The Beach

The take

The main event, and it's free — ten miles of guarded Atlantic beach running the full length of the island. Swim near a lifeguard, learn what the flags mean, and stake your spot early on July weekends. Sunrise here costs nothing and beats everything else on the schedule.

Heritage context

• Sinepuxent Beach Company

  Founded 1890 · active today

  The development company that platted the island beyond the original 1875 resort. Incorporated in December 1890 by Robert G. Keene, Dr. J. Pembroke Thom, Samuel C. Rowland and Charles A. Coombs, with capital stock of $60,000 stated to represent the purchase price of the land. It owned eight miles of beach on Sinepuxent Bay adjoining Ocean City at the terminus of the Baltimore and Eastern Shore Railroad — some 2,000 acres, assembled that August out of the estate of the late Stephen Taber — and had it topographically surveyed and laid out into building lots divided by streets and avenues, with wharves and an electric railway contemplated. Directors for the first year were the incorporators together with Joseph B. Seth (president of the railroad), Edward Austin Jenkins, John F. Waggaman of Washington and Gabriel E. Duvall; Thom was elected president, Theophilus Tunis (the railroad's secretary) vice-president and J. Frank Turner secretary and treasurer. The street grid north of the original town descends from this survey. The company later acquired the Atlantic Hotel Company's holdings; the dates given for that in retrospectives (1891, 1892) are unsettled.