576 Commercial Street

Dr. George H. Dears (±1878-1948), an optometrist, divided his time in the 1920s and early ’30s between Stoughton and an office at 576 Commercial. Seriously injured in an automobile accident in 1936, however, he decided — as The Advocate put it — “to leave the bigger field of Stoughton for a more leisurely practice in Provincetown.” His office here, at the corner of Conway Street (in fact, the property is now known officially as 1 Conway Street), even included lens-grinding equipment “so that Cape End people would not be deprived of the use of their glasses for prolonged periods while lenses were being replaced.”