Ocean City
Ocean City, sometimes known as OC, is an Atlantic Ocean resort town located in Worcester County, Maryland. Ocean City is widely known in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and is a frequent destination for vacationers.
The land the city was built on, as well as much of the surrounding area, was once owned by Englishman Thomas Fenwick. Today, the land is sometimes still referred to as Fenwick Island, despite not being an island.
In 1869, businessman Isaac Coffin built the first beach-front cottage to receive paying guests. During those days, people arrived by stage coach and ferry. They came to fish off the shore, to enjoy the natural beauty of the Atlantic Ocean pounding against the long strip of sandy beach, to collect seashells, or just to sit back and watch the rolling surf.
Soon after, other simple boarding houses were built on the strip of sand, with the activity attracting prominent businessmen from the Maryland Eastern Shore, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Wilmington. They came not so much to visit as to survey the spit. A decision was made to develop it and 250 lots were cut into it, and a corporation was formed to help with the development of the land. The corporation stock of 4,000 shares sold for $25 each.
Prior to 1870, what is now Ocean City was known as "The Ladies' Resort to the Ocean."
The Atlantic Hotel, the first major hotel in the town, opened July 4, 1875. Besides the beach and ocean, it offered dancing and billiard rooms to the visitors of its more than 400 rooms. By 1878 tourists could come by railroad from Berlin to the shores of Sinepuxent Bay across from the town. By 1881 a line was completed across Sinepuxent Bay to the shore, bringing rail passengers directly into the town.
The Ocean City Inlet was formed during a powerful, yet nameless, hurricane in 1933 (a hurricane naming scheme was not put in place until 1950). The inlet separated what is now Ocean City from Assateague Island. Engineers took advantage of nature's intervention and made the inlet at the south end of Ocean City permanent. The inlet eventually helped to establish Ocean City as one of the world's great fishing ports as it offered easy access to the fishing grounds of the Atlantic Ocean.
Rapid expansion of Ocean City took place during the post-war boom. In 1952, with the completion of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Ocean City became easily accessible to people in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. In 1964, with the completion of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, a whole new pathway to the south was opened. Ocean City became one of the largest vacation areas of the East Coast.
By the 1970s, big business flourished and gave birth to the construction of more than 10,000 condominium units, creating a spectacular sight of high-rise condominiums that assured every investor of a glimpse of the ocean and pounding surf. However, throughout the 1980s and into the early 90's, the width of the beach began to shrink, prompting the first of a series of beach replenishment projects.
In 2002, Ocean City undertook the most recent of many, multi-million dollar, beach restoration programs, in an attempt to slow the westward migration of its beaches. The program pumped tons of sand from offshore and deposited it onto the beach. A dune line was also re-established in front of Ocean City's building line. Another similar project began after the 2006 tourist season closed.
Today, the Ocean City area continues to sprawl westward across the bay and toward Berlin and Ocean Pines. It is part of the Ocean Pines Micropolitan Statistical Area. No longer a quaint resort, it still affords hundreds of thousands of vacationers an escape from their everyday lives.
Ocean City now extends nearly 11 miles (16 km) from the southern inlet to the Delaware line. The strip now supports hotels, motels, apartment houses, shopping centers, residential communities, and condominiums. The southern tip has two amusement parks, Trimpers Rides and The Pier, which has recently been purchased by Jolly Roger's, another local amusement park. The downtown neighborhood is marked by Victorian style houses and other older buildings, many of which have been razed in recent years to construct more parking lots, hotels and condos.
Wind and surf continually change the coastline. Every so often, beach replenishment programs are needed to rebuild sand dunes and the beach.
The town supports a full-time population of slightly more than eight thousand, with the town itself being a major employer. Tourism in the winter has picked up pace, where once even many traffic lights were shut down or bagged up, golf and conventions have increased the traffic and has convinced many seasonal restaurants and hotels to remain open. In the summer, the town bursts at the seams, with businesses and government agencies augmented with a large number of temporary policemen, firefighters, and other workers.
The city has erected a memorial to the firefighters who lost their lives on September 11. This memorial is located on the boardwalk, about six blocks from the inlet. The memorial consists of a firefighter statue, engraved brick and stone, and a piece of one of the twin towers that collapsed in New York City.
