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From the Advocate Archvies
The following are excerpts from the Provincetown Advocate archives. Included this week are selections from the month of March in 1945, 1960 and 1975.
March 15, 1945
State sanitary engineer urges sewer system as best solution
If Provincetown installs a modern sewerage system making possible the elimination of open drains onto the shore, the State quarantine, clamped down some years ago on the shore fronting the town, will be lifted within a few weeks after the elimination of the open drainage, Edward Wright, Sanitary Engineer of the Mass. Dept. of Public Health, told members and guests of the Provincetown Civic Association at the Nautilus Club last night.
The State Health Dept., Mr. Wright said, has recommended on several occasions that Provincetown provide itself with a modern sewerage system and, he added, that the Town’s decision to have an engineer’s survey, voted at the last Town Meeting, was an encouraging step in the right and progressive direction. Cess pools would not be able to take care of the sewerage problem in Provincetown, the State engineer advised, because too many buildings and people are crowded into too small an area in this community and there is too little land for the proper functioning of cess pools.
Mr. Wright, who is a veteran of many long years in the never-ending battle for improved sanitary conditions in the State and who spoke like one, showed himself to be quite familiar with the situation in Provincetown and recalled previous trips to enforce standards here, as far back as the memorable fertilizer factory trouble at East Harbor.
He said that Cape Cod as a whole is noted for its wholesomeness and cleanliness and regretted that Provincetown is one of three places on the Cape which does not have a clean bill of health. The other two areas, much smaller in size and in importance, are Step Stone Creek in Chatham and Eel Pond at Woods Hole. Otherwise, apart from Provincetown, the Cape is entirely ship-shape.
March 10, 1960
Blizzard flays Lower Cape, cutting power, wrecking building
As though March felt obliged to maintain the reputation for a New England winter after a comparatively mild season, it walloped this part of Cape Cod with an 80-mile an hour blizzard through Thursday night and all day Friday, disrupting electrical power, shoving over poles and lines, wrecking buildings and clogging highways with great drifts so that when Friday dawned Provincetown, Truro and Wellfleet were well-nigh helpless.
Starting with a few aimless flakes, as is the wont of a really bad storm, the high winds didn’t start until after dark. Lights went out at 1:12 Friday morning. By that time the heavy primary wires were rubbing together causing such dangerous arcs that Ray Ham, manager of the Cape End branch of the Cape and Vineyard Electric Company, cut all power. At 5:10 all of the Lower Cape was without current.
In the morning it was brought home to Lower Cape folk how utterly dependent they were on electricity with no lights, no radio or television, no cooking for those who use electricity … and worst of all, for the growing number who use oil burners … no heat.
Fortunately, except in a few instances, the telephone service was not disrupted and by means of it Town agencies began to assess the damage and neighbors got to work to find out where help was needed. Portable stoves and supplies of kerosene were toted to frigid homes while the Selectmen quickly granted emergency powers to Town Manager Walter E. Lawrence to cope with the situation. He set up headquarters in his Town Hall office and with the assistance of John Corea and Frank Bent was soon ready to meet emergencies.
Although Provincetown got less snow than other communities, a gust of wind 80 miles per hour was recorded in the morning by the Race Point Coast Guard Station. As a result of this high wind, the 70-foot Weather Bureau Tower on Town Hill was pushed to a 30-degree list, and also a two-story storage building at the Monument Fish Company on Monument Dock was lifted by fierce winds and dropped in one piece into the water. According to reports, the estimated damage in the latter case approximated $75,000 with the possible loss of a $40,000 seine net.
March 13, 1975
Truro forum opts for nudity ban
A Truro Town Forum on nude bathing Tuesday voted two-to-one to go along with the Cape Cod National Seashore and ban public nudity in the Town.
Roughly seven percent of the Town’s voters, and fewer than the 91 who signed a Special Town Meeting petition which led to the Forum, voted 44-22 in favor of a ban in Truro. The action has no force unless a Town Meeting passes articles enacting a ban bylaw and increasing police funds.
The Board of Selectmen held the Forum to get direction from the voters in the nude bathing controversy that has raged since last summer’s crowds at Brush Hollow Beach. “I think the people of the Town have spoken. Everyone had an opportunity to come here tonight,” said Selectman Bruce Tarvers at the evening’s close.
Dexter Keezer, spokesman for the Truro Neighborhood Association which supported the ban, said at the outset no resolution should be passed at the Forum, which he called “not representative of the Truro community” and held on short notice. He charged the results would be used for “partisan purposes.”
With the exception of one man who lives on South Pamet Road – the site of last summer’s traffic and trespass problems – speakers favoring the ban appeared to be in their 50s and 60s while younger speakers asked for other solutions.
Urging the Seashore to relocate the nude beach, or establishing a Town nude beach at the Town-owned Head of the Meadow Beach, or a combination of the two, as well as Truro’s declaring itself neutral, were other options presented, but speakers aimed not so much at specific options as at redefining the situation.
Only a dozen people – other than the officials who sat onstage – spoke at all, although some others took the floor several times.
Nude bathing and last summer’s crowds were termed “a nuisance” and “an infringement on human rights” and associated with “lower property values, crime, lawlessness, vandalism, hard drugs, pushers and motorcyclists.”
Keezer said the ban was necessary to save Truro from becoming “a seaside slum.”
Grace DesChamps said no ban would make Truro “the lodestone to those whose happy hunting ground is where the action is, and the action would certainly be here.”
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Mar 10th, 2005