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Looking Back to 1956
The Platters: The Great Pretender Little Richard: Tutti Fruity Johnny Cash: I Walked the Line Pat Boone: I’ll Be Home Bill Hailey & the Comets: See You Later Alligator • The new and very modern Santa Maria Motel opened, as did the Stowaway Motel. This was the beginning of what is today known as motel row. People during the 1950’s wanted to stay in the new modern motels as opposed to the older boardwalk hotels. • The beach read of the year was the naughty novel, Peyton Place. • Ocean City hired a new police chief, Charles Lutts. His claim to fame was that his daughter had won the best dressed lady in the 1955 Easter Parade on the Ocean City Boardwalk. • Miss Ocean City was Linda Lynch, daughter of John B. & Ruth Lynch, who own the Commander Hotel. • Cape Isle of Wight Lots were selling as low as $1,500 with $50 down and $10 a month. • Saint Louis Avenue was not improved and did not open to general traffic until this year, 1956. • Louis Armstrong was in town, playing at an establishment called Danceland. Vaughn Monroe was the star attraction at the Chicken Festival and Woody Herman and Duke Ellington were also appearing at Danceland throughout the summer. • However, the teenagers were crazy about Elvis and his newly released music Heartbreak Hotel and Love Me Tender. • 1956 was the year that the Assateague Island Realty Company of Berlin, Maryland was selling off 900 residential lots on Assateague Island. The development was called Ocean Beach. • The Town of Ocean City was hiring seven men to clean the beach with hand rakes. The beach was considered to reach between the Inlet and 15th Street. • Ray Jarvis, a local realtor was advertising “buy a home at 87th Street for $10,500.” • Jack Smack had the only taxi business in town with a fleet of (1) one taxi. • At the Lankford Hotel Dining Room, (8th Street) a full course dinner-soup to nuts-cost $2. • Daniel Trimper, Jr. was Mayor of Ocean City and had been for the past 21 years. • The best room the George Washington Hotel (10th Street) had to offer was a whopping $9 a day. The Admiral Hotel (9th Street) was less expensive charging $5 a day, but with a private bath it was a $1 extra. |