† 132 Bradford Street

Old Colony Railroad Passenger Depot

For better or worse, Provincetown was firmly joined to the mainland on 23 July 1873, when the Old Colony Railroad inaugurated train service from Boston. The passenger depot stood on Bradford Street but the tracks continued down Standish, across Commercial, and all the way to the end of Railroad Wharf, giving fishermen a relatively fast overland route to Boston. Three short spurs branched from the main line at Conwell Street. One ended at an engine house and turntable near Center Street and Railroad Avenue. Each day, four trains ran — or, at least, crawled — up and down the Cape.

CCNS Province Lands | Municipal Airport (PVC)

 

More than 300 acres were taken out of the Province Lands to permit construction of the Provincetown Municipal Airport (PVC), a project begun in 1947. Burns & Kenerson were the original architects. The single runway — 7/25 — is 3,500 feet long. The first scheduled flights to and from Boston, operated by John C. Van Arsdale (1919-1997), began in late 1949 on Cessna Bobcats.

† 293 Commercial Street

 
S. Knowles Boarding and Livery Stable

Samuel Knowles ran the Orleans-Provincetown stage coach and this livery stable. The business passed to his grandson, Frank Knowles Atkins (±1877-1940), who moved it to a site on Bradford Street, opposite the Old Colony Rail Road depot.

329 Commercial Street

 
Arnold’s Bicycle Shop | Shirts ‘n’ Stuff

Arnold F. Dwyer (±1918-1998) was the namesake of this heritage business, founded in 1937 and at this location since 1938. Arnold’s was originally housed in what had been the Long Point school house and the Provincetown post office, but that large and notable structure was destroyed by an arsonist in 1949. It began as a radio and bicycle shop, then expanded into a houseware, appliance, bottled gas, home furnishing and real estate rental business, then contracted again to the bicycle trade.