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This postcard shows the New State Road along the beach, now Herring Cove. It was mailed in 1937. The back reads, “Four days out, 2 rainy, 2 very clear. Drove from Gloucester to Provincetown in rain. Monday will retrace route to see sights if clear. Spent a while at Race Point today. Going to Highland Light and Cahoon’s Hollow tomorrow, and back toward Boston. Frank” |
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A Little About the Beaches
Laurel Guadazno
BANNER CORRESPONDENT
Ah — summer at last! July 4th marks either the beginning or the end of summer, depending on whom you ask. I’m the kind of person who always looks on the bright side, so I choose to believe summer is just beginning and it’s time to head to the beach for a swim.
For the first three decades of the 20th century if you said you were going to the beach in Provincetown, you probably meant the sandy area fronting on Provincetown Harbor. There were numerous “bathing beaches” along the bay. A few that have been immortalized on old postcards are Smith’s, Brown’s, Ellis’, Weeks’ and Delight Cottage.
For many years West End residents enjoyed swimming at Grozier Park, today the site of the Boatslip, on a piece of property owned by Edwin and Alice Grozier, part owners of the Boston Post newspaper. The Groziers bought several pieces of property at the foot of Central Street across from their home, and when they adorned the waterfront area with benches and pots of flowers, residents began to call it Grozier Park. We all might still be enjoying Grozier Park, but in 1964 Town Meeting voted against a proposal to purchase the land for $75,000.
Some people made the trek to the “backside” beaches especially when the Commonwealth built 12 miles of road all the way out to Race Point and opened up the Province Lands in the 1890s. Later in the 1930s the Commonwealth of Massachusetts modernized the road, built a bathhouse, and created “New Beach,” so called because it was just that, a new public beach. Even though people had made the trip out to the “backside” before, the new state road made travel easier, and a new beach, complete with changing rooms, made the visit more comfortable. When the Cape Cod National Seashore took over the land in the 1960s, they renamed the beach Herring Cove, for the large catches of herring once taken off the shore there. Old timers still refer to Herring Cove as the “New Beach.”
The Cape Cod National Seashore also created Race Point Beach, complete with public restrooms, changing rooms and parking. Race Point takes its name from the strong currents that meet offshore there. So dangerous are these currents that a lighthouse was first built here in 1817, and a lifesaving station in 1872. The Coast Guard also maintained a station at Race Point there before moving into town.
So today when someone exclaims, “Summer’s here, I’m going to the beach.” it can mean Herring Cove, Race Point or one of the many other bay beaches.
[Laurel Guadazno is curator of education for the Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum.]
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Jul 21st, 2005