Formerly Provincetown Shelter, Animal Rescue League of Boston
At left in this 1956 photo is resident veterinarian’s house. The flat-roofed building is the animal shelter and clinic. [Scrapbooks of Althea Boxell 2:17 / Dowd Collection / Provincetown History Preservation Project Page 1059]
The resident veterinarian’s house as it appears now. [2010, Town Assessor]
Updated on 26 May 2026 | Martha Josephine “Mattie” Atkins (1869-1952) “devoted her later years to helping humane societies and to carrying on her own personal campaign of caring for stray cats and dogs and to feeding wildlife in the winter,” the Advocate noted. That campaign extended to bequeathing her house at 214 Commercial Street to the Animal Rescue League of Boston. “It was her plan,” the Advocate continued, “to have her property opposite the Provincetown Post Office used for an animal hospital, but town officials refused to issue a permit for such a project in the center of the town. However, there was no opposition on the part of any member of the Board of Appeals to have it out on the west side of Snail Road.”1
So that is where the Animal Rescue League began construction in 1955 of the Captain Joseph R. Atkins and Martha W. Atkins Animal Shelter.2 The little compound had a 1,620-square-foot, one-story building “with an operating room, clinic, dog and cat quarters with runs for dogs, and a kitchen where meals for the animals will be prepared,” and a two-story, two-bedroom, Cape Cod-style house for the center’s resident veterinarian, the Advocate reported.3 The center opened in 1956.
Although the shelter at land’s end was busy in summer months, the Animal Rescue League soon realized that it was not in a convenient or efficient location for most residents of Cape Cod. Only 11 years after opening the Provincetown shelter, the league moved its Cape operations 35 miles up to East Brewster. I believe that a branch of the First National Bank of Provincetown operated here for a time. The resident veterinarian’s house, still standing, has long served as a private dwelling. I’m not sure at this writing whether the shelter building was razed or incorporated into a newer structure.
In memoriam
• Martha J. Atkins (1869-1952
Find a Grave Memorial No. 120650041.
1 “To Fellows and Friends Afar & Abroad,” Provincetown Advocate, 20 January 1955, Page 6.
2 These were the names of Martha J. Atkins’s parents.
3 “Work Starts on Animal Rescue Shelter Made Possible by Martha Atkins Gift,” Provincetown Advocate, 8 December 1955, Page 1.