Provincetown

An early English explorer named the outermost tip of land Cape Cod after catching a great store of codfish there, and on 9 November 1620 the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower sighted the Cape. Anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor, they drew up and signed the Mayflower Compact before moving on to settle across the bay at Plymouth. The deep, sheltered harbour and rich fishing grounds remained valuable: the land was kept for the benefit of Plymouth Colony, which leased fishing rights to visiting fishermen, and it was later renamed the Province Lands.

The town was hit hard by the British blockade during the Revolution. Afterwards it grew quickly as a fishing and whaling centre, and many Portuguese sailors, mostly from the Azores, settled here after being hired onto American ships. By the 1890s the town was booming and beginning to attract writers, artists and summer visitors. When the Portland Gale of 1898 severely damaged the fishing industry, artists took over abandoned buildings; Charles Webster Hawthorne opened the Cape Cod School of Art the same year, and the art association followed in 1914.

In 1915 and 1916 the Provincetown Players staged experimental theatre here before moving to New York. The Pilgrim Monument was finished in 1910 and the Cape Cod National Seashore created in 1961. A gay presence had existed since the early art colony; by the 1970s the town had a large gay population, and in 1978 local businesses formed the Provincetown Business Guild to promote gay tourism.

Provincetown grew into an art colony from the 1890s, and art is still everywhere: galleries line Commercial Street, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum has shown Cape Cod artists since 1914, and the Fine Arts Work Center, founded in 1968, gives ten young writers and ten visual artists seven-month residencies each year. Theatre has deep roots too, from the Provincetown Players to summer productions of Eugene O'Neill, and the Provincetown International Film Festival honours independent film.

The town is perhaps the best-known gay summer resort on the East Coast. More than 200 businesses belong to the Provincetown Business Guild, the 2010 census found the highest rate of same-sex couples in the country, and the Atlantic House is considered the oldest gay bar in the United States. The summer calendar is built around theme weeks such as Bear Week and Carnival Week, and Women's Week in October has been held since 1984.

The Portuguese fishing heritage lives on alongside, in family names, the bakery on Commercial Street and the Portuguese Festival, when the fishing fleet is blessed. The town's tone is tolerant, playful and theatrical, with drag shows and street performers on summer nights.

Provincetown had about 3,700 year-round residents at the 2020 census, but its summer population has been estimated at up to 60,000. Housing units far outnumber the people who live in town all year, and the year-round population is older than the national average. Affordable housing for workers is a recurring local concern; in 2014 the town considered adding homes above a town facility, and the housing bust of 2005–2012 cut property values by 10 per cent or more in under a year.

Tourism is the economy: guesthouses, restaurants, bars, galleries and boats. The commercial fishing fleet still works from MacMillan Pier, which in summer also handles ferries carrying thousands of passengers a day and whale-watch boats making several trips each. In winter many businesses close and the town returns to its residents, artists and fishermen.

Daily life is lived on foot and by bicycle along the narrow streets — about 14 per cent of year-round workers commute by bike, the highest rate in Massachusetts — and the dunes and beaches of the national seashore begin at the edge of town.

Seafood from the bay is the heart of the menu: lobster, clams, scallops, cod and oysters served raw on the half shell. Clam shacks and fry shops serve fried fish and clams, and the Lobster Pot on Commercial Street serves lobster and all manner of seafood. New England staples — clam chowder, the lobster roll and the clambake — appear on menus all summer.

The Portuguese community that came with the fishing and whaling fleets left its mark on local cooking, and the Provincetown Portuguese Bakery on Commercial Street keeps that tradition in the centre of town. Coffee shops, bakeries and ice cream counters fill the gaps between meals along the main street.

Evenings revolve around restaurants and bars on and near Commercial Street, from casual beer-and-oyster bars to formal dining rooms with harbour views, and many places close or shorten their season in winter. Several restaurants describe their cooking as New American or regional New England, built on the seafood of Cape Cod.