This is one of the 44 “Strange and Wondrous Delmarva Tales” in my book titled You Wouldn’t Believe! More info on the book here.
The incident that set off the Labor Day Riot in Ocean City, Md. began as a trifling affair. On the Saturday evening of Sept. 4, 1960, the owner of a boardwalk arcade got into a little spat with a young man from Baltimore. The owner thought that the young man was crossing the line that separates teenage fun from delinquency.
I came across two versions of this argument in old newspaper articles. In one, the young man turned up the volume on the arcade jukebox over and over again. In the other, he insisted on riding atop a hobby horse meant for children. Neither is a big crime, but either could be quite an aggravation for a small business owner dealing with holiday-weekend crowds.
That owner, George J. Galkas, eventually told the young man to leave his arcade. The young man refused. Galkas called the police. The patrolman who responded was a part-timer named Joseph Laramore, brought in to help with those holiday-weekend crowds. Laramore lived in Denton, Md. and worked full time as a constable in Caroline County.
This is where a trifling affair turned treacherous. Things quickly went south between Laramore and the young man. What set the Labor Day Riot in motion was Laramore’s decision to break out his nightstick and crack it on the head of that young man, whose name was Laren Baker and who was a U.S. marine private first class on leave from Camp LeJeune, N.C.
A Summer of Simmering Anger
The swing of that nightstick did not happen in a vacuum. Several months earlier, as the summer of 1960 began, Ocean City’s leaders had decided that it was time to protect their town’s reputation as a family-friendly resort. They ordered police to crack down on all manner of teenage offenses, from underage drinking to delinquency. Over the course of three hot months, the tension had been building.
Laren Baken, the arrested U.S. marine
A throng of teenagers hanging out on nearby stretches of boardwalk and beach saw Baker get thwacked with that nightstick. They were outraged. Some tried to intervene on the spot, tussling with Laramore as he and other officers struggled to drag Baker off the boardwalk and into a patrol car.
After that car pulled away with Baker inside, the anger that had been building among young people all summer erupted into rage. They decided to go down to the police department and demand the release of that marine. As they made their way on an 11-block march, word of what had happened spread through Ocean City like wildfire. A crowd of dozens turned into a few hundred and then swelled into a mob of 2,500. The rowdier members of that mob flipped over several parked cars along the way.
‘Throwing Bottles, Cans, Even Lawn Furniture’
It was midnight when this furious crowd arrived at the station on Dorchester Street. Many had armed themselves along the way with bottles, sticks, rocks, and whatever else they could grab. The Baltimore Evening Sun:
[A] wild, screaming crowd of young people … formed a ring around the station house and demanded the release of the marine.
At the first signs of trouble, Mayor Hugh T. Cropper, Jr. had ordered his police officers to stand down and avoid engaging with the angry teens. The mayor explained later to a reporter “that he thought the absence of police would calm the crowd.” He was wrong.
Luckily, a bigwig with the state police named William H. Weber just so happened to be vacationing at the beach that weekend. He made an emergency call, and 30 state cops from all over the lower Eastern Shore were soon speeding toward Ocean City. Meanwhile, Mayor Cropper reversed his no-engagement rule and sounded the town’s fire sirens, calling in volunteer firefighters as reinforcements for his overwhelmed police officers.
Those firefighters hooked up hoses and sent word across the riot lines to the teenagers that it was time to disperse. The teens were having none of it. Firefighters turned the hoses on. In return, as the Evening Sun put it:
The more violent persons in the crowd rushed forward in waves to throw bottles, cans, stones, and even lawn furniture taken from nearby homes at the firefighters and policemen.
The battle lasted for four hours. Incredibly, no one was seriously injured. Finally, about 4 a.m., the crowd dwindled down to nothing, and calm returned to the streets of Ocean City. The streets now looked like a war zone, however, with “broken bottles and smashed furniture, littering the streets, sidewalks, and lawns.”
The Aftermath of the Riot
Salisbury Daily Times photo shows “rioters” get sprayed by fire hoses.
Thirty-three young people were arrested that night. Almost all got charged with disorderly conduct. One newspaper said the city jail was so overcrowded that 16 teens spent the night in a cell that had just three cots. The arrestees hailed from all over—Baltimore and its suburbs; Washington, D.C., the Norfolk area, and towns all over the Eastern Shore and Delaware. Most of those convicted in the following days and weeks were ordered to pay fines of between $50 and $100.
As for Private First Class Baker, he was taken to Peninsula General Hospital in Salisbury and treated for a concussion. He, too, was convicted of disorderly conduct. His fine was set at $550, but the judge suspended $250 of that amount. After his family paid the fine, Baker was escorted back to Camp LeJeune by a Marine sergeant. (I tried to find on the internet news of what happened to him later in life, but alas, that search turned up empty.)
There was one last flare-up on that infamous Labor Day weekend, though this one ended on a humorous note. On Sunday, police had an encounter with another teen who was on the boardwalk but not wearing a shirt. Back in 1960, that qualified as a violation of city ordinances.
The police led that young man off of the boardwalk and onto the beach, where going shirtless was not a crime. While doing this, the officers found themselves surrounded by a crowd of 500 teens. Some angry shouts filled the air, but cooler heads prevailed. In impromptu fashion, the teens broke into a pair of sing-a-longs. First came “Hail, Hail the Gang’s All Here.” That was followed by “The Beer Barrel Polka.” This follow-up “riot” lasted just 15 minutes.
In public statements about the Labor Day riots, town officials tried to walk the line between criticizing the teenagers involved in the riot and not alienating young people in general, who then and now make up a big part of their tourism market. City Council President Harry Kelly:
I suppose this was bound to happen sooner or later. We’ve kept the lid on teenagers pretty tight all summer. I guess the pressure had to give.
Worcester County Commissioner (and former Ocean City mayor) Daniel Trimper said he thought that the police handled the situation in an “OK” manner but then added:
We want young people here. They are the future of Ocean City.
Early on, Mayor Cropper had harsh things to say about the rioters, but he, too, calmed down as the days went on.
We want to attract young people. We want to make the city and the boardwalk attractive to all age groups, but we simply cannot tolerate rowdyism.
The tourism season came to an end that weekend. There was no more trouble along these lines in Ocean City during the months that followed. Soon enough, the summer of 1961 would arrive.
This is one of the 44 “Strange and Wondrous Delmarva Tales” in my book titled You Wouldn’t Believe! More info on that book here.
–A first draft of this pice appeared on this site in 2020. This has been updated to the version in my book You Wouldn’t Believe! Posted by Jim Duffy in August 2026 for Secrets of the Eastern Shore/Whimbrel Creations LLC. All rights reserved.
