2021 Winning Essay by Jaiden Denk

Option Three: Choose a historical place in Worcester County and discuss its meaning to the community or why it should be preserved

Since the 1890s, the Henry Hotel has sat, covered in brown shingles, serving as a sanctuary for people of color in Ocean City. The building was at first built by white businessmen as a place for African Americans to stay during the time of segregation when they were unable to stay in the same building as white people. After decades of white ownership, it was bought by Charles T. Henry and his wife Louisa in 1926, who reportedly bought the building for just $10. They then renamed the hotel “Henry’s Colored Hotel.”

The hotel served as a lodging site for many of the famous Big-Band Jazz musicians that came to Ocean City to perform. Jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and James Brown have all stayed at the hotel, as well as visited the added restaurant and nightclub.

In 1964, the hotel was bought by an African American woman named Pearl Bonner, who ran the hotel along with her three daughters. Instead of a hotel for vacationing guests, Pearl turned the hotel into a place for African American men to stay while working in Ocean City. Without the Henry Hotel, these working men who have to stay in dirty, unkempt hotels that were built only to separate them from white people. She ran this hotel until she died in 2003, leaving the hotel vacant since.

Although no guests have stayed at the hotel in almost 20 years, the building has been recognized for its historical value among many Ocean City locals and tourists. I first learned of the Henry Hotel because of a ghost tour that I had attended with my family years ago. The Henry Hotel was included on the tour because of its supposedly haunted history. There have been reports of spirits still remaining in the hotel, whether it be guests who still stay up and talk with their roommates, or the ghosts of Pearl Bonner, who would often wait up to make sure her guests returned safe each night.

Haunted or not, the Henry Hotel deserves to be not only remembered but preserved. The modest house across from Trimper’s Amusement Park is a key part in Ocean City history, and should be recognized as a landmark of African American accomplishment during a time of white superiority.