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Ocean City, Maryland Vacation Rentals Cottages, Beach Houses, and Condos.

Ocean City and Ocean City, Maryland vacation rentals by owner beach house, condo and cottage rentals are in 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.

According to legend, Isaac Coffin built in 1869 the first beachfront cottage to receive paying guests. During those days people came 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 boarding houses were built on the strip of sand, with the activity attracting prominent businessmen from the Maryland Eastern Shore, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. 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 city, 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 city. By 1881 a line was completed across Sinepuxent Bay to the shore, bringing rail passengers directly into the city.

The Ocean City Inlet was formed during a powerful, yet nameless, hurricane (They weren't given names until later) in 1933; 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.

Wind and surf continually change the coastline. Piers and woodland once standing on the bayside are now projecting from the dunes on the ocean side. As the inner shoreline increases, it moves closer to the mainland, while the outer shoreline erodes away by the pounding surf, strong tides and yearly storms.

Ocean City extends nearly 11 miles from the southern inlet to the Delaware line. The strip now supports hotels, motels, apartment houses, and condominiums. The southern tip is filled with amusement parks, boardwalk amusements, cotton candy, and boardwalk fries and still has the aura of an old seaside resort. However, as one moves north up the coast, the scenery changes to that of a more modern resort.

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 corridor. 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.

In 2002, Ocean City undertook the most recient 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 duneline was also re-established in front of Ocean City's building line. Another similar project is scheduled to begin after the 2006 tourust season closes.

Today, Ocean City continues to spread westward across the bay and toward Berlin and Ocean Pines. No longer a quaint resort, it still affords hundreds of thousands of vacationers an escape from their everyday lives.

Ocean City supports a full-time population of slighty more than eight thousand, with the city itself being a major employer. Tourism in the winter has even picked up pace, where once even many traffic lights were shut down, golf and conventions have increased the traffic and has convinced many restaurants and hotels to remain open. In the summer, the city bursts at the seams, with businesses and government agencies augmented with a large number of temporary policemen, firefighters, and other workers.

The total area of Ocean City is 87.47% water. The town is built on a spit (landform), or geological formation of sand and marshes, connected to the mainland and harboring a lagoon. Ocean City is on the barrier island of Fenwick Island, which encompasses Ocean City of Maryland and Fenwick of Delaware.

Source: Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.