W. Preston Laws

In the record (31)

1. 1936 · 1936-02-18

   Twenty-four meetings, four elected men and a clerk - and no meeting at all in January or April

   The Mayor and City Council of Ocean City met twenty-four times in 1936: twice in February, once in March, once in May, five times in June, once in July, four times in August, three in September, twice in October, four in November and once in December. There is no January meeting and no April meeting on the record. The year opens on Tuesday 18 February with the reading of the minutes of 27 December 1935, the night the sewer contract was let, and closes at nine o'clock on 29 December. The whole government was Mayor W. Thomas Elliott; Councilmen William H. Scott, president of the council, W. Preston Laws and Dr. F. J. Townsend; J. M. Mumford as clerk, secretary and treasurer; and Edmond Johnson as solicitor - the four names printed on the town's letterhead of 1 September 1936. Ten of the twenty-four meetings turned on the sewer or the boardwalk. The first meeting of the year lasted fifty minutes and decided two things: to wait for better weather before repairing the boardwalk, and that the peddlers' ordinance the town already had was sufficient.

   W. Thomas ElliottWilliam H. ScottJohn M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

2. 1936 · 1936-06-09

   Ocean City never held the electric-plant referendum it won in Annapolis - in June 1936 it signed a five-year contract with the private company instead

   Chapter 471 of the Acts of 1935 had authorised Ocean City to build and operate a municipal electric light plant and to borrow $150,000 for it, subject to a referendum for which the act fixed no date. Across twenty-six meetings in 1935 the council never selected one, and in 1936 the question came back not as a plant but as a price. On 2 June 1936 'Mr. Mitchell & Blake of Electric Light Co.' appeared before the council with a proposition for street lighting on a five-year contract showing a reduction of about $375 yearly after changing from 60 to 100 candle-power lamps, together with a one-year power rate. The council decided to consider it before signing; on 3 June, with the engineer Clark Gardner present, it examined the contracts for lights and power, decided to ask for some changes, and put William H. Scott in charge of seeing the electric people. On 9 June, W. Preston Laws moving and Scott seconding, it resolved 'that Contract be signed for Lighting Streets with "The Eastern Shore Public Service Company of Md" for five (5) Years since they had made the changes requested in meeting of June 3rd. Also that Power Contract be Executed for one (1) Year Contract listed as Schedule #9.' The municipal lights for the Fire House were not to be charged for. No referendum was ever called, no bonds were issued, and no municipal plant was built. — 1937 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The five-year term did not survive 1937. On 1 June 1937 the council 'agreed to sign contract if changed to one year' for the town's own lighting, and on 29 June, when Cecil Blake and two others came to ask that the power contract for the two sewer pumping stations and the disposal plant be signed for five years, 'Council agreed to sign contract for 1 year and contract was Executed on a 1 year basis.' Ocean City refused a five-year power contract twice in four weeks in the same year it took delivery of a plant that ran on electricity.

   This is the answer the water-light-and-sewer thread has been waiting two years for. Ocean City went to Annapolis for a power station and came home with a better tariff. The credible threat of building your own plant was worth $375 a year and five years of certainty - which is the whole municipal-utility argument of the 1930s compressed into one council minute.

   Eastern Shore Public Service CompanyWilliam H. ScottClark Gardner

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1936 · 1936-07-14

   For the third year running Ocean City levied a dollar per hundred

   On 14 July 1936, on the motion of Dr. F. J. Townsend seconded by W. Preston Laws, the council 'decided to make the tax levy for 1936 at $1.00 per Hundred same as 1935'. The same minute adds some forty names to the tax books - Samuel Adams and wife, furniture, $600; Lester Esham, multi-store and apartments, $1,000; Talbot Bunting, extra store on house, $720; Harland Huston, apartments on 12th Street, $4,200; Charles J. and Lydia B. Jackson, dance hall addition, $3,000; McKenny Price, new house and garage apartments, $3,600; the Ocean City Ice Company office, $300 - reduces three assessments, and strikes several erroneous 1934 and 1935 taxes off, including $410 against the estate of Geo. W. Purnell. Held flat since 1934, the dollar rate spans the whole of the town's Depression.

   Ocean City Ice Company

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

4. 1936 · 1936-08-03

   Ocean City's whole 1936 town election was forty-eight votes, cast between two and six on an August Monday, with nobody running against anybody

   A special town election was held on Monday 3 August 1936 in the magistrate's office 'for Purpose of Electing one person for Mayor and three persons for Councilmen to serve two Years from second Monday of September 1936.' The polls were open from two o'clock until six. The returns filed with the clerk by the judges - Horace H. Richardson, S. J. Quillin and E. P. Calhoun - were: W. Thomas Elliott for Mayor, 48 votes; W. Preston Laws for Councilman, 48; Dr. F. J. Townsend, 48; W. H. Scott, 48. 'No other Votes were Cast.' The four were sworn in for two years by Magistrate Ralph B. Parsons at the regular meeting of 8 September. Nine months earlier the same electorate - property owners assessed with and owning $100 of town property for a year, under Chapter 45 of the Acts of 1935 - had turned out 105 voters to decide the sewer bonds by 104 to 1.

   Forty-eight men re-elected a government that was halfway through building a sewer and six weeks from losing the boardwalk. The sewer had drawn more than twice the turnout: in this town money on the ballot brought people out and offices did not.

   W. Thomas ElliottWilliam H. Scott

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

5. 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 WorksWilliam H. ScottT. Alan Goldsborough

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 1936 · 1936-11-21

   Ordinance No. 55, passed 21 November 1936: rebuild the boardwalk across your own frontage, or the town will do it and bill you

   On the Saturday evening of 21 November 1936 the council read Ordinance No. 55 on rebuilding the board walk, together with its specifications and the covering letter to property owners, and on Dr. F. J. Townsend's motion, seconded by W. Preston Laws, passed it unanimously. Copies were then ordered sent by registered mail to the last known address of every ocean-front owner, and the clerk wrote the names and frontages into the minute book - some forty of them, from Ernest Purnell's fifty feet of Lot 12 to Mrs. Louise Johnson's hundred and fifty feet of Block 1, with addresses in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Laurel, Salisbury and Washington as often as in Ocean City. Pencilled marginal notes record the mailing: 'Mailed 11/25/36', 'OK', and a second batch 'mailed Dec 1, 36'. The Messenger had already reported the terms: a charge of $7 a running foot on about 7,700 feet, a total outlay of $53,900, with the rebuilt walk 24 feet wide from Dorchester Street north to North Fifth Street and 16 feet wide from there northward, and laid crosswise instead of diagonally - a change proposed by the hotel owner Dr. Charles W. Purnell that was reckoned to cut the cost by a quarter. — 1937 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The ordinance was carried out. On 19 January 1937 the Ocean City council assessed the Atlantic Avenue properties by name — $369.57 for a fifty-foot lot where the walk was twenty-four feet wide, $257.83 where it was sixteen — and instructed the secretary to send the bills out 'for walk fronts as it was completed'. On 19 March the mayor was authorised to borrow enough money to settle for the walk when needed. The rate actually charged was $7.3914 a running foot, not the $7 the ordinance contemplated. THE COMPLETE 1937 RUNS OF BOTH COUNTY PAPERS — 645 pages of the Democratic Messenger and 2,766 of the Salisbury Times — CONTAIN NO SUIT, NO INJUNCTION, NO PROTEST MEETING AND NO REFUSAL TO PAY, and no published text of the ordinance. What the Messenger reports instead, on 11 March 1937, is that 'the construction has wholly been done by property owners on the ocean front, who placed the matter of purchasing materials and building in the hands of the Mayor and Council, refusing to accept Federal or other financial aid.'

   The most consequential Ocean City ordinance the campaign has recovered from the 1930s, and it survives only as a number, a vote and a mailing list. The text itself is still in a book the town has never digitised.

   Ocean City BoardwalkDr. Charles Washington Purnell

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

7. 1937 · 1937-02-08

   Ocean City borrowed its own $8,250 share of the sewer by issuing eight more thousand-dollar bonds at 4 per cent

   'Whereas, in addition to funds granted and loaned to Mayor and City Council of Ocean City by the United States for the construction of sewers and disposal plant at Ocean City under P.W.A. Project No. Md. 1065-R, the municipality must furnish the sum of eight thousand two hundred fifty dollars ($8250.00)' - so on 8 February 1937 the council resolved to borrow $8,000 on the full faith and credit of the town and to issue 'eight negotiable interest bearing coupon bonds ... said bonds to be Nos. 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68 and 69 of the issue known as "Sewerage Bonds", to be in the denomination of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) each, to be dated November 1, 1935, to bear interest at the rate of 4% per annum payable semi-annually on May 1st and November 1st of each year until maturity.' They were to be 'sold privately at par plus accrued interest.' W. Preston Laws moved it; the vote was unanimous and the Mayor approved it.

   Federal Emergency Administration of Public WorksW. Thomas ElliottFrancis J. TownsendWilliam H. ScottJohn M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

8. 1937 · 1937-04-26

   Ocean City passed an ordinance on the occupancy of buildings a week before it settled its biggest permit fight

   'An ordinance Relating to Occupancy of Buildings known as Ordinance #30A was read and after discussion motion was offered by Councilman W. P. Laws, Seconded by Dr. F. J. Townsend that Ordinance be passed. Vote was unanimous.' A week later, on 3 May, 'Attorney Edwin Johnson was present and read Ordinance #30 A relating to Building & Business' - the town solicitor reading his own instrument back to the council on the night it granted John Lambros his permit. The two entries describe the same ordinance by two different subjects, which is as close as the 1937 minutes come to saying what it did. The council had also, on 19 March, discussed a pasteurised milk ordinance and rejected it, and on 7 June it instructed Johnson to prepare an ordinance forbidding reckless driving on Baltimore and Philadelphia Avenues.

   Edmond H. JohnsonFrancis J. Townsend

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

9. 1937 · 1937-05-03

   Three meetings, a public hearing and a 2-1 vote: how John Lambros got permission to put fourteen apartments and a soda fountain on Atlantic Avenue

   On 15 April 1937 Councilman Scott moved 'that Permission be granted John Lambros to drive piling for a building 45 X 96 on Lot #9 Block #5 North', the building to be kept back of the present Atlantic Avenue building and porch lines, 'it being understood that the building to be erected is not yet Approved for lack of Sufficient information Nor are the purposes for which the building is to be used approved.' Townsend and Scott voted aye, Laws no. On 26 April the council set a hearing for Friday evening and the secretary notified the neighbours by name - the Shoreham Hotel, Percy Hickling, R. E. and Bertha Rouse, Chas. Seybold, Dale Showell, Mrs. Fooks, Elsie Seeger Barton, Fred Wolf for the Wheatton estate, L. E. Neal Jr. and Hattie Cropper. At the hearing on 30 April, Frank W. Truitt 'spoke opposing the restaurant, on behalf of Wheatton & Barton Property'; Mrs. H. J. Cropper spoke for granting the permit; letters against came from L. E. Neal Jr. and R. E. Rouse. A new application was then filed 'stating That Building was for 2 upper floors for 14 Apartments lower floor for Restaurant Soda Fountain, novelty store, notions & Confections are only business to be operated on the premises.' On 3 May the permit was granted, Scott and Townsend yes, Laws no. Two months later Lambros was assessed $8,000 on personal property, the largest such figure on the 1937 book.

   The Shoreham Hotel / Shenanigan's Irish PubJohn LambrosWilliam H. ScottFrancis J. TownsendF. W. TruittHarry J. Cropper

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

10. 1937 · 1937-06-07

    Ocean City, Berlin and Pocomoke met to go after the county's liquor profits, and Ocean City authorised its solicitor to sue

    The town solicitor 'reported on meeting held in Pocomoke City "Subject Liquor Profits" which he & Mayor Elliott attended at which were present Senator Veasey & Council from Berlin & Pocomoke at which meeting the legal Situation regarding old liquor profits Act were discussed'. On W. Preston Laws's motion, seconded by Dr. Townsend, 'the Council were Unanimous in Authorizeing Mr. Johnson to appear for the City in any legal Proceeding relating to liquor profits and endeavour to obtain Cities Share of Profits.' Three Worcester County towns acting together against the county over the proceeds of the state liquor dispensary is the largest piece of inter-municipal politics in Ocean City's 1937 record, and the town's own minute is the only account of it the campaign holds.

    Edmond H. JohnsonW. Thomas ElliottFrancis J. Townsend

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

11. 1937 · 1937-06-08

    On 8 June 1937 Ocean City accepted its sewage treatment plant, and the two-year job the town had voted 104 to 1 for was finished

    Dr. F. J. Townsend offered the resolution and W. Preston Laws seconded it, and it passed unanimously: the Mayor and City Council 'have accepted as satisfactory - Subject to prior acceptance by the Consulting Engineer - Sewerage Treatment Plant, Force mains, and Appurtenances recently Constructed at Ocean City, Maryland, by M. J. McDermott, of Georgetown, Delaware, under Contract #2 PWA Docket NO Md. 1065-2R.' The clerk was again to notify the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works. McDermott had bid $74,510.48 as the low bidder on 26 June 1936 and started work on 26 August 1936; the plant was in the ground in ten months and had been running long enough by 15 April 1937 for the council to decide it did not need the manufacturer's man to stay on and give instruction. The system had cost the town $61,000 of federal bonds, an $8,250 cash contribution of its own and a federal grant that had been raised to $56,659.

    The 1936 pass closed with the sewer '70 per cent complete' and a hole where the answer should be. This is the answer, in the town's own hand: accepted, 8 June 1937, from the low bidder of the previous June.

    M. J. McDermottFederal Emergency Administration of Public WorksM. J. McDermottFrancis J. TownsendW. Thomas ElliottJohn M. MumfordClark Gardner

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

12. 1937 · 1937-06-16

    The council refused to grant anyone a taxi franchise in 1937, licensed a bicycle-hire man, and told the fireworks dealers the ordinance would be enforced

    'Taxi Service was discussed and on motion by W. H. Scott, Seconded by W. P. Laws council refuses to grant any franchise.' In the same sitting of 16 June 1937 the 'Application of Harold I. Schneiderer for to rent Bikes was O.K.'; the council 'decided to enforce the fireworks ordinance & Secretary instructed to notify all dealers of this section'; an unnumbered ordinance was passed; and the council granted the Fire Company $50 towards their expenses to Easton, where the Maryland State Firemen's Association was holding its convention. Earlier in the month the council had also turned away a trailer park: the secretary was to tell Mr. Duncan Jr. 'they did not look kindly to any place north of Dorchester St.', though the railroad lot south of Worcester Street might be considered if the neighbours had no objection and the sanitary condition could be met.

    Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentMaryland State Firemen's AssociationWilliam H. ScottHarold I. Schneiderer

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

13. 1937 · 1937-06-24

    The rebuilt boardwalk cost $38,945.63 — and the ocean-front owners paid $17,377.92 of it, less than half

    The Messenger's annual survey of Ocean City's assessable basis, 24 June 1937, printed the settled account: 'the new Ocean City boardwalk, which cost a total of $38,945.63. The boardwalk cost was divided between city taxpayers whose properties lie adjacent to the walk and the administration. Taxpayers paid $17,377.92 while the city paid the remaining cost of $21,567.71.' That is 44.6 per cent to the assessed owners and 55.4 per cent to the town. Three figures had been in the air: the paper's own $100,000 in March for the whole repair bill; $23,000 from an unnamed source; and Mayor Elliott's revised $50,000, published on 18 March after he had 'figur[ed] detailed costs of the project, including discounts on material saved'. The final number is well under all of them, and it is a long way under what Ordinance No. 55 contemplated: $7 a running foot on about 7,700 feet is roughly $54,000, and the assessment roll of 19 January charged $7.39 a foot. The same article gives the town's assessable basis as $2,961,494, up $150,000 in the year and up from $800,000 in 1922, with the tax rate at $1 per $100.

    Ordinance No. 55 was written to make the owners pay for the boardwalk. In the event the owners paid for a bit under half of it and the town quietly picked up the rest — which is the oldest arrangement in Ocean City and the one the town has never stopped renegotiating.

    Ocean City BoardwalkW. Thomas ElliottJohn M. MumfordWilliam H. ScottFrancis J. Townsend

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

14. 1937 · 1937-06-28

    Ocean City ran its 1937 season on short notes from a Berlin bank - $3,000 in May and $3,000 in June

    On 25 May 1937 the council resolved 'that the city under the signature of its Clerk and Mayor be and hereby is authorized to borrow from The Exchange and Savings Bank of Berlin Maryland the sum of Three Thousand ($3,000) dollars binding the full faith and credit of the City therefor by promissory note in appropiate form', and on 28 May the clerk sent the bank a note for 120 days with a cheque for the interest. On 28 June the council passed the identical resolution again, and on 29 June sent the bank a second note, this one for ninety days. A resort whose whole income arrived between June and September borrowed its way to the season twice in five weeks, on the town's letterhead and over the mayor's signature.

    Exchange and Savings Bank of BerlinW. Thomas ElliottJohn M. MumfordFrancis J. Townsend

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

15. 1937 · 1937-07-13

    Elliott Bros. were given leave to dike their land north of First Street and dig a basin in it

    The council reconvened after adjourning on 13 July 1937 and, on Laws's motion seconded by Scott, 'Elliott Bros. were granted permit to dike their land between North 1st Street & North 2nd Street and dig a basin as outlined by plans prepared by Gardner & Dallas and permit was O.K.' The town's consulting engineers, fresh from the sewer, were drawing plans to turn bay marsh at the north end of the built-up town into a private basin - the same shape of work, on a private account, that the fishing harbour at West Ocean City had been doing on the public one since 1936.

    Clark GardnerWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

16. 1937 · 1937-07-13

    Ocean City held its tax rate at a dollar on the hundred for a fourth straight year, and exactly one taxpayer turned up to complain

    On 29 June 1937 the council listed the year's new and increased assessments and sent notice to every owner on it of a meeting on 13 July 'for to hear any complaints of why the property should not be assessed as listed for year of 1937 taxes'. Among them: Wallace & Jarman, improvements on restaurant and apartments, $3,000; S. Dodd Shuster, bungalow and garage, $4,000; Clarence Carey, dance hall, $1,000; Samuel and Belle Adams, house, $4,800; John Lambros, personal, $8,000 - the largest personal assessment on the page; W. C. Pool, floating houses on lots, $100 each, $600 in all; 'Royalton (Kelly)', personal, $2,000; Rudolph Dolle, body shop, $650; Harry J. Cropper, work shop, $1,000; and Elizabeth Hufford's apartments raised from $3,000 to $4,800. A shorter list of property 'marked off for 1937' cut the Jester, Kelly, Magel, Mumford and Massey books. On 13 July, 'Sam Ayers was only one appeared asking for reduction of 100 on personal in small house and reduction was made.' The council then made 'tax levy for 1937 ... 10.00 Thousand' - one dollar on the hundred, unanimously, the same rate it had held in 1934, 1935 and 1936. — 1938 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: And then it did not. The run of four years at a dollar on the hundred ended on 21 June 1938, when the Ocean City council passed the 1938 levy at 85 cents per $100 on Dr. Townsend's motion seconded by Preston Laws - a cut of fifteen per cent, after a discussion on 31 May of cutting twenty that reached no decision.

    William H. ScottJohn LambrosHarry J. CropperRudolph DolleW. C. PoolClarence CareyEthel Kelley

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

17. 1937 · 1937-09-02

    Five hundred and thirty voters, one-third of them living out of town, were entitled to choose where Ocean City's $900,000 bridge would land

    The Messenger followed the bridge from soundings to statute. In April the State Roads Commission made borings in Ocean City harbour for a '$760,000' span while a delegation from Ocean City and West Ocean City petitioned with 150 property owners' signatures for a site south of Wicomico Street, preferably South Division Street; in March the Commission voted $1,000 for emergency repairs to the existing bridge. On 26 August the paper reported the 'Sinepuxent Bridge Bill passed by the Senate', 'providing for construction of bridge at either Wicomico, Worcester or South Division Streets, but people of Ocean City' to choose. On 2 September, under 'Ocean City To Hold Bridge Site Election Thursday; 530 Voters', it printed the mechanics: the special election on 9 September, polls at the Municipal Building on Dorchester Street from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., a ballot listing North Division, South Division, Wicomico and Worcester Streets with a blank for a write-in, and a cost now put at $900,000 with approaches. And it printed the franchise, which is the striking part: 'Under the Ocean City Charter, persons who are taxpayers on real or personal property at Ocean City, irrespective of their residence, may vote' — about a third of the 530 lived somewhere else. In December the delay in the plans sent the Chamber of Commerce to Governor Nice, and on 15 December W. Preston Laws and C. W. Purnell 'volunteered to go to Annapolis on Wednesday to tell Gov. Harry Nice where to put the new bridge at Ocean City.'

    Maryland State Roads CommissionOcean City Chamber of CommerceW. Thomas ElliottDr. Charles Washington Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

18. 1937 · 1937-09-09

    Ocean City voted 275 to 97 for Worcester Street as the landing of its new highway bridge, and Congress had already written the choice into federal law

    By an Act of the first session of the 75th Congress the State Roads Commission of Maryland was authorised 'to construct, maintain and operate a free highway bridge and approaches thereto across Sinepuxent Bay, at Worcester Street, or South Division Street or Wicomico Street, in Worcester County, Maryland, at Ocean City' - and the Act further provided that if the town's voters designated a preference for some other point, 'then such designation shall be the point fixed for the building of said bridge.' The council called a special meeting on 30 August 1937 and, on F. J. Townsend's motion seconded by W. Preston Laws, resolved 3-0 to put the question to the voters on 9 September, polls at the Municipal Building from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., ballot listing Worcester, Wicomico, South Division and North Division Streets with a blank line for a write-in. The judges of election were Wm. G. Rounds, Edwin P. Calhoun and Edward Kurtz, and the result the clerk entered was: Worcester 275, North Division 83, Wicomico 7, South Division 6, North 1st Street 1. Worcester Street is where the bridge was built and where the causeway still lands.

    A town of a few hundred voters was handed, by federal statute, the power to overrule Congress on where its own bridge would touch the island - and used it to confirm the obvious.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionW. Thomas ElliottFrancis J. TownsendWilliam H. ScottJohn M. MumfordWilliam G. RoundsEdwin P. CalhounEdward Kurtz

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

19. 1937 · 1937-12-14

    Ocean City ended 1937 by buying a second sewer: $6,921.15 to put an eight-inch line down the west side of Philadelphia Avenue

    The PWA system had served the ocean side. On 9 November the secretary was ordered to ask the engineer Clark Gardner when he could meet the council 'and decide on what could be done on Connecting sewer on west side of Phila. ave'. On 16 November Gardner and Dallas went over the plans and it was decided to ask for bids 'for Connecting up with new Sewer 8" leaving present lines for Storm Drains'. On 14 December the bids were opened in front of the three contractors themselves - 'Mr. McDermott of Georgetown Del., Munday of Bridgeton N.J., Clark Gardner, Dallas of Salisbury' were all present - and read: A. Stanley Mundy $7,625.30, M. J. McDermott $7,373.50, George & Lynch $6,921.15, each with a certified cheque for $500. Dr. Townsend moved and Laws seconded, and the contract went to George & Lynch. The same evening the council released W. C. Pool from a sewer easement taken on his land in November 1929, 'as the City has no use for a sewer crossing any of the property on West Side of Phila ave', and told Mrs. Kuhit it would put in the necessary sewer on 8th Street when she was ready to build.

    George & LynchA. Stanley Mundy & Co., Inc.M. J. McDermottClark GardnerM. J. McDermottFrancis J. TownsendW. C. Pool

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

20. 1937 · 1937-12-14

    The town's own online minute archive lists 21 Ocean City council meetings for 1937; the minute pages themselves record 24

    The IQM2 calendar returns 21 meetings for 1 January to 31 December 1937, each with exactly one document, all of them Type=15 summary minutes, 21 PDFs carrying 32 scanned page images between them. Reading those 32 images turns up three sittings that have no calendar entry at all: a regular meeting on 25 May 1937, known only from a letter to the Exchange and Savings Bank quoting a resolution 'passed at our regular meeting of May 25th 1937'; a meeting on 13 September 1937 that awarded the winter garbage contract, written into the same page as the 9 September election result; and a meeting on 23 November 1937 that awarded the comfort station contracts, written in behind the minute of 16 November. The council did not meet at all between 13 July and 30 August, or in October, or in December before the 14th. Ocean City's councillors through 1937 were W. Preston Laws, Dr. F. J. Townsend and William H. Scott, with W. Thomas Elliott as mayor, J. M. Mumford as clerk and Edmond Johnson as solicitor - the same five men, unchanged, as in 1936.

    The archive is an index to the minute book, not a copy of it. Three meetings out of twenty-four are invisible to anyone who trusts the calendar - which is a nine per cent error rate on a source this campaign is about to run through ninety more years.

    W. Thomas ElliottFrancis J. TownsendWilliam H. ScottJohn M. MumfordEdmond H. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

21. 1937 · 1937-12-30

    Four months after Ocean City voted 275 to 97 for Worcester Street, the state said the vote was not binding and the bridge would go somewhere else

    'Ocean City's new bridge over the Sinepuxent Bay ... probably will be built several blocks north of the present span despite a municipal vote for the present location,' the Associated Press reported from Baltimore on 30 December 1937. 'Ocean City residents, in a special election, voted for the present site. The vote is not binding on the state.' That is the whole 1937 bridge story in one sentence. Congress had written into the Act the town's right to designate a point; the town had spent August and September organising a special election in which non-resident taxpayers could vote; 372 ballots were cast and 275 of them said Worcester Street. In December two councilmen 'volunteered to go to Annapolis ... to tell Gov. Harry Nice where to put the new bridge at Ocean City', and by the end of the month the State Roads Commission's engineers had a different answer. The bridge, when it came, landed at Worcester Street after all — but not because of the vote. — 1938 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The consequence is now documented at both ends. On 6 June 1938 Ocean City's own council enacted an ordinance approving the State Roads Commission's plans for a bridge landing in the beds of North Division and Caroline Streets under SRC Contract No. WO-180, and granted the state the public easement in both - which is to say the town legislated the referendum's defeat, seven months after losing the argument. The State Roads Commission accepted the grant on 27 July 1938 and sent a certified copy of its resolution back to the town, and it was copied into the minute book. The fight nonetheless continued through a residents' committee, a War Department permit hearing on 15 August at which twelve speakers opposed the North Division site, and a request in November for another federal hearing.

    A federal statute gave a town of 530 taxpayers a veto over its own bridge, and the state took nine words in an AP wire to say the veto did not exist.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionDr. Charles Washington Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

22. 1938 · 1938-06-06

    Nine months after voting four to one for Worcester Street, Ocean City signed away North Division and Caroline Streets for the new bridge instead

    On 9 September 1937 the town voted 275 to 97 for Worcester Street as the landing of its new highway bridge, in a referendum Congress itself had written into the bridge authorisation. On 30 December 1937 the state said the vote was not binding. On the morning of Monday 6 June 1938, at a special meeting called for the purpose, the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City enacted an ordinance approving the State Roads Commission's plans 'for the Construction of a bridge over Sinepuxent Bay from Ocean City to the mainland, and its Approaches in the Beds of North Division Street and Caroline Street', under the Commission's Contract No. WO-180, and granted the State of Maryland the public easement in the beds of both streets from Philadelphia Avenue to Sinepuxent Bay - reserving to itself, in Section 3, 'the full power and right at all times to enact and enforce all such traffic and parking rules and regulations' and all other police powers. The State Roads Commission accepted the grant by resolution at its Baltimore office on 27 July 1938, on the motion of Mr. Jarboe seconded by Mr. Luthardt, and sent a certified copy back to the town over the signature of its secretary L. H. Steuart, which was copied into the minute book. Ocean City's own council thus enacted the defeat of Ocean City's own referendum, and did it unanimously in a nine-thirty morning session. — 1940 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The 1938 fact records Ocean City signing away North Division and Caroline Streets. Two things are now added, neither of which changes it. First, the State Roads Commission formally ACCEPTED the grant by resolution at its Baltimore office on 27 July 1938, moved by Mr. Barboe and seconded by Mr. Luthardt, and a certified copy signed by L. H. Stewart, Secretary, is filed in the Ocean City minute book. Second, the town REPEALED the grant by ordinance on 15 January 1940 at a special meeting called by the new mayor - and then, on 12 March 1940, had to ask its own attorney whether the repeal was valid or whether the previous council's grant still held. The 1938 transaction was therefore not final, and the campaign should stop treating it as the end of the bridge fight.

    The only time Congress ever gave a Maryland resort town a veto over a federal bridge, the town used it, won it four to one, and then thirteen weeks after the state overruled the result passed an ordinance handing over the streets the losing side had wanted. The referendum is in the record and so is the ordinance, and the ordinance is the one that built the bridge.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionW. Thomas ElliottJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

23. 1938 · 1938-06-21

    After four straight years at a dollar, Ocean City cut its tax rate to 85 cents in June 1938 - six weeks before an election

    The dollar on the hundred had held since 1934. On 31 May 1938 'a discussion was had on reducing the tax rate 20% and no decision was reached leaving until a later date.' On 21 June, on Dr. Townsend's motion seconded by Preston Laws, 'levy was passed for 1938 at 85 Cents per $100' - a cut of fifteen per cent, not twenty. Six weeks later the mayor who presided over it did not stand for re-election and the councilman who moved it was beaten. In November the new council was asked by F. W. Truitt, Cecil Blake, Parker Smith and Dr. Buhrman to put enough back on the rate to raise $4,000 for the Chamber of Commerce to advertise with, and had to answer that 'for present year the tax levy was made and there could be very little done'.

    Francis J. TownsendW. Thomas Elliott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

24. 1938 · 1938-07-27

    On 27 July 1938 Ocean City handed Philadelphia Avenue north of Ninth Street to the State of Maryland, and the Coastal Highway was born out of a town street

    At a special meeting on the evening of Wednesday 27 July 1938 - the mayor and two councilmen present, moved by Dr. Townsend and seconded by Preston Laws - Ocean City passed an ordinance granting the State Roads Commission 'the title in and to the bed of Phila. Ave and the intersecting streets from south Side of Ninth Street to the northerly Corporate limits of Ocean City, and the title to a portion of Lots # 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11 in Block 53 of a plat of Ocean City', for the purpose of 'Constructing a Costal highway leading from Ocean City to the Delaware line', under the Commission's Contract No. WO-171-1-1019 and its plats Nos. 3250 and 3251. The recital is explicit that the lots the state wanted were the town's own and were 'used in Connection with their Water System'. A week earlier, on 20 July, the council had already voted to deed the state eighteen to twenty feet off Baltimore Avenue frontage of the same lots 'for the widening of Phila. Ave. from 9th to 15th St.' and to grant the easement in the street bed from 9th to 15th. The State Roads Commission accepted the whole grant at its Baltimore meeting on 28 July 1938, again on Jarboe's motion seconded by Luthardt, and the resolution was copied into the town's minute book. Section 3 kept the town's police power, its traffic rules and its parking rules over the road - which is why parking on Coastal Highway has been an Ocean City question ever since. — 1938 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The purpose and price of the road the town gave Philadelphia Avenue for are now attested from outside the minute book. The Worcester Democrat and the Ledger-Enterprise of 8 July 1938, page 2, file 0391, gives it as a $200,000 coastal highway to meet the Delaware seacoast road at the state line, one lane to be built that summer, a dual highway only hoped for. The State Roads Commission's own operating report for fiscal 1939-1940 subsequently records the highway as COMPLETED and Rehoboth as thirty miles from Ocean City by road.

    Everything north of Ninth Street in Ocean City is built along a road the town gave away in a single evening in July 1938 to get a concrete highway to Delaware. It cost the town its own street, part of its waterworks lot, and nothing else - and it is the single decision that made the modern island possible.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionW. Thomas ElliottFrancis J. TownsendJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

25. 1938 · 1938-08-15

    Three hundred people packed the Ocean City Pier convention hall in August 1938 for a War Department hearing on the bridge, and twelve of them spoke against it

    Capt. H. T. Miller, District War Department engineer, and Col. John S. Doyle, Senior District Engineer, presided over a public hearing in the Ocean City Pier convention hall on Monday 15 August 1938, 'held to ascertain opinion on the application of the State Roads Commission for a War Department permit to construct a new $450,000 bay bridge at North Division street in Ocean City'. Around three hundred people came, mostly from Ocean City and its neighbourhood. The count was lopsided: 'Two speakers and four documents in favor of granting the State a permit for a North Division street bridge were offset by opposition expressed in ten documents together with verbal statements made by twelve speakers.' Navigation was the only argument that counted. Letters and petitions came from boat captains of St. Martin's River and Isle of Wight Bay, from Ocean City boat captains who offered a petition, and from Trimper's Marine Railway, The Farms Company, Glen Riddle Farms, Peninsula Packing Company, the Beach Gunning Club, the Nordica Hotel, W. Preston Laws and Capt. Thomas T. Moore. Don Harmon, an Ocean City seafood dealer, and Capt. Gilbert of Florida, a party-boat captain, spoke against; so did Capt. Granville Taylor of Crisfield and State Senator Milton L. Veasey. Clarence Carey argued that a North Division Street span 'would be too close to the present Worcester street bridge a few blocks south and would be a menace to navigation'. On the other side, Grice Long, a boat owner and Ocean City summer resident of five years, said 'a bridge at North Division street would be a boon not only to navigation but to traffic'. And Capt. Miller made the ruling that mattered: the State Roads Commission 'must definitely decide whether or not it intends to maintain the present Worcester street bridge at Ocean City, before any permit will be issued by the War Department for a new $450,000 bay bridge at North Division street or any other location.'

    The referendum had been overruled and the town's own council had signed the streets away in June. So the fight moved to the only forum left that had not yet ruled - the federal permit - and the argument stopped being about where Ocean City wanted its bridge and became about what would happen to the bridge it already had.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionClarence CareyThomas T. MooreCapt. H. T. MillerCol. John S. DoyleMilton L. Veasey

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

26. 1941 · 1941-12-11

    Four days after Pearl Harbor and on the day Germany declared war, the Ocean City council sat down and organised a home defence council — eleven departments, twenty-two names, and a Department of Evacuation.

    The 1940 minute book does not mention the war once, in the year of the fall of France. The 1941 book does not mention it either — until 11 December. The council met at 7:15 on Thursday evening with Mayor C. P. Cropper and Councilmen Harold Rayne and Raymond Bounds, granted a building permit to Chas. S. Powell for a two-apartment dwelling on the alley between 11th and 12th Streets, let the English Diner move to a site next to the Post Office on Dr. Chas. W. Purnell's ground, and resolved to borrow from the Bank of Ocean City to meet bonds and coupons due 1 January. Then: 'Mr. S. Earl Tromley, John I. Timmons and Miss Lena Riggin were present to help in organizeing home defence council and the following were selected to head the orginization.' Those three were not helpful neighbours. As the Worcester Democrat printed a week later, they were the entire executive of the Worcester County Council of Defense — Tromley its Executive Director, Timmons its Chief Air Raid Warden, and Miss Lena H. Riggin its Executive Secretary, all three of Snow Hill — going town to town. They were carrying an order. The same paper prints the telegram that sent them: 'Supplementing my telegram December 10, immediate arrangements must be made to hold blackouts just as quickly as possible. No delay in this matter, as conditions are very serious. Let me know when ready. Col. Henry Barrett, Director of air raid Precaution Service for Maryland.' The roster Ocean City adopted that night, verbatim from the minute: John B. Lynch, Commander. Harold Rayne and L. B. Cropper, Dept. of Public Safety. J. M. Mumford and Robert Allen, Dept. of Public Works. Dr. F. J. Townsend and Guy R. P. Dennis, Dept. Public Health. Archie Davis and Morris Peacock, Dept. Fire Protection. D. Trimper Sr. and Denard Baker, Dept. Transporation. Arthur Davis and Preston Laws, Dept. Gen. Supplies. Rev. Dewees and F. W. Truitt, Dept. Evacuation. Willie Ludlam and Gladys Jackson, Red Cross. E. M. Scott and Chas. J. Jackson, Communication. Bob Jackson and Wm. H. Purnell, Air Wardens. The council adjourned at eleven. Pocomoke City's mayor and council met specially the same Thursday evening and resolved to organise a Civilian Defense Corps of their own, and Pocomoke's published department list — Public Safety, Evacuation, Transportation, Communications, Public Works, Fire Protection, General Supply, Public Health — is the same scheme under the same headings. So the eleven departments were a template handed down, not a local invention; what Ocean City supplied was twenty-two names, and the names are the whole value of the document. By 18 December the county could report that Home Defense Corps in Snow Hill, Pocomoke City, Berlin and Ocean City were 'now complete in every detail', and Mayor Clifford P. Cropper sat on the county council himself.

    Ocean City Home Defense CouncilWorcester County Council of DefenseBank of Ocean CityClifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsJohn B. LynchS. Earl TromleyMiss Lena H. RigginGladys JacksonMorris PeacockWillie LudlamFrancis J. TownsendArchie DavisL. B. CropperRobert AllenJ. M. MumfordDaniel Trimper, Sr.F. W. TruittEdward M. ScottWilliam H. Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

27. 1953

    The weekly Ocean City social column had effectively stopped, and in its place came "Ocean City Dawn Patrol" by "Archibald", datelined Water Witch Apts., Zippy's Creek, Beach Road

    The column that ran under Mrs. W. P. Laws's byline through 1951 appears in three issues of fifty-two. In its place, two or three times a year, is a humour column by "Archibald" datelined Water Witch Apts., Zippy's Creek, Beach Road, Ocean City.

    Source · checked 2026-09-02

28. 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 CommerceRobert Lee Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-09-02

29. 1960 · 1960-12-29

    An Ocean City beverage dealer paid $600 for a licence where the rest of Worcester County paid $1,500 — and the mayor called the reform of it a scheme

    "Mayor Hits Sunday Sales As 'Scheme' — County Board [Wants] No Change In Laws … The Ocean City beverage dealer is paying $600 for his licence while the cost is $1,500 for a permit elsewhere in the county … [a] proposed increase in licence and permit fees … would put the dispensary out of business." The clearest statement in the corpus that Ocean City and Worcester County were being governed on different terms — a two-and-a-half-to-one gap in the price of the same permission, defended by the resort's own mayor.

    Source · checked 2026-09-02

30. 1980

    Thirty-one meetings, one source, and the last year of the Maryland Coast Press holding at the State Archives — 1980 closes the run that SC 5241 could have supplied

    Mayor Harry W. Kelley; President J. Warren Frame; Councilmen Purnell, Harrison, Laws; Mr. Bounds, Building Inspector. SC 5241 holds the Maryland Coast Press for 1969-1980 and SC 4414 the Eastern Shore Times for 1973-1979. Neither has been read for any year. From 1981 the archive holdings this campaign has identified run out and the newspaper-gap plan turns to Enoch Pratt.

    Harry W. KelleyE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-09-02

31. 1980 · 1980-04-21

    Four years after refusing casinos, a zoning commissioner asked a bus operator whether she was still running vans to Atlantic City's — and the denial was given five times in three lines

    Mr. Laws: "Last year, one of the things that you attempted to do, I understand, was to run vans and busses to and from Atlantic City for groups who were interested in the Casinos and gambling. Do you have any intentions with regard to that sort of operation this year?" Mrs. Marini: "No sir." Mr. Laws: "None at all? You're not connected in any way with the people up there? … None of the Atlantic City people that you dealt with last year?" Mrs. Marini: "No. Nothing. No connection whatsoever." Kelley told a delegate in 1976 to keep his casinos in his own bailiwick. The market answered by running a shuttle.

    Source · checked 2026-09-02