Provincetown News

Provincetown History Snippet: The Portuguese

April 20, 2019

History

While there was some immigration from Portugal in pre-Colonial and Colonial times, it was when whaling took off that it became significant. The Azores were known to captains as the “Western Islands whaling grounds” and the ships hunted, re-provisioned,...

What’s Lea Delaria Doing at the Pied? (We Have the Answer!)

April 18, 2019

The Pied Bar is no more. The space is morphing into a classy, comfortable, supper-type jazz club that has been Lea Delaria’s dream since she first came to Ptown in 1984. “I always wanted to retire and get a little club,” she says. “Turns out, you’re...

Provincetown History Snippet: WOMR and the Schoolhouse Center for the Arts

April 13, 2019

History

In 1976 a small band of radio visionaries was inspired to create a community radio station in Provincetown. It took several years to raise awareness, gather funding, and negotiate the complicated permitting process. WOMR went on the air on March 21, 1982....

How Did WOMR Come To Be?

April 12, 2019

History

Happy Birthday, WOMR! Community radio stations are interesting places. They attract original thinkers, iconoclastic figures, free spirits. WOMR was founded by such a group of people, and in celebration of the station’s 37th birthday, we’re bringing you...

Provincetown History Snippet: Winning the Race

April 6, 2019

History

During Boston’s Old Home Week Celebration in August 1907, a cup was offered by Sir Thomas Lipton for a 42-mile fishermen’s race in Massachusetts Bay—from Provincetown to Gloucester and back—with a purported value of $5,000. Captain Marion...

Provincetown History Snippets: How Did They Renovate Town Hall?

March 26, 2019

History

During the mid-to-late 1800s, towns in Massachusetts started building municipal halls complete with auditoriums as a way to end the practice of meeting in churches (to officially separate “church and state”) and Provincetown Town Hall was built with a...

Provincetown History Snippets: What is The S-4?

March 23, 2019

History

In one of the saddest chapters of Provincetown history, six remaining survivors inside a sunken U. S. Navy submarine tapped out a message to divers working to free them: “Is there any hope?” There wasn’t. The submarine, the S-4, had just...

Provincetown History Snippets: Who is William F. Boogar Jr.?

March 16, 2019

History

He loved birds. He also loved bronze, and the combination made for exceptional art created by William F. Boogar, Jr., a noted sculptor who studied in Provincetown with Charles Hawthorne and settled here permanently in 1933. He worked in the lost-wax method in...

Provincetown History Snippets: Who Was The Nauset?

March 3, 2019

History

When they came ashore at what would become Provincetown, Mayflower passengers first encountered a native tribe called the Nauset. Part of the Algonquin, the Nauset lived on Cape Cod from Bass River east. They were non-nomadic and peaceable; there were no...

Provincetown History Snippets: What was Norman Mailer’s Ptown?

February 23, 2019

History

This week we’re bringing you a different history snippet: Norman Mailer’s own words about the town, taken from Tough Guys Don’t Dance: The northern reach of Cape Cod, however, on which my house sat, the land I inhabited—that long curving...