A Look Back at Ocean City
By Fred Miller
The headline in the October 20, 1921 Ocean City Sentinel read, “Where Are You Going to Spend HALLOWE’EN?” They answered the question, “In Ocean City, of course. We are making extensive preparations to entertain you.”
An article in the same newspaper reported on the planning. “The publicity of Ocean City’s Carnival has reached far and wide. It is being sent out by wireless; slides are being run in the moving picture houses; front-page stories have been secured in any number of papers; and through the courtesy of the management of Shore Fast Line Railroad the big orange posters are displayed in every station from Somers Point to Longport and a poster will be placed in every trolley car.
“Miller, the theatrical costumier from Philadelphia, will be here about five days before the carnival and can be found in the building, formerly the Parker Miller ice cream parlor on Asbury Avenue. The securing of Mr. Miller to come here was an exceptionally good piece of luck as it will give those without costumes a chance to secure something right up to the minute.”
All the time spent in preparation paid off. The success of the October 31 celebration was reported in the November 3,1921 Sentinel under the front page headline, “Hallowe’en Carnival Was City’s Greatest Pageant.”
The article began, “Thousands of spectators, many of them masked and armed with confetti and noise making devices, witnessed Monday night the biggest, noisiest, merriest and all-round most successful Hallowe’en celebration ever held here.”
