Subscribe to stay up to date with the latest in Provincetown!
Subscribe to ptownie

    Provincetown News

    Provincetown History Snippet: Who is Tennessee Williams?
    February 21, 2020
    Tennessee Williams Provincetown History
    Less than three weeks after his lover Kip died in 1944 in Manhattan, Tennessee Williams was back at Captain Jack’s Wharf. The fleet was in, the streets and beaches were crowded, but Williams resented them with their “Lord & Taylor t-shirts.” That...
    Provincetown History Snippet: The Decade of the Cocktail
    February 14, 2020
    Provincetown History Cocktails
    The 1950s in Provincetown were years of rampant homophobia, what one innkeeper called “the witch-hunt days.” In 1952, selectmen tightened liquor and entertainment licenses in an attempt to discourage “the habitual gathering-place of homosexuals of...
    Provincetown History Snippet: World War I
    January 24, 2020
    Provincetown War Memorial
    A contingent of anti-submarine boats was stationed at the Provincetown Naval Base for the duration of the First World War—to the very vocal distress of townspeople, who complained that the submarine activity was interfering with the weir fishing going on in...
    Provincetown History Snippet: Gosnold and Cape Cod
    January 17, 2020
    Provincetown History Gosnold
    On May 15, 1602, English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold dropped anchor in a broad harbor he called “Shoal Hope,” meaning “shallow harbor”; we call it Provincetown. (Ironically, it’s one of the world’s deepest natural harbors; what did Gosnold know?)...
    Provincetown History Snippet: The Mackerel Fleet
    December 20, 2019
    Provincetown History Mackerel Fleet
    Provincetown’s fishing fleet has traditionally gone after tuna, cod, haddock, and striped bass, but for many years it’s mackerel—a migratory fish arriving off the Cape in summer—that was one of the area’s primary catches.   The mackerel...
    Provincetown History Snippet: How Did Harry Kemp Die?
    December 13, 2019
    Harry Kemp Provincetown
    He had lived alone for years in one of the dune shacks on Provincetown’s back shore, but poet Harry Kemp spent his last days in a cottage on Howland Street built by his friend Sunny Tasha especially for him. He died on August 8, 1960, of a cerebral...