Railroads were central to the growth of Ocean City, Maryland, from 1876 until 1933, serving as the primary transportation to and from the resort and sustaining both tourism and the early pound fishing industry. Passenger and freight trains connected Ocean City with markets in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, making it possible to move freshly caught fish profitably and bringing large numbers of visitors to the beach each summer. The first railroad to bring passengers into Ocean City was the Wicomico and Pocomoke, whose tracks had been extended from Salisbury to Berlin in 1868 to the mainland side of Sinepuxent Bay by 1875, when the Atlantic Hotel was under construction. In 1876, a low wooden trestle bridge with a center pivot section was built into Ocean City at South Division Street. Railroad excursions became especially popular in the early 1900s and peaked during the WWI era, when hundreds of passengers from as far away as Baltimore made day trips to the resort, benefiting Boardwalk merchants and introducing many people to Ocean City who likely would not otherwise have visited. The era ended abruptly on August 23, 1933, when a hurricane destroyed the railroad bridge, the pound fishing camps, and the tracks leading to the camps, and neither the bridge nor the tracks were ever repaired.