History

William G. Rounds

judge of election; hotel owner · active 1937

One of the three judges of Ocean City's special election of 9 September 1937 on the location of the new State Highway Bridge, with Edwin P. Calhoun and Edward Kurtz. He certified the result to the clerk: Worcester Street 275, North Division 83, Wicomico 7, South Division 6, North First Street 1. In October he went to the Ocean City Day dinner at Baltimore's Lord Baltimore Hotel as one of the two delegates of the Hotel Owners' Association, with Earl E. Conley.

In the record (1)

  1. 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. TownsendW. Preston LawsWilliam H. ScottJohn M. MumfordEdwin P. CalhounEdward Kurtz

    Source · checked 2026-08-11