Peaked Hill Bars Coast Guard Station (Third site)
In this composite image, a photo of the station house ruin is superimposed on a postcard view of the whole structure, indicating roughly what portion of the building was represented by the extant wall. [Dunlap]
[2010, Dunlap]
This 1942 photograph of the station house in its third, and final, location was taken by W. Stiff from the site where it was built — after the first house fell into the sea. [Scrapbooks of Althea Boxell 4:36 / Dowd Collection / Provincetown History Preservation Project Page 83]
The feisty librarian Abbie Cook Putnam walked out to the station house around 1950 with Althea Boxell, whose picture this was. [Scrapbooks of Althea Boxell 8:5 / Dowd Collection / Provincetown History Preservation Project Page 2125]
[2009, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
[2008, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
[2009, Dunlap]
[2010, Dunlap]
An aerial view from 2010. [Dunlap]
Text last updated in 2015 | The second Peaked Hill Bars station was built in 1914, roughly on the site of Frenchie’s Shack. Within a year, the Life-Saving Service merged with the Revenue Cutter Service to form the Coast Guard. By the time the station opened, forces were rendering it obsolete: engines replaced sails, communications improved, and the Cape Cod Canal opened, diverting traffic from the Back Shore. The station itself was moved about 300 yards inland in 1930 to protect it from the fate of its predecessor. It was decommissioned in 1937 but reactivated briefly during World War II.
Abandoned and turned gradually into a shell of itself, the station burned down in August 1958. The blaze could be seen from Plymouth. The fort-like concrete foundations are still in place, forming a poignant — if graffiti-marred — memorial to the surfmen. Whatever a guide or guidebook may tell you, however, this ruin was not O’Neill’s cottage.
(Throughout Provincetown literature, you’ll find the name variously rendered: “Peaked Hill Bars,” “Peaked Hill Bar,” or simply “Peaked Hill.” In using the first version, I’m following The Life Savers of Cape Cod, J. W. Dalton’s definitive survey of 1902. As for pronunciation, I’ve heard most folks around here say “PEE-kid.”)
¶ Republished on 4 December 2023.