account, 'or such other amount as may be necessary to complete the Project'. The Messenger had the news first: on Thursday 6 August Congressman T. Alan Goldsborough telegraphed the paper, 'Ocean City sewer project has been approved by President Roosevelt for an increase of the grant to $56,669. This sum will be sufficient to complete the Ocean City project.' The Mayor and City Council convened in special session on 13 August with William H. Scott, President, in the chair and none absent; W. Preston Laws proposed Resolution No. 7 accepting the amendment, Dr. F. J. Townsend seconded it, and Laws, Townsend and William H. Scott voted aye with none voting nay. A further certified extract of a special meeting of 14 August was prepared for Washington.
$56,659 in the federal document; the Messenger printed $56,669
Federal Emergency Administration of Public WorksW. Preston LawsWilliam H. Scott
Source · checked 2026-08-11