Welcome to Retell Seller, an ephemera podcast where I uncover forgotten stories and the ephemera people leave behind. I’m Angie, a reseller of 10 years, and I’ll share one of those snippets with you. Let’s see what today’s find has to say
Today’s postcard in the upper left front reads, “The Flanders at night, Ocean City, New Jersey.” The image is of the Flanders Hotel up against a dark night sky. It’s large in the background with several wings, I’ll say, on the sides
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There are many windows glowing with the room’s lights on. In front of the hotel is a lower portion of the building lined with green and yellow striped awnings. The foreground is dominated by a large outdoor swimming pool, but there are two smaller pools closer to the building off to the right and left sides. The main pool is filled with swimmers, while there are other people standing on the platform.
Lights from the building reflect across the water, and there’s decorative statues sitting along the red roof line. The colors are pretty strong and bright up against the dark background of the sky.
It’s postmarked August 14, 1949, Ocean City, New Jersey. It has the Washington one cent stamp.
The message reads:
“8-13-49.
I’m spending the summer down here working as a cashier and hostess in Hoggett’s Restaurant. It’s terribly hot here, as it is everywhere else, I guess. Marian.”
I love this little window into Marian’s life in 1949. She was working a summer job at a place called Hawgit’s. Or Hohgit’s. Ho-gates? I’m not sure of the proper way to pronounce it, but I think I’ll stick with Hogate’s.
As I started searching the web and newspapers.com, I found information on a Watson Rulon, the owner of Hogate’s. But before it became Hogate’s or even an actual sit-down restaurant, Watson had opened a seafood stand in 1928 in Ocean City. He would eventually open locations in Ocean City, Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia.
Watson had a twin brother named Joseph, and the name Hogate’s would be named after their family doctor, John Hogate Whittacar. Whittacar had owned an iron foundry and leased the space to a restaurant by the name of Becks. And in 1938, Whittaker pushed for Rulon to run the restaurant, which he did, and changed the name to Hogate’s after the doctor.
No matter the location, Hogate’s was definitely a go-to destination. Many of the stories I found revolved around people, whether well-known or not, Dining at Hogate’s. these little stories are a mix between mainly Ocean City and D.C., like the story about Frank T. Bell. He was the United States Commissioner of Fisheries, and he had his retirement party in D.C. in 1939, and it was a big deal
In 1940, an article was written about Nebraskans living in or visiting Washington. The writer said that during the day, people would be traipsing all over Washington, but at night you could just hang out in the lobby of Hogate’s Seafood on the Potomac, and eventually everyone would just come to you.
He said after a few visits, you could tell the tourists from the people, who were more or less permanent Washington residents by looking at their plates.
The visitors would be eating what he called “mammoth lobsters”, while the regulars were eating things like beef tenderloin.
And speaking of mammoth lobsters, a story was done in 1939 speaking about the chef Anthony Squares and how he’d handled the largest lobster he’d ever seen, weighing in at 25 pounds, compared to the usual 1, maybe 2 pounders, and it said he had the honor of serving it up.
Eleanor Claridge, a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, she had a long-running, column named Main Street Meditations, and she’d included Hogate’s in an account of a road trip she took with some friends in 1941.
They were told they needed to go to Hogate’s, and when they got there, before they could even decide what they wanted, the waitress suggested Lake Erie whitefish, saying, “It’s flown in fresh every day.”
She wrote that Washington would be remembered for three things: the difficulty of getting a hotel room, even with reservations, the premiere of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, and Hogate’s Seafood Place.
On Thanksgiving in 1942, Hogate’s advertised to Ocean City a complete full-course turkey dinner. Adults were $1.35, children 95 cents, and it was being served from noon until 8:00.
I found another two ads in the D.C. papers looking for hostesses, saying they needed several “neat, attractive women” to serve as hostesses in the dining rooms.
Meals and dresses would be furnished, excellent salary and working conditions, along with a company-financed insurance plan.
In Ocean City during the summer of 1953, there was a snippet in the paper listing those on summer break who were working as waitresses
The waitresses were Kathy, Lois, Mel, Shirley, and Mary, who were sisters, and their older sister, Eleanor, who was a teacher, was a hostess.
And I found this one to be fun, especially since we’re in Illinois. In January of 1957, the Pantagraph, a Bloomington newspaper that’s still operating today, sent 15 carrier salesmen to Washington for the presidential inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower
They had won the trip by producing 55 or more orders during a fall circulation contest. They were going to see the Capitol Building, Supreme Court Building, Congressional Library, Mount Vernon, and one night they were going to Arlington, Virginia for dinner at Hogate’s s famous seafood restaurant.
A 1968 snippet mentioned Futaba Otaki, a Japanese exchange student who would be returning to Japan the very next day. They wrote how she’d worked at Hogate’s every summer while attending both high school and junior college.
By the end of 1972, the Ocean City Hogate’s started to be demolished. A photograph in a December newspaper shows the building with a blurb saying, “Landmark disappearing. Workmen have removed porch railing and have been removing all equipment from interior of Hogate’s Restaurant on Bay at 9th Street.” It also said it was to make way for a new motel restaurant complex.
I ended up purchasing a few things pertaining to Hogate’s in Ocean City on eBay.
The first is a map of Ocean City, New Jersey from 1951. The map was courtesy of Hogate’s Restaurant at the time and it measures about 21 by 13 inches when opened and folds down to about 3 by 5. It’s pretty stained and worn, it did come in a plastic sleeve.
What I find interesting is there were a couple of handwritten stickers on the plastic, plus a handwritten note on the back side of the map itself. One sticker says, “1951, opens up to show map.” The other says, “No longer in existence. Condos are now on this site.”
The handwritten message on the back of the map says, “Dear Miss Fraser, We have left key with Monihan Real Estate. The extra key is under lamp. We enjoyed our stay very much and will get in touch with you for next year. W.C. Greener.”
I don’t know when this message was written, but out of curiosity I looked up Monihan Realty to see how long it had been around, and it says it was founded in 1947 by husband and wife team Bob and Joy Monihan.
I found another website talking a bit about the history of souvenirs in Ocean City and how matchbooks, they were cheap enough, small enough to give away when people visited.
So I looked to see what I could find on Hogate’s matchbooks from Ocean City, and I found not only a Hogate’s, but I found a Beck’s cover, which was before Hogate’s.
I found a Flanders Hotel matchbook cover, which was on the postcard.
And lastly, a Hogate’s matchbook cover. It’s an overall green with a lobster on it, and it reads, ” Hogate’s for Seafood, Ocean City, New Jersey.”
And the other side says, “Hogate’s famous deep sea platter consisting of filet of flounder, deviled crab, deviled clam, fried oysters, scallops, shrimp salad, coleslaw, sliced tomatoes, julienne potatoes, coffee with cream, all for 85 cents.” I imagine they mean each, right? I can tell you there’s more information on Hogate’s.
I’d ran into a lot of discrepancies between what I found in newspapers.com and various websites and blogs, along with just memories shared of people on social media. So I’m not sure if anything that I said may be a little off as far as dates or locations, things like that.
But what I do know is Hogate’s was a destination, and it was an employer to the teacher who spent her summer as a hostess, to the recent graduates working there for a few months at the shore, to the exchange student who worked two summers before going back home, and the woman who started it all saying she was spending the summer down here working as a cashier and hostess at Hogate’s Restaurant.
One of the last photos I found showed Hogate’s in the midst of being torn down with the caption saying, “Just a memory now.”
Thank you for joining me as I shared a snippet of the past. I’d love to know if it connected with you in some way. Did it spark a memory or make you see something differently? If so, consider sharing it. Be sure to check out the show notes for additional info, links, and ways to connect. It’s not nostalgia, it’s human. Until next time, may you find something worth holding onto
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pinny please
