Force Basic Training Center No. 7. The forty-seven Atlantic City resort hotels taken over by the United States Military were collectively dubbed "Camp Boardwalk". The Chalfonte-Haddon Hall was merged with the adjacent Traymore Hotel and the complex was named the England General Hospital, for Lt. Col. Thomas Marcus England, who had worked with Walter Reed researching yellow fever in Cuba in 1900. The hospital opened on April 28, 1944. The last patients left the hospital in June 1946, and the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall was returned to its owners, reopening as a resort on August 1, 1946. The resort became the location of many conventions. The first meeting of the Section on Surgery of the American Academy of Pediatrics was held in the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall on November 21, 1948. President Nixon spoke in front of the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall Hotel on June 22, 1971. Conversion to Resorts International Resorts International, which was formed in March 1968, first became interested in developing a resort in Atlantic City after the company learned of a planned fourth attempt to bring casino gambling to New Jersey by limiting it to Atlantic City. The company heavily contributed to the November 1976 gaming referendum which successfully passed that year. While campaigning for the gaming initiative, Resorts International also began planning for a future Atlantic City casino by securing an option for of land on the Atlantic City Boardwalk from the city's Housing and Re-Development Authority as well as acquiring Leeds & Lippincott Company, which owned Chalfonte-Haddon Hall. Resorts purchased 67 percent of Leeds & Lippincott Inc. in August 1976, and completed the acquisition the following month, paying a total of $2.489 million. Resorts International reduced the 1,000 rooms at Chalfonte-Haddon Hall to 566 by closing the older, smaller Chalfonte building due to the rooms being impossible to expand to the city's room requirements. The Haddon Hall was easier to convert, and space was available in the building to allow for a casino, restaurants, shops and a showroom. The company's logic in the decision to use Haddon Hall was that renovating an existing property on the boardwalk would give the company an advantage by allowing the resort to be open at least a year before its new-build competition, as well as being less expensive to construct. Though state leaders preferred companies to build new resorts rather than renovating existing properties, as Resorts International was the first casino project developed in