Long Point: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Cape Cod National Seashore
Brown M, von Bieberstein, A, Killion J. 2025. Long Point: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Cape Cod National Seashore. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 650113. National Park Service. NPS Northeast Regional Office, Boston, Massachusetts / CRIS-CL Database
Long Point is part of Cape Cod National Seashore, a unit of the National Park Service that comprises over 43,000 acres of protected shoreline, salt marshes, freshwater kettle ponds, lighthouses, a life-saving station, dune shacks, and Cape Cod-style houses. Located just in Barnstable County just south of Provincetown, Massachusetts, Long Point forms the end of Cape Cod’s infamous hook. The windswept and sparsely vegetated peninsula is bounded by Provincetown Harbor to the north and east and Cape Cod Bay to the south and west. The 280-acre site is accessible by a constructed breakwater, a narrow outer beach that extends south from Herring Cove, or a seasonal shuttle boat. Although exposed to wind, tides, and storms, the landform of Long Point remains relatively unchanged, bordered by broad sandy beaches that wrap around the tip, which is slowly accumulating additional sand. In between the shoreline beaches are dunes covered with beach grass, salt- and drought-tolerant forbs, salt spray rose, and other drought-tolerant shrubs. Despite such harsh and isolated conditions, Long Point’s rich history has included lighthouse and life-saving stations, a thriving fishing community, factories that produced salt and fish oil, and Civil-War era defenses. Extant features from these developments include the Long Point Light Station and oil house, Wood End Light Lookout Station and oil house, and remnants of two earthen gun batteries now cloaked in low-laying vegetation. Remains of a stone jetty, fog bell tower, marine railway, wharves, cistern, and a boat hull can still be found decaying along the beaches and amongst the sand dunes.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Brown, Margie; von Bieberstein,, Alexandra; Killion, Jeffrey
- Date of Issue
- 2025
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- CACO , NER
- Keywords
- and Other Structures, Architecture, Battery (Defense), Boat Launching Area, Boats, Civil War, Coast Guard Facility, Creating Social Institutions and Movements, Developing the American Economy, Emergency Aid and Health Care, Engineering, Expanding Science and Technology, Historic Designed Landscape, Historic Preservation, Lighthouse, Lighthouses, Long Point, Long Point Light Station, Maritime History, Military Facility (Post), Navigational, Outdoor Recreation, Post Office, Processing, School, Shipping and Transportation by Water, Ships, Social and Humanitarian Movements, Technology (Engineering and Invention), The Federal Government Enters the Movement, The Point, Transforming the Environment, Transportation, View, Village Site, Wood End, Wood End Coast Guard Station, Wood End Life-Saving Station, Wood End Light Lookout Station