(Circa 1920)
Fish Pan Alley.
Borrowing its name from New York’s Tin Pan Alley, the extension of Atkins-Mayo Road into the dunes was once lined on both sides with fish pans, presumably not unlike those shown here in the Consolidated Weir Company cold storage house. Paul Tasha said the purpose of the pans was to prevent wagon wheels from sinking into the sand; the horses pulling the wagon did so down a center rut. Remnants are still there to be found. Though I haven’t yet seen a fish pan with my own eyes, I trust that one day I will, when I least expect it and am off in the dunes looking for something else entirely.
¶ Last updated on 14 March 2017. ¶ Image courtesy of the Provincetown History Preservation Project, Dowd Collection, Page 2103. (Scrapbooks of Althea Boxell, Book 7, Page 77.)