Ocean City: 1917 through 1953

Editor’s note: Fred Miller is a local historian, trustee of the Ocean City Historical Museum, trustee of the Ocean City Lifesaving Museum, and a member of the Ocean City Historic Preservation Commission.  Photos courtesy of Fred Miller and the Ocean City Historical Museum.

1917
Building contractor (and the city’s mayor) Joseph G. Champion completed the auto bridge connecting Ocean City and Strathmere for the Cape May County Board of Freeholders. It cost $134,000 and was built west of railroad bridge.

1918
On the eleventh hours of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the armistice was signed ending the World War. Five Ocean City men died in the war: Wesley Cordery, Lawrence Russell Henry, Nicholas Impagliazzi, Abraham N. Morgan and Elmer E. Ranck.

1919
The Princess Theater, on Asbury Avenue, was open two nights a week during the winter months.

1920
On January 16, America joined Ocean City when the 18th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution became law. This article prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating beverages within the United States as well as their import or export.

1921
On January 17, Mayor Joseph G. Champion appointed the first female, Eleanor Fogg, to the Board of Education. Spencer B. Swan and John R. Jones immediately resigned from the Board of Education saying they were opposed to woman’s suffrage and they did not with to serve with a women.

1922
The 9th Street beach was crowded with people exercising under the direction of W. Ward Beam.

1923
On July 28, over 400 people attended the grand opening of the Flanders Hotel.

1924
The owners of the Ocean City Sentinel, founded in 1880, and the owners of the Ocean City Ledger, founded in 1897, announced on February 21 the consolidation of the two newspapers. The first issue of the combined papers, the Ocean City Sentinel-Ledger, was on February 29.

1925
On May 29, the Ocean City Title and Trust Company opened its $500,000 seven-story building on the corner of 8th Street and Asbury Avenue.

1926
On September 19, Simon Lake, inventor of the Lake submarine, was the main speaker at the Lake family reunion held in the Auditorium on the Camp Grounds. He titled his address “A Century’s Progress in Science and Invention.”

1927
The most destructive fire in the city’s history began shortly after seven o’clock the evening of October 11.

1928
On Washington’s birthday, Congressman Isaac Bacharach led the pre-dedication ceremonies of the Ocean City-Longport bridge.

1929
On July 1, Professor James M. Stevens, superintendent of Ocean City’s public schools since 1903 retired. Albert Shuck succeeded Stevens.

1930
A familiar sight over the resort was the huge (670 feet in length) Navy dirigible, the Los Angeles, with Ocean City’s Vincent A. Clarke Jr. at the helm.

1931
“Ocean City Defeats Champion as Mayor” was the headline in the May 13 issue of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. The article reported, “Joseph G. Champion, Mayor of Ocean City, who has served in that post for twenty-three years, went down to defeat yesterday in the hardest fought city commissioners election in years.”

1932
Ocean City lifeguard, Charles Kieffer, won an Olympic gold medal competing in the pair-oared with coxswain. After the race, which was held in Los Angeles, Kieffer told reporters, “I learned how to row while I was a guard.”

1933
Prohibition, the nation’s “Noble Experiment,” ended on December 5 when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. Ocean City remained dry!

1934
Half the homes in Ocean City had radios and teachers were concerned that young people were listening too much and not reading.

1935
On the Fourth of July, Mayor Joseph G. Champion officially opened the new municipal airport. He called the opening, “A red-letter day for Ocean City.”

1936
An editorial in the January 3 issue of the Sentinel-Ledger predicted the growth of television: “It would take a brave man to promise that television will be perfected before the year 1936 ends. But it is certain that long strides will be made toward the goal of bringing the world’s great events, as they occur, before the eyes of millions of people sitting comfortably in their own homes.

1937
The new Ocean City Post Office opened for business on Monday, June 28 and the Sentinel-Ledger reported: “Post office employees accomplished the big feat of transferring the base of their operations from the old quarters on 8th St. to the new $100,000 building at 9th and Ocean Ave. over the weekend, practically with no break in postal service.”

1938
A reminder from the Ocean City Police Department: “All male bathers are required to wear uppers on their bathing suits. Roaming the beaches while wearing only trunks is a violation of the city’s disorderly persons act.”

1939
On May 18, the largest indoor roller skating rink in South Jersey opened at 6th Street and the Boardwalk. The new rink, owned by Howard S. Stainton, was at the rear of his Playland bowling alleys.

1940
Ring magazine named summer resident Billy Conn “Fighter of the Year.” Joe Louis won the award in 1938 and 1939.

1941
Declaring December 7th “A day that will live in infamy, President Roosevelt on December 8th asked Congress to declare war on Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States and Congress adopted a resolution recognizing a state of war between the United States and these countries. By December 19th, volunteer airplane observers were keeping a constant watch from a newly built observation tower on top of the Music Pier.

1942
John Collins (OCHS 1936) and Harold Sumpter (OCHS 1938) were the first two local servicemen to die in World War II.

1943
Mayor George D. Richards, 49, died on May 17—the last day of his term in office. Clyde W. Struble was chosen mayor on May 18 at the organization meeting of the Board of Commissioners.

1944
On June 6, the long-awaited Allied invasion of Europe began. The June 9 issue of the Ocean City Sentinel-Ledger reported, “Close to 100 Ocean City men in almost every branch of the armed forces are believed to be directly to indirectly taking part in the invasion of the century.” Paratrooper James A. Ryan, 19, an Ocean City summer resident and lifeguard, was killed on D-Day.

1945
August 14 at 7:00 p.m., President Harry Truman announced the Japanese had agreed to Allied terms. The greatest war ever fought was over and the biggest celebration in the city’s 66-year history began.

1946
Mayor Clyde W. Struble reported the city signed a contract with Atlas Sanitary Company to control flies and mosquitoes. The company said they would spray the entire Boardwalk with DDT fog once a week during July and August.

1947
It was a year to remember for Ocean City’s Kelly family. On July 5, Jack Kelly Jr. sent his scull cutting through the water on the Thames River to top all competition in the Henley Royal Regatta.

1948
On January 17, the picturesque Shore Fast Line trolley cars, which for 41 years provided the chief public transportation between this resort and Somers Point, Linwood, Northfield, Pleasantville and Atlantic City, ended service.

1949
Ocean City males won topless rights on June 17 when Mayor Edward B. Bowker and Commissioners Henry Roeser Jr. and Augustus S. Goetz repealed the long-established law that required male bathers to cover their torso and frontal rib area.

1950
The OCHS football team, led by first team all-state back Andy Jernee, defeated Pleasantville 14-7 on Thanksgiving Day and finished the season with an 8-1 record. Coach Fenton Carey’s record over the past four seasons was 31 wins, 4 losses and 1 tie.

1951
Over $400,000 was spent building a seawall and jetty near the Great Egg Harbor Inlet to halt beach erosion.

1952
On April 7, a $268,500 state-city sand pumping project started and by the Fourth of July the beach between East Atlantic Blvd. and 13th Street was wide and ready for bathers.

1953
“Korea Armistice Signed in Brief Ceremony Ending Three Years of Undeclared War” was the front-page headline of the July 27 Atlantic City Press. Nearly 25,000 American were killed including three from Ocean City: John Miner, Melvin A. Schmatz and Kent Stinger.