People and Places on the Outer Cape:

A Landscape Character Study

University of Massachusetts Amherst 

Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning

Department of History

National Park Service

Cape Cod National Seashore

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

Northeast Regional Ethnography Program

People and Places on the Outer Cape:

A Landscape Character Study

University of Massachusetts Amherst 

Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning

Department of History

National Park Service

Cape Cod National Seashore

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

Northeast Regional Ethnography Program

June 2004

OLMSTED 

CENTER 

for LANDSCAPE PRESERVATION
Cover photo: Bay Beach, Outer Cape, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)
Principal Investigator

Jack Ahern, Head, Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning 

(LARP), University of Massachusetts 

Co-Investigators

David Glassberg, Chairman, UMass History Department

Elisabeth Hamin, Assistant Professor, UMass LARP

Ethan Carr, Assistant Professor, UMass LARP

Principal Authors

Mary Lee York, UMass LARP

Sandra C. Krein, UMass History Department

Mark Wamsley, UMass LARP

Guest Studio Co-instructor

André Boutequlia Leitão

UMass Studio Participants

Ani Adair, Tetsuya Aikoh, Patricia Watkins Alesi, Joao P. Almeida, Emily E. Clarke, Patricia 

Laurice Ellsworth, Mary C. Everett, Christian D. Gabriel, Jian Huang, Maciej Konieczny, Donna 

B. Lilborn, Nidhi Madan, Christopher J. Miller, Emily L. Podolak, Andrea L. Proulx, Nathan G. 

Richardson, Anna Marie Ryan, Aaron F. Rutz, Lisa A. Sauer, Taweesak Sriwannawit, Peng Sun, 

Ahmed Mohamedsadek Tawakol, Sarah L. Tindall, Lauren M. Todd, Greg R. Tuzzolo, Nicole A. 

Vajda, Amanda J. Walker, Mark B. Wamsley, Jan P. Witke, Mary Lee York

National Park Service Participants

Cape Cod National Seashore

Maria Burks, Superintendent

William Burke, Cultural Resources Program Manager

Lauren McKean, Park Planner 

Hope Morrill, Curator

Sue Moynihan, Chief of Interpretation and Cultural Resources Management

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

Robert Page, Director

Margie Coffin Brown, Historical Landscape Architect

Northeast Regional Office

John Maounis, Associate Regional Director for Cultural Resources, Northeast Region

Chuck Smythe, Senior Cultural Anthropologist, Northeast Region Ethnography 

James O’Connell, Planner, Planning and Legislation

Paul Weinbaum, Regional Historian

Conservation Study Institute

Virginia Farley, Director of Leadership Programs
The students and faculty who assembled this report gratefully acknowledge the time, assistance, and 

contributions generously given to them by many residents of the Outer Cape, the staff of the town libraries 

and historical societies, and the superintendant and staff of the Cape Cod National Seashore. 

Thank you all for sharing your insights, perspectives, and ideas.
Table of Contents

Preface ........................................................................................................................................................ 1

Methodology ............................................................................................................................................ 3

Part I. Character, Current Trends, and History ............................................. 7

Character ...................................................................................................................................................... 8

Current Trends in Development .............................................................................................................. 10

Landscape History: Myth and Memory .................................................................................................. 15 

The Cape Cod National Seashore .............................................................................................. 19

The Cape Cod Model ................................................................................................................... 20

Public Hearings and Perception of Landscape Character ...................................................... 22

Citizen’s Advisory Committee and Cape Cod Commission ................................................... 26

National Park Service Studies and Plans ................................................................................... 28

Part II. The Cultural Landscape: Landscape Headings ......................... 31 

The Great Beach ......................................................................................................................................... 35

Waterways ..................................................................................................................................................... 47

Town Centers and Harbors ........................................................................................................................ 57

Farms and Forests ....................................................................................................................................... 69

Getting Around ........................................................................................................................................... 87

Homes on the Outer Cape ........................................................................................................................ 95

Part III. Cape Conversations ........................................................................................... 111 

Excerpts from a series of conversations held in Wellfleet and Provincetown

Part IV. Conclusions and Challenges ....................................................................... 117

Challenges .................................................................................................................................................... 118

Planning and Zoning Tools and Techniques .......................................................................................... 125

Alternative Future Scenarios ..................................................................................................................... 129

Endnotes ................................................................................................................................................... 137

List of Figures ......................................................................................................................................... 151 

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................. 159

Interviews .................................................................................................................................................. 167

This is the kind of place where place, and threats to place, are a big story.

Brent Harold, Wellfleet and the World, 20031

Figure 1: Corn Hill, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass )

Figure 2: Two women walking on beach. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Preface

When Congress established the Cape 

Cod National Seashore in 1961, it acted to 

preserve a nationally significant and unique 

American landscape: the beaches, dunes, 

bluffs, forests, ponds and wetlands of the 

Outer Cape.2 But the legislation also recognized that the meaning and significance of 

that landscape could never be truly preserved 

without also helping to maintain the special 

way of life of the people who live there. 

From the outset, federal efforts to preserve 

the Outer Cape have recognized that the 

landscape and its people are inseparable in 

the sense that culture and landscape have 

mutually influenced one another for thousands of years. This study has been produced 

by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 

as part of the National Park Service mandate 

to understand, document, and analyze the 

complex interactions of people and places on 

the Outer Cape, both historically and today. 

The purpose of this study is to provide 

National Park Service and local government 

officials, as well as other organizations and 

all residents of the Outer Cape, an improved 

basis for making the decisions that ultimately 

will decide the fate of the landscape character 

valued by us all.

The 1998 General Management Plan for 

the Cape Cod National Seashore recognizes 

that the variety of Cape Cod’s landscape 

resources, and the many ways in which people 

experience, use, and care for these resources, 

are the basis of the appeal and unique character of the Outer Cape.3

 This research 

explores the complex issue of landscape 

character, how it is related to the ways of 

life of the Outer Cape, and how an understanding of landscape character can be used 

to inform future planning, design, and management decisions. Understanding landscape 

character means defining its contributing characteristics and features, including such vital 

elements as vegetation, physiography, cultural 

landscapes, and historic sites and structures. 

But the character of the Outer Cape also 

includes experiences that are harder to measure or document. Many residents and visitors have referred to a sense of peace, even a 

feeling of relative isolation, as an essential part 

of the landscape’s character. Certainly this 

characteristic has been hard to maintain as the 

resident and tourist populations have grown. 

In general, using and enjoying the landscape, 

while assuring that its essential character is 

retained for future generations, has always 

been a significant challenge for the residents 

and property owners, as well as town, county, 

state and federal government officials. Other 

elements of landscape character are just as 

difficult to precisely enumerate or analyze. 

The inherent contrast, for example, between 

unchanging and awesome features (beach and 

ocean), juxtaposed with fragile and mutable 

elements (shifting dunes, endangered heathlands, fragile habitats) also epitomizes the 

Outer Cape. While the landscape on one 

hand seems eternal, on the other it is in constant flux. Both the cultural and natural history of the Cape feature dramatic change, 

from storms that can alter shorelines in a 

day, to the waves of tourists that transform 

Cape communities every summer. Providing 

insights on how interactions of people and 

places have shaped change in the landscapeand therefore also defining what has remained 

unchanged-are the essential goals of this 

1
study. Understanding change on the Outer 

Cape can be a means of preserving its valued 

character, within the context of vital, growing 

communities and continued natural processes 

and landscape change.

The history of Cape Cod shows that 

the landscape has been anything but stable, 

particularly over the last 300 years. In the 

early seventeenth century Europeans colonized the region, displacing native residents 

even while adopting and extending their subsistence farming and fishing practices. European settlement had dramatic impacts, the 

most obvious being the removal of much of 

the existing forest cover and an expansion of 

agriculture and fishing to support larger populations. By the early nineteenth century farmers and fishermen began exporting goods, 

including cod and cranberries, to relatively distant markets, a shift in resource economics 

with extensive implications for the landscape. 

Tourism began to flourish as well in the nineteenth century, at least on the Upper Cape 

and elsewhere on Massachusetts shores. The 

Outer Cape remained at first more a place 

that belonged to the people who lived and 

worked there. Tourism certainly arrived, but 

mostly later, and mostly in automobiles and 

on improved highways. This trend began 

during the interwar period, but after World 

War II mass tourism completely altered the 

economic and social basis of local life. The 

dramatic changes of the 1940s and 1950s led 

many to despair that the character of the 

Outer Cape was in fact being lost. Agricultural activities and the maritime economy, 

which had shaped many features of the towns 

and countryside of the Cape, were in drastic 

decline. The new economy (and for many 

the new way of life) was based on weekend 

and seasonal tourism. The concern over this 

change-and all that it implied for the landscape-directly motivated the creation of the 

Cape Cod National Seashore in 1961.

The economics of tourism still shapes 

the landscape of the Outer Cape, although it 

is currently being overtaken by another source 

of change: the redevelopment of properties 

for year-round residences. The redevelopment of existing homes and cottages, whether 

to enlarge them, make them suitable for yearround use, or both, and the redevelopment of 

commercial properties to serve the larger, permanent population, are replacing new development (on previously undeveloped land) as 

a major perceived threat to the character of 

the Outer Cape. There is relatively little land 

that is either undeveloped or unprotected on 

the Outer Cape; only about 10 percent of 

the Outer Cape remains available for new 

development. But there are many properties 

that may be profitably redeveloped, sometimes greatly increasing the size of buildings 

and radically altering their place in the landscape. Redevelopment often in turn requires a 

greater number of services, stores, infrastructure and utilities, including fresh water. 

As the year-round population has 

grown, property values have increased, and 

a new generation of pressures on the landscape of Cape Cod has emerged. Residents 

and government officials have once again 

responded to seek ways to preserve the character of their region, and their ways of life. 

The creation of the Cape Cod Commission 

in 1990 created a new context for land use 

planning decisions, and reflected a continued 

resolve on the part of Cape Cod residents 

to actively monitor and protect the character 

of their remarkable home. The Cape Cod 

National Seashore, as well, has continued to 

develop diverse and vital partnerships with 

property owners and local governments and 

agencies that are the heart of the successful 

management of the park. The 1998 General 

Management Plan embodies these priorities; the 

research presented here is a direct response to 

the requirements identified during the public 

meetings of the General Management Plan process. This study is intended to support the 

stewardship of natural and cultural resources 

and, above all, to further and enhance cooperative planning and management partnerships 

with the towns and communities of the Outer 

Cape.

2
in earlier studies have personally participated 

in this project.

Part I, Character, Current Trends, and 

History, provides an overall context in which 

the other observations and conclusions of this 

study are made. This section summarizes 

some of the current, regional trends and 

issues that are affecting the Outer Cape, and 

it also provides a brief landscape history of 

the region, much of which is related in more 

depth by James O’Connell in his recent book, 

Becoming Cape Cod. In this overview, we 

emphasize certain trends and historical events, 

such as the rise of tourism and the creation 

of the Cape Cod National Seashore, which 

were of particular significance in shaping the 

region’s landscape. This section also includes 

a thorough discussion of the literature and 

meanings of “character,” particularly those 

that have been important in developing our 

own working definition of this elusive term. 

For our purposes, landscape character derives 

from cultural features and particular ways of 

life, as well as geology, topography, vegetation, 

and other physical features. Character comFigure 3: Artistic view, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass )

Methodology

Figure 4: Landscape character public meeting, Wellfleet Public 

Library, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

The University of Massachusetts, 

Amherst (UMass), the National Park Service 

(NPS), and the residents and officials of the 

Outer Cape who participated by sharing 

their time and insights all collaborated to produce this study. The effort was initiated 

by the Cape Cod National Seashore, the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, and 

the NPS Northeastern Regional Ethnography 

Program. The research was conducted by faculty and students of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, and 

the Department of History, of the University 

of Massachusetts.

The team of professors and students 

began by consulting with NPS staff to determine an appropriate scope and methodology. 

In preparation for the project, staff of the 

Cape Cod National Seashore contacted a 

range of town officials and residents in 

order to clarify key issues that should be 

addressed. Many highly engaged and knowledgeable people have been active in seeking 

solutions to the challenges on the Outer Cape 

for many years. Both UMass professors 

and students, and NPS staff received significant information from residents of the Outer 

Cape, as well as officials from the six towns 

and the Cape Cod Commission. We consulted 

many previous planning publications as part 

of our research, and many of those involved 

3
bines both patterns of human activity, and 

the physical patterns of the places that have 

been shaped by those activities. In turn, the 

landscape has also helped shape the ways of 

life of people living there. Character is closely 

related to “sense of place.” We concluded 

that a location often is described as having a 

sense of place when people feel that it has 

had a role in the creation of their memories, 

and therefore in the establishment of identity, 

whether for individuals or for a group. Definitions of character and place are inseparable 

from the creative dynamics of memory, which 

makes it essential to begin this study with an 

overview of the role of memory and historical narrative in our analysis of the perceived 

character of the region.

It was also essential for everyone 

involved in this project to understand that 

although the Outer Cape has been valued for 

its history and character since at least Thoreau’s day, relationships between people and 

places continue to actively shape the landscape. The residents of the Outer Cape today 

lead lives that are still influenced by, and in 

turn influence, the landscape around them. 

The present condition of the landscape-and 

the potential changes to it that may occur in 

the future-were our particular concern in this 

study. 

Our description of the existing landscape character of the Outer Cape is presented in Part II, Landscape Headings. This 

section documents and analyzes features and 

characteristics of the existing cultural landscape of the Outer Cape. The material for 

this analysis was produced during two graduate studios (courses) at the UMass Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional 

Planning, as well as through a series of public 

meetings, or Cape Conversations, conducted 

by the University of Massachusetts History 

Department.

To produce the Landscape Headings, 

we combined work from several disciplines, 

specifically landscape architecture, regional 

planning, and public history. For landscape 

architects, the documentation of physical 

landscape features and characteristics-such as 

spatial organization, circulation, vegetation, 

topography, and structures-is of particular 

interest. Using drawings, photographs, historic maps and views, this approach was structured by the NPS Guide to Cultural Landscape 

Reports published in 1998. Some of the drawings and analysis done by the students are 

reproduced here. In a landscape planning 

studio, another group of students employed 

computerized data and analysis techniques 

of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) 

to understand the structure and disposition 

of the Outer Cape landscape, at a broader, 

regional scale. Finally, Professor David Glassberg and Research Assistant Sandra Krein 

employed the techniques of public history to 

better document many of the less tangible 

aspects of “character,” through conversations 

with residents who explained in their own 

words what that term meant to them, and 

which aspects of life on the Outer Cape contributed to that sense.

The Landscape Headings depict representative sites on the Outer Cape, selected to 

capture the essence of the natural and cultural 

interactions in the landscape. We were able 

to draw on a large body of existing research 

to make these selections. A preliminary “cultural landscape inventory” of the Cape Cod 

National Seashore was recently completed by 

the NPS, for example. A National Register 

District has been designated in Wellfleet, and 

a number of other inventories, districts, and 

designations of historic sites and structures 

have been done throughout Cape Cod. Working from existing research as our starting 

point, we also consulted planning reports 

completed by the Cape Cod Commission, 

Barnstable County, and other entities to better 

understand the range of management issues 

and “threats” that have been described by 

those concerned by a perceived change in the 

landscape’s character. We also relied on suggestions from Cape Cod National Seashore 

staff, as well as residents of the Outer Cape 

who were consulted in a series of phone interviews.

4
The Landscape Headings therefore 

describe a range of physical landscape types, 

from the Great Beach itself, to the commercial 

strip of Route 6. But the Headings are also 

intended to describe the range of public uses 

of these landscapes, since these activities are 

essential aspects of character. The Headings 

are examples, or models, that illustrate more 

general aspects of regional landscape character. There are obviously many special and 

contributing places that are not described 

here, specifically. But the Headings describe 

in more detail at least some of the landscapes 

that are typical, and sometimes emblematic, of 

life on the Outer Cape. By making specific 

observations in this way, we avoid remaining 

in the realm of generalities in our documentation of character. The Headings also highlight 

landscape management issues, from the natural succession of vegetation, to the shared use 

of popular beach access points. This study 

is also intended to contribute to the development of strategies for planning and management by the six towns, and so our Headings 

also address some specific land management 

concerns.

The series of Cape Conversations held 

on the Outer Cape in June and July of 2003 

are summarized in Part III. The Cape Conversations were motivated by the idea that 

landscape values and perceptions are often 

articulated in groups, particularly through conversations among residents. To stimulate 

these conversations, we invited local residents 

to view contemporary and historical photographs, and listened to and recorded the comments and dialogue that emerged. The Cape 

Conversations were only one part of the overall effort to involve Outer Cape residents in 

this study, but they proved to be a productive 

one. Quotes from these conversations are 

highlighted throughout this document.

Throughout this study we proceeded 

on the assumption that a better understanding 

of the cultural and natural processes that 

formed the landscape, and the changes experienced especially in recent decades, would 

provide a stronger basis for residents and 

managers to make decisions affecting the 

region. This in no way suggests any intention 

or attempt to “freeze” the landscape, or somehow reduce active and vital communities to 

museums. Not only would such attempts fail, 

they are contrary to the published policies 

of the Cape Cod National Seashore and of 

the Secretary of the Interior’s standards for 

the treatment of cultural landscapes. Change 

in the landscape must occur, and appropriate 

change can address current needs, and also 

enhance valued ways of life and regional 

economies. Policies should accommodate 

these changes in the ways that are supportive 

of the ecology and character of the existing 

landscape and the activities of its people. 

The challenge of maintaining the character of 

the Outer Cape in the context of inevitable 

change is as much political as technical. Landscape change is incremental, and therefore 

often unnoticed as such, at least as it is 

happening. It is difficult to appreciate landscape change when it happens gradually over 

years and is dispersed across the region. But 

the cumulative effects of seemingly minor 

changes can over time transform the quality of 

life and character of a place.

In Part IV Conclusions and Challenges, we present a set of ideas that we 

believe would contribute to the stewardship 

of the cultural landscape. These ideas are presented as a menu from which the six towns, 

private property owners, other stakeholders, 

and the NPS may be able to select strategies 

that are feasible and effective for their particular situation. We also present three future 

scenarios, intended to explore alternative strategies for accommodating future population 

and development growth, while maintaining 

the Outer Cape’s unique qualities and character. Our work has been intended to find ways 

to encourage citizens to see their landscape 

and its changes over time, to empower local 

communities in their planning, zoning, and 

site reviews, and to improve partnership in the 

stewardship of the Outer Cape. Our conclusions and recommendations are offered in this 

spirit.

5
6
Figure 5: Cape Cod, 1795. (Courtesy: Wellfleet Public Library)

PART I 

Character, Current Trends, and History

The Cape Cod peninsula extends from 

the southeastern corner of Massachusetts 

eastward and northward into the Atlantic 

Ocean. A great hook set in the sea, Cape 

Cod’s distinct landform resulted from the last 

major glaciation to cover New England, which 

in its retreat dragged and deposited gravel and 

sand into a rocky ridge that today rises only 

barely above sea level. Exposed to the full 

force of the open ocean, this malleable foundation of Cape Cod has been shaped by storm 

and sea into its current configuration.

The towns of Chatham, Orleans, 

Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro and Provincetown, 

together make up the peninsula of the Outer 

Cape, which extends in a narrow spit northwards from the rest of Cape Cod. Here 

the surf relentlessly pounds the east facing 

shore, where the Great Beach stretches for 

forty remarkable miles, completely unimpeded. There is a palpable sense, here, of the 

land ending and succumbing to the wildness 

of the open sea.

Human activities have also been formative in shaping the Outer Cape landscape. 

The region is not just a destination spot for 

visitors, but also a place where people have 

made their living on the land and from the 

sea for thousands of years. These ways of 

life have helped shape the landscape, giving 

it distinctive form and influencing its unique 

character.

The extraordinary natural and cultural 

histories of the Outer Cape together constitute one of the most significant cultural 

landscape heritages in the United States. Glorified in the works of writers and artists, 

the Outer Cape has long been recognized by 

many diverse individuals and groups as a special place. Already in the seventeenth century 

the Province Lands received early forms of 

landscape protection (perhaps the earliest in 

North America), and many important preservation efforts have been pioneered here since 

then. In 1961 Congress established the Cape 

Cod National Seashore, covering 43,570 acres 

of unique and fragile land in the six towns 

of Barnstable County that make up the Outer 

Cape. The Seashore was a completely new 

kind of national park, conceived as a mosaic 

of private and public interests and properties; 

it was also the first instance of Congress 

directly acquiring land for the creation of 

a new federal reservation. Since then, the 

National Park Service has sponsored many 

different research and inventory projects in 

order to develop improved understandings of 

the unique character of the Outer Cape, with 

the goal of assuring that character would not 

erode and be lost. These efforts have been 

matched by local and regional groups, including the Cape Cod Commission, the Audubon 

Society, the Trust for Public Land, and the 

Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts 

who have supported resource stewardship and 

the preservation of the character of the Outer 

Cape.

7
Figure 6: Physiographic regions of the Outer Cape, 2003. 

(Source: UMass/MassGIS)

Character 

I find that the character is more 

identified as being a sense of place, 

a love of place that I don’t find 

in the rest of New England or 

Massachusetts. The lower Cape 

[Outer Cape] is an exemplar of 

what people think about. They 

don’t think about downtown Hyannis. They think about the National 

Seashore. They think about the 

dunes. They think about those 

kinds of things.

Bill Doherty, Cape Conversations, 2003.4

Landscape “character” may be difficult to define, but it clearly includes physiographic structure of the land, patterns of 

vegetation, spatial experiences and sequences, 

and the means of moving through the landscape. Landscape character derives from cultural features and particular ways of life, as 

well as geology and topography; it combines 

patterns of human activity and the physical 

patterns of the places that are shaped by 

those activities, or conversely that have shaped 

them.

Landscape character is often used 

interchangeably with other common (and just 

as difficult to define) terms, such as “sense 

of place” and “community character.” Many 

writers and researchers representing several 

academic disciplines have defined methods 

for describing and analyzing the character of 

landscapes, usually with the ultimate goal of 

in some way “preserving” them.5 Attempts 

to articulate the idea of landscape character 

often begin by focusing on the discrete physical elements of a place, highlighting such concrete aspects as natural features, as well as 

the scale, style, and arrangement of buildings 

and other structures. While such fundamental 

elements are essential components of any particular landscape, together they do not comprise a complete sense of place.6

 Physical 

features must also be considered in light of 

the patterns of life that are tied to them, 

and sometimes are responsible for producing 

them. The physical landscape must be linked, 

in other words, to the people that experience 

it, live in it, and shape it, and who filter their 

experience through their own personal experience, and through more broadly held social 

and political values.7 Landscape character and 

place identity are intimately tied to both individuals and their sense of community, and to 

the basic human need not only for a relationBut what exactly is the special and 

unique “character” of the Outer Cape? What 

elements comprise that character, how can 

they be documented and analyzed, and how 

can that analysis inform future planning, 

design, and management decisions? 

8
ship with the physical world, but for community and social interaction.

The uses and activities that occur in a 

particular place can even overshadow physical 

landscape features in creating meaning: some 

researchers suggest it is the “substance” not 

the “style” of a place that matters most for 

creating meaning and character.8 Others have 

attempted to define landscape character by 

assessing the “landscape values” held by those 

who experience those landscapes.9 People 

experience and enjoy places and landscapes 

differently based not only on personal differences in memory and experience, but also to 

some extent on their culture, occupation, age 

and class. Tourists value landscapes differently than locals, and locals may experience 

landscapes differently based on their occupation.10 Still other researchers have stressed 

that landscapes with a distinct sense of place 

and a unique character are “authentic,” meaning that they include not only special physical 

features and patterns of living, but also an 

unpredictable, or “organic,” element of surprise.11 In general, perhaps it can be concluded that a location often is considered to 

have a “sense of place” when people can view 

it as having a role in the creation of their 

memories, and therefore of their identity as 

individuals, and as a group.

When speaking about the distinctive 

character of the Outer Cape, a number of 

writers on the subject begin by listing the particular physical aspects that exist there. As 

stated in the Cape Cod Commission’s 1998 

Community Vision:

Cape Cod is a special place, unique 

in both its natural environment and 

historic character. It has a rich, 

diverse landscape that includes compact historic villages connected by a 

network of wetlands, ponds forest 

and open space. It is a place 

of abundant nature, surrounded 

by and connected to the sea. It 

is a place with distinctive architecture, combining traditional forms 

The ‘real’ Cape Cod stakes its 

claim to authenticity by seeking to 

preserve the sense of place, by protecting beaches and salt marshes 

and preserving historic houses, windmills and picturesque fishing piers. 

Resort development has never overwhelmed the region’s distinct character, accreting incrementally in the 

Cape’s villages over the past 125 

years. The locally owned, smallbusiness economic base, with fewer 

national chains than elsewhere, helps 

maintain the region’s small-town 

quality. The year-round community, 

with many retirees and commuters 

dedicated to the Cape, resists the 

relentlessly contrived feel that goes 

with vacationlands designed for transients. ‘Tourist traps’ do not set the 

tone...

Despite all the intention that under 

girds the authentic, Cape Cod tourism experiences depend upon a basic 

sense of place. It is essential to the 

marketing appeal, but in the final 

analysis, a place’s authenticity is not 

utilitarian but grounded in the connection between the physical setting 

and people’s emotional response to it.

James O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod: Creating a 

Seaside Resort.12

9
and materials in a variety of different styles.13

But the sense of place on the Outer 

Cape is more than the sum of its extraordinary physical parts; it includes essential and 

intangible experiences. In the 1930s the photographer Samuel Chamberlain, for example, 

found “the veritable appeal of the Cape” to 

be in fleeting images, such as “the silhouettes 

of clam diggers at sunset, the flash of a lighthouse, the glimpse of a white doorway, [and] 

the turquoise splendor of an inland lake.”14 

More recently writer Paul Theroux describes 

the Cape’s allure by observing, “Anyone who 

grows tired of Cape Cod needs his head 

examined, because for purely homely summer 

fun there is nowhere in the world that I know 

that can touch it.... A perfect summer is a 

dream of childhood: idleness, and ice cream, 

and heat.”15 Indeed, a large and diverse literature exists devoted to describing the perhaps 

indescribable aspects of the character of the 

Outer Cape. 

Such celebrated (if intangible) qualities 

are often attributed to the “authenticity” of 

the Outer Cape. The experience of the Outer 

Cape’s special character stands in contrast to 

the manufactured feel of many other seaside 

resorts in the United States. But authenticity 

does not exist by happenstance; paradoxically 

or not, it is often carefully cultivated and nurtured by local businesses and residents alike. 

The delicate balance between promoting character, and preserving it, is hard to achieve.16

Table 1: Population Growth, 1950-2000. 

(Source: US Census and Massachusetts Institute for 

Social and Economic Research (MISER), 2003)

Current Trends in Development

The special character described by so 

many Outer Cape residents and visitors can 

change in some cases with startling rapidity. 

During the construction boom of the last 

two decades, towns have lost businesses to 

strip commercial developments, and agricultural land has been converted to residential 

subdivisions. In some cases services at the 

heart of community life-such as post offices, 

schools, and grocery stores-have moved out 

of town centers to peripheral locations. The 

redevelopment of existing residential and 

commercial properties can also result in far 

larger and more visually apparent buildings. 

The creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore in 1961 effectively ended new private 

development on the land acquired for the 

park; but over 600 private residential properties were left within park boundaries, subject 

only to local zoning restrictions.17 When once 

modest Cape cottages are redeveloped into 

large mansions, they can dominate the landscape and change the character of a scene 

dramatically. The rapid growth of the yearround population and the associated increase 

in new residential and commercial land uses 

has resulted in more crowded roads and 

streets, pressures on water supplies, and many 

other changes.

A survey conducted by the Cape Cod 

Commission in 1995 highlighted the concerns 

of residents. Respondents ranked the following items as very important to their choice 

of living on the Cape: air and water quality, 

safety from crime, proximity to the coast, rural 

character, and small-town life. The survey 

also revealed concerns about threats to the 

10
character of their region. Respondents listed 

population growth, high taxes, traffic problems, groundwater contamination, pollution of 

coastal waters, and loss of open space as the 

most pressing issues facing the Cape at that 

time.19

Table 1 shows the significant population growth on the Outer Cape since 1950, 

a period during which the six towns in the 

region have grown an average of 219 percent, 

six times the rate of Massachusetts as a whole. 

This disparity has resulted in large part from 

the influx of retirees who build or convert 

vacation homes for year-round residence.20 

While one in seven Massachusetts residents in 

2000 was 65 or older, on the Outer Cape it is 

one in four. The Cape’s population boom 

has drawn the attention of local and state 

planning officials, and helped lead to the creation of the Cape Cod Commission in 1990. 

In 1997, at the Cape Cod 2020 Conference, 

It wasn’t a problem until probably 

three years ago, when house prices 

went so high. Now, when you 

can’t get a house for three hundred 

thousand, you think about...the 

average income for a family on 

the Cape might be fifty, sixty thousand. There’s no way you can start 

out with a three hundred thousand 

dollar house.... it’s a drastic problem. It’s happened so fast that there 

hasn’t been enough reaction time. 

And we’re...running out of land 

as well, which is causing prices to 

be higher and less land to create a 

solution.... All of a sudden people 

are realizing we’re out of land. 

Frank Szedlak, Jr., Cape Conversation, 2003.18

Table 2: U.S. Counties with the Highest Rates of 

Median Home Sales Price Appreciation (1997-2002).23

the Cape Cod Commission projected that the 

Outer Cape would reach “build out” within 

twenty years, meaning a population between 

275,000 and 290,000 residents.21 This conference also indicated that the pressure of 

increasing population levels would only intensify due to a flood of “baby boomer” retirees, 

and as technological advances allow more 

people to work from home. The negative 

effects of this growth on affordable housing, 

traffic, and water quality issues will become 

even more challenging.

As the population has risen and developable land has become scarcer, the values of 

Outer Cape homes have increased at astounding rates. Average home prices on the entire 

Cape nearly doubled between 1997 and 2002. 

According to the Office of Federal Housing, 

in 2002 the Barnstable-Yarmouth section of 

Cape Cod topped the nation with an over 

ninety percent growth in prices over the previous five years. The trend showed no signs 

of slowing, with Barnstable-Yarmouth reporting a fifteen percent annual price increase in 

2002.22

11
Figure 7: Net Usable Land Area (NULA) on the Outer 

Cape today. (Source: UMass/MassGis)

One obvious result of rapidly rising 

real estate prices is that young families and 

lower income people are precluded from 

buying houses on the Outer Cape. The dearth 

of lower cost housing limits the number of 

workers available to staff local businesses, and 

it skews the demographics of Outer Cape 

towns in favor of wealthier, and often older, 

residents who are able to afford the real estate. 

Affordable housing has been repeatedly raised 

as an issue of concern. The lack of affordable housing affects the character of Outer 

Cape in basic ways by limiting the range of 

income and ages among the people who live 

there.

The redevelopment of existing homes 

and businesses has become a major trend on 

the Outer Cape in recent years, one that has 

again concerned a range of residents and officials. When small cottages are torn down and 

replaced with much larger houses-sometimes 

with little regard for effects on the surrounding landscape-the results can be distressing. 

When older properties are redeveloped, driveways of broken shells or packed sand are 

often replaced with black asphalt; rustic 

wooden fence posts are supplanted by formal 

gates. Commercial redevelopment, most notably along Route 6, can transform more 

modest motels and restaurants of the 1950s 

and 1960s into imposing establishments, set 

further back from the road to make room 

for extensive parking lots that front on the 

road. Within National Seashore boundaries, 

zoning ordinances (which vary considerably 

from town to town) are the only restriction on 

the extent to which private property owners 

can increase the size of their houses.

The Outer Cape’s coastal towns and 

harbors are also changing. Working marinas 

and commercial boatyards are being replaced 

by upscale restaurants, condominiums, and 

even offices. Similarly, an increased demand 

for moorings for recreational boats has 

crowded out commercial dock space. These 

conversions sometimes sacrifice the last 

remaining activities of the maritime economy 

and displace the last traditional working waterfronts.24 Although many people come to the 

Outer Cape expecting an experience evocative 

of maritime ways of life, they are increasingly 

unable to see evidence of that way of life, 

since maritime industries continue to diminish. As more and more people make the 

Outer Cape their year-round home, it is difficult for fishermen and shell fishermen to 

afford housing, compete for space with recreational boats, and avoid nuisance complaints 

against some of their activities and equipment.

If all this were not enough, the fisheries themselves are in decline: depleted fishing stocks have progressively made fishing an 

insecure industry. The codfish, sadly, is no 

longer plentiful off Cape Cod. Increased 

industrial fishing, in part, helped deplete Cape 

Cod fishing drastically by the 1990s. In 

response the federal government has cut off 

access to many fishing banks and put caps 

12
Figure 8: Photographic simulation of housing redevelopment, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass)

on the total number of days at sea allotted 

to individuals. Suggestions of newer, more 

restrictive regulations have been met with 

mixed response from the remaining commercial fishermen.25 The shellfishing industry 

remains viable in selected areas on the Outer 

Cape. Contemporary shellfishing relies mainly 

on aquaculture, or the growing of clams and 

oysters in licensed beds in shallow water near 

shore. The development of aquaculture has 

generated a conflict with some Cape residents 

who object to the visual impact of the shellfish beds that become visible on tidal mudflats 

at low tide.

Loss of habitat is also taking a toll on 

Outer Cape wildlife. Between 1971 and 1990, 

twenty-four percent of the forested land on 

all of Cape Cod was lost to residential and 

commercial development. While most of this 

forest loss occurred on the Upper Cape, there 

have been a significant loss on the Outer 

Cape as well. An additional 15,000 upland 

acres have been developed on Cape Cod since 

then, further fragmenting forest habitat. Fragmented habitats tend to favor generalist species such as squirrels, skunks, and raccoons 

Figure 9: Housing construction, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

13
Figure 10: Land for sale, Truro, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Figure 12: Cape Cod population change, 1950-1990. (Source: 

Thomas A. Stone, Losing Cape Cod: Landscape Change over 40 Years, 

Woods Hole Research Center, 1991)

Figure 11: Aerial view, shellfishing beds, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. 

(Copyright: PANDION)

that are able to tolerate human disturbance, 

while eliminating specialist species that are 

more sensitive to habitat change.26

Increasing the proportion of developed land not only eliminates habitat, but 

also often affects nearby ponds, wetlands, 

and vernal pools that may be disturbed by 

increased runoff or rising rates of groundwater withdrawal. Parts of Cape Cod’s sole 

source aquifer have been contaminated by a 

combination of unsuitable uses, infiltration of 

harmful materials, and high development densities, while pollution has caused the closing 

of some shellfish beds along coastal waters.27 

The pumping demand on Outer Cape aquifers 

is greatest during the summer months. As this 

demand grows, towns must not only worry 

about protecting water quality, but also the 

quantity of water recharge to ensure they 

are withdrawing within safe yield parameters. 

Provincetown has no potable water sources 

within its borders, and must rely on an aquifer 

lying under Truro.28 Increased building has 

also produced a larger number of septic systems, which can cause nitrogen overloading of 

coastal waters and result in eutrophication of 

some areas. This also contributes to recent 

increases in the numbers of beach closings 

due to bacterial contamination.29 New sewer 

systems already in place in Provincetown and 

under consideration in Wellfleet will ameliorate this pollution problem to some extent, 

but the higher population densities that sewer 

systems allow promise to cause even greater 

increases in the Outer Cape’s already skyrocketing population.

14
Figure 14: Provincetown fleet. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Landscape History: Myth and Memory

Figure 13: Glacial retreat. (Source: UMass from Sterling & Lubell, The Outer Lands)

A review of historical events and 

trends that have shaped the landscape of the 

Outer Cape was used in this study to allow 

students to better understand which features 

and characteristics of the cultural landscape 

might be considered to possess particular historical integrity and significance.

The landscape history of the Outer 

Cape begins with the end of the last Ice Age, 

when the retreating Laurentine glacier laid the 

outwash plain foundation for the peninsula 

about 12,000 years ago.30 The contemporary 

shape of the Cape Cod Peninsula was probably evident by about 3,500 years ago, as the 

outwash plains and moraines were submerged 

beneath rising sea levels.31 Kettle ponds were 

formed by the deposition of glacial till around 

large ice blocks, leaving hollows later filled 

with groundwater. Large boulders, known 

as glacial erratics, were left scattered in the 

landscape. (Enoch Rock, the largest erratic 

found on the Outer Cape, is in Eastham.)32 

The beaches, marshes, dunes, and woods of 

the Outer Cape developed over the following 

thousands of years. Sands carried by wind 

and water eventually formed harbors and bays, 

and this process continues today as bars, spits, 

and peninsulas continue to shift.33 Other natural disturbances, particularly hurricanes, also 

continue to affect the basic outlines of the 

land.34

Human influences on the Outer Cape 

landscape have also been continuous for thousands of years. A number of major turning 

points in the human history of the Outer 

Cape resulted in dramatic landscape changes 

over relatively short periods of time. Long 

before the arrival of the first Europeans, 

native peoples, most prominently clans associated with the Wampanoag, burned forests and 

15
Figure 17: Clambake, Billingsgate Island, Wellfleet, MA, ca. 1915. 

(Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Figure 16: Swimmers, ca. 1920. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Figure 15: Cars at Nauset Light parking lot. 

(Courtesy: Eastham Historical Society)

cleared land for hunting and agriculture, so 

that the landscape that the Pilgrims saw in 

1620 already appeared somewhat open and 

unforested. The next great event was the 

arrival of Europeans in the seventeenth century, who brought livestock and built densely 

settled agricultural villages. The dramatic 

increase in the number of people and settlements further reduced the forest cover, until 

by the mid-nineteenth century only 40 percent 

of the landscape was wooded. By that time, 

whaling, fishing, and salt works supplemented 

local agriculture as the economic basis for 

Outer Cape towns. With the arrival of the 

railroad in the mid-nineteenth century came 

another great change in the cultural landscape 

as relatively diverse local agricultural and fishing economies shifted to serve regional markets with specialized products such as cod and 

cranberries.

The same railroad lines that transported cranberries and fish from the Outer 

Cape in the nineteenth century brought writers, artists, and summer tourists to the 

region, presaging the next major transformation of the region’s economy. The increase 

in summer residents and shift to tourism as 

an economic base brought only subtle changes 

to the physical landscape at first; but the 

changes in landscape perception were enormous. Summer residents viewed the Outer 

Cape as a place for leisure rather than work, 

and for restorative scenery as a respite from 

urban industrial cities and modernity. 

The draw of nature at Cape Cod has 

had a profound influence on visitors since 

Henry David Thoreau’s day. Visiting in October 1849, Thoreau wrote that “Notwithstanding the universal barrenness, and the contiguity 

of the desert, I never saw an autumnal landscape so beautifully painted as this was. It 

was like the richest rug imaginable spread over 

an uneven surface; no damask nor velvet, nor 

Tyrian dye or stuffs, nor the work of any 

loom, could ever match it.”35 The transcendent quality of the Cape landscape confronts 

visitors with a new awareness of nature, and 

natural processes. The inspiration and emotional response to these primal forces are as 

much a part of the character of the Cape 

as the sand and water that form the physical 

environment. 

For the purposes of documenting and 

analyzing landscape character, no aspect of 

the long history of the Outer Cape is more 

essential to consider than the economic and 

conceptual transformation of the Outer Cape 

from a landscape shaped by resourced-based 

activities (mainly fishing and agriculture), to 

one shaped mainly by the activities of rec16
Figure 18: Ford and trailer, Wellfleet, MA, 1944. 

(Courtesy: Bob Arnold, photo by Carey E. Melville)

Figure 19: Day’s cottages, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

reation and tourism by the early twentieth 

century. Tourists were searching not only 

for scenery and beaches, but also for an idealized version of a distinctive people and lifestyle that were fast being enshrined in popular 

imagination. “Character” became as important a commodity as whale oil or salted cod 

filets had once been.

The proliferation of the automobile in 

the interwar years facilitated the transformation of the Outer Cape into a popular tourist 

destination. As fishing and agriculture continued to decline (along with the number of 

year-round residents), small hotels and vacation homes brought life to the sagging economy.36 Local economies shifted away from 

resource-oriented activities to the support of 

seasonal and weekend visitors, most of whom 

arrived by car. The construction and maintenance of second homes, motels and rental 

cottages, and the operation of retail businesses and restaurants soon became economic 

boons for Outer Cape communities. The 

landscape reflected this shift in the ways of life 

of residents of the Outer Cape. Fields and 

heathlands that had already begun to succumb 

to early successional species were further covered by forests. No longer as much a windswept place of open fields and unobstructed 

views to the ocean, the more forested landscape was characterized by increased sense 

17
of enclosure, broken by occasional dramatic 

views of the sea.37

The trend away from resource-based 

activities and towards an economy based on 

automotive tourism accelerated in the years 

after World War II. Postwar prosperity, the 

massive proliferation of automobiles, federally 

aided highway construction, and the “baby 

boom” all made Cape Cod an increasingly 

popular destination for family vacations.38

Automobiles had already allowed for shorterterm vacations by the 1920s, signaling the end 

for the genteel, longer-term stays at beach 

resorts. The advent of paid vacations and 

forty-hour work weeks for the middle classes 

expanded the pool of potential tourists even 

further. In the eyes of the millions who now 

came to visit the Outer Cape, the land and sea 

that had been so intensively worked for centuries was an alluring and storied landscape, 

treasured more for its scenery and recreational 

opportunities than for products to be harvested. Even as tourists valued the traditional 

landscape of the Cape for its distinctive character, the ways of life that had produced that 

landscape were being replaced by new patterns of life and recreation. It was difficult for 

that older landscape to persist, even if it was 

valued for its “character,” when the economic 

and social structures that produced it were 

disappearing. 

By the early 1950s, tourism had 

become the region’s major industry, eclipsing 

agriculture, fishing and manufacturing.39 As 

the Outer Cape completed its transformation 

into a resort area valued for its quaint, maritime character, residents were increasingly 

likely to be employed in construction, retail, 

hotel, or other businesses that served tourists 

and second home owners. While motels 

and highways proliferated, grazing livestock 

no longer roamed in heathland areas, which 

therefore continued their succession into pine 

forest unabated. Fewer and fewer fishing 

boats dotted picturesque harbors, although 

recreational craft appeared in larger numbers. 

Mass automotive tourism had brought new 

life to the Outer Cape economy, and with it, 

a 50 percent increase in the Cape’s population 

between 1950 and 1960.40 Historian Charles 

H. W. Foster notes:

By the mid-twentieth century, the 

outer region of Cape Cod was 

a thriving, self-contained, political 

community composed of six highly 

independent towns. Its year-round 

population was twelve thousand, 

swelling at least fivefold during the 

summer months. Thanks to heavy 

reliance on the seasonal visitor and a 

minimal demand for year-round services, the communities were remarkably well off. Land was plentiful, 

(and) the demand for vacation properties was high and growing.41

The sheer number of visitors and new 

residents after World War II required infrastructure far beyond what had been necessary 

to sustain earlier ways of life and population 

levels. Historian James O’Connell suggests 

that many postwar vacationers were less interested in steeping themselves in the historic 

lore of Cape Cod than in finding new 

opportunities for recreation and beach access. 

A building boom of modern houses, large 

motels, and garish commercial establishments 

threatened to overwhelm the quaint historic 

guest houses that had dotted the landscape in 

the 1920s and 1930s. With relatively cheap 

land available and a strong market for vacation homes, land speculation was rampant. 

Francis Burling of the Cape Codder recalled 

conversations with Selectmen Charles Mayo 

of Provincetown: “He would see cars stop 

along Route 6 and businessmen get out with 

briefcases and walk through the brush. He 

knew it was the kind of speculative activity 

such as he had seen happening in Florida.”42 

Land was quickly subdivided, especially along 

the new Route 6 corridor. 

Looking at the great changes taking 

place on the Outer Cape in the 1950s, some 

feared that the area’s distinctive scenery, cultural heritage, and landscape could not survive 

the dramatic increase in tourism and asso18
ciated commercial development.43 In 1955 

a Massachusetts Department of Commerce 

analysis concluded what many familiar with 

the Cape already knew: the rampant development on Cape Cod was reaching emergency 

levels, and would ultimately threaten the newfound prosperity it sought to accommodate.44

The Cape Cod National Seashore

By the 1950s, changes to the way of 

life and landscape of the Outer Cape forced 

residents and concerned outsiders alike to take 

stock of what was unique about the region, 

and to decide what, if anything, should be 

done to protect its character. Discussions 

took place at different levels of government, 

and among a range of residents, advocates, 

and public officials. Out of these discussions 

emerged the Cape Cod National Seashore in 

1961. The National Park Service proposal 

for a national seashore on the Outer Cape 

described the need in these terms:

[A] surging tide of modern progress 

has rolled over vast areas of our 

pristine coastal country, wiping out, 

one after another, the natural open 

spaces long cherished as an American birthright...This is happening 

to Cape Cod. Even now the stillunspoiled Great Beach is vanishing 

under buildings. It is time to set 

aside, preserve, and protect the last 

of the “old” Cape so that the inspiration of its surpassing beauty can 

be kept intact and handed down to 

future generations of Americans.45

The establishment of Cape Cod 

National Seashore was a remarkable achievement, combining a bipartisan political effort 

with an unlikely combination of national and 

local forces. Plans for a national park on 

Cape Cod had been discussed as early as the 

1930s, when the National Park Service conducted a preliminary investigation for designating an area from Duxbury to Provincetown 

as a national seashore, along the lines of the 

Figure 20: President John F. Kennedy signing the Cape Cod National 

Seashore into Law, 1961. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Cape Hatteras National Seashore (North Carolina) which was authorized at that time.46 

After World War II, the Park Service continued its surveys and proposals for the 

nation’s seashores and lakeshores, areas it considered particularly vital for accommodating 

the postwar boom in recreation and tourism. 

The results of a “Seashore Recreation Area 

Survey” in 1954 again brought the issue to 

the forefront. Published the following year as 

“Our Vanishing Shoreline,” the Park Service 

reported that only 240 miles, or 6.5 percent, of 

the nation’s shoreline was protected by Federal 

or State ownership for recreational purposes. 

Very little of this protected shoreline consisted of sand beaches. The report gave the 

Great Beach on Cape Cod a high priority for 

status as a new national seashore. The Outer 

Cape’s huge potential for recreation (within 

driving distance for 50 million people), its 

relatively undeveloped state, and the great 

pressures and threats it faced, made it an obvious choice for any national plan to protect 

beaches for public recreation. The planners 

observed that it was one of the longest unin19
Figure 22: Coast Guard Beach, Eastham, ca. 1965.

(Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Figure 21: Cars at Coast Guard Beach, Eastham, MA, 1966. 

(Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

terrupted and undeveloped stretches of ocean 

beach on the East Coast, and that the interior 

landscape was historically fascinating, featuring quaint villages and a unique character. 

While the geological features themselves were 

extraordinary, the history of the area was just 

as compelling and significant.47

The National Park Service’s “Vanishing Shoreline” report in 1955 joined a number 

of local and statewide efforts that were 

already underway to curb the effects of development and growing tourism on the Outer 

Cape. Soon after the initial plans for a new 

national park became public in a news report 

in the Cape Codder on November 1, 1956, 

concern arose about the new park’s boundaries, the possibility of restricted access for local 

residents, and the inclusion of prime hunting 

areas in the park. Some Massachusetts legislators received the idea of the park enthusiastically, realizing that the Commonwealth did 

not have the funds to acquire the land or 

develop park facilities. Others recognized that 

although a national park would create some 

restrictions on development, it also had the 

potential to assure a more sustained influx 

of tourists and tourist business. After the 

announcement, Massachusetts State Senator 

Everett Stone immediately began securing 

agreements to transfer state lands on the 

Outer Cape to the federal government in 

anticipation of the new park.48

The Cape Cod Model

It took three years and a creative plan 

unprecedented in the history of American 

park development to bring the Cape Cod 

National Seashore to fruition. A bill introduced in 1957 by Massachusetts Congressman 

Philip J. Philbin providing for the establishment of a national park on Cape Cod failed, 

as did bills by Congressmen Thomas P. (Tip) 

O’Neill and Edward Boland. Finally in September 1959, Massachusetts Senators John F. 

Kennedy and Leverett Saltonstall, and the 

congressman from Cape Cod, Hastings Keith, 

introduced the framework for the successful 

proposal. The Saltonstall-Kennedy-Keith Bill, 

as it was named, owed its success to an innovative approach for park creation fitting the 

Cape’s unique circumstances. While traditional national parks had been carved from 

sparsely populated land already in the public 

domain, most of the land on the Outer Cape 

Cod had long been densely populated and in 

private hands. A strong connection between 

local communities and the landscape existed 

that could be disrupted by the federal government assuming complete ownership and control. Instead, in what became known as the 

“Cape Cod Model,” the National Park Service 

would establish well-defined park boundaries 

(an extremely complex task), but not acquire 

20
Figure 23: Man in catboat. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

all of the private land within those boundaries. 

The Cape Cod Model entrusted town 

governments with controls on preservation 

and development. The federal power of condemnation to acquire property for public use 

was limited in favor of a provision requiring 

town governments to enact zoning ordinances 

that would maintain current usage for properties within the new park’s boundaries. The 

legislation also allowed traditional hunting, 

fishing, and shellfishing within the park, and 

allowed towns to be compensated for lost 

property tax revenue. In yet another unprecedented arrangement, the bill established a 

Citizens Advisory Commission of local residents and officials to guide the park’s creation 

and management. Congress eventually appropriated $15 million for the new park; the 

first time federal money was appropriated to 

directly acquire land for the creation of a 

national park. The 43,604-acre Cape Cod 

National Seashore stretched the entire length 

of the Outer Cape from Chatham to Provincetown, and protected much of the most 

extraordinary land left on the Cape from further development.49

The land within the Cape Cod 

National Seashore subsequently experienced a 

very different history of management from 

land outside park boundaries, which continued to develop in response to the Cape’s 

booming real estate market. The park legislation instructed the National Park Service to 

preserve the land within the Seashore boundaries essentially as it was, stating that, “In 

order that the seashore shall be permanently 

preserved in its present state, no development 

or plan for the convenience of visitors shall 

be undertaken therein which would be incompatible with the preservation of the unique 

flora and fauna, or the physiographic conditions now prevailing, or with the preservation 

of...historic sites and structures.” But the law 

also instructed the Park Service to “develop 

for appropriate public uses,” lands that are, 

“especially adaptable for camping, swimming, 

boating, sailing, hunting, fishing, the appreciation of historic sites and structures and natural features of Cape Cod.”50

The challenges of meeting the sometimes conflicting mandates of the 1961 legislation were apparent from the outset. What 

made the Outer Cape unique was a product 

of cultural as well as natural forces. The area’s 

character was intricately tied to the ways of 

life of local communities. When Senator 

Kennedy introduced the legislation establishing the park, he observed that Cape Cod was 

more heavily settled than other areas in the 

national park system, and Cape residents had 

“legitimate interests and sentiments” in the 

matter. Those communities were changing 

as fast as the Cape landscape itself. For the 

Outer Cape’s towns, large numbers of tourists 

were the new economy, and the new reality of 

life. Many residents worried that a national 

park would ruin local economies by removing 

profitable land from development, or that it 

would clog roads and tax local services with 

even larger throngs of vacationers, many of 

whom would be “day-trippers” who would 

not spend money in motels or restaurants, 

but would use services and crowd beaches. 

Others saw Federal intervention as the only 

way to manage effectively the variety of 

resources under threat on the Outer Cape, 

including the physiographic and built land21
Figure 24: Thanksgiving dinner at Ed Knowles house, Eastham, MA, 

ca. 1920. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Figure 25: Captain Penniman with gun and birds, 

Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Public Hearings and Perceptions of 

Landscape Character

What was the unique and vanishing 

character of the Outer Cape in the 1950s? 

What were contemporary perceptions of the 

landscape that the National Seashore was created to preserve? Between 1959 and 1961, 

the U.S. Senate held a series of four public 

hearings in Eastham and Washington, D.C., 

regarding the proposed Cape Cod National 

Seashore. The hearings were crucial in shaping 

the legislation for the seashore, determining 

aspects of the park’s form and management. 

Transcripts from the hearings also offered a 

vital window into perceptions of the landscape character of Cape Cod at that time. 

The hearings allowed people to describe the 

character of the Outer Cape in their own 

words, providing their own visions of what 

might be preserved for the future. Their testimony revealed a longing for a time of closeknit, strong communities, when livelihoods 

were controlled locally, and people were tied 

to a sometimes harsh but beautiful land. They 

also revealed a tenacious desire to keep intact 

the remaining elements of what they perceived to be the “old Cape Cod.”52

The image of the Outer Cape that 

emerges from the transcripts of these hearings 

rests firmly on the resource industries that 

that once supported its economy. Although 

fishing had been in decline for many decades 

by the 1950s, landscape remnants were visible 

and highly revered by both residents and outsiders. At the time the Seashore was proposed, George Palmer, the Associate Regional 

Director of the National Park Service, commented on the image of fishing on the Cape: 

“The view from the [Meeting House] hill was 

very typical of what a Hoosier from the Midwest thought Cape Cod looked like-the white 

Cape houses, some ships out in the ocean, and 

some boats in the harbor.”53 Similarly, officials 

from the town of Chatham argued against 

the town’s inclusion in the national seashore, 

claiming Chatham was already doing a good 

job protecting its scenic value as “an unspoiled 

scapes of the region, and the ways of life that 

they supported.51

22
little fishing village.”54 Prior to the public 

hearings, residents had already expressed concern that access to fishing and shellfishing 

activities would be limited by the existence of 

the park. The Park Service heard and understood these concerns, embodying them into 

the policy that the Cape Cod National Seashore would, “Protect and preserve the natural features and retain the life and atmosphere 

of the seafaring era and historic Cape Cod.”55

But the creation of the national seashore was not the real threat to the Cape Cod 

fishing tradition; commercial fishing on the 

Cape had been diminishing since the end of 

the Civil War for economic reasons. While 

a new demand for fresh fish in supermarkets 

and restaurants, and the increasing popularity 

of shellfish, gave local fishing operations a 

reprieve from near certain extinction, the maritime tradition on Cape Cod had a tenuous 

hold on the landscape by the time the national 

seashore was created. Only Provincetown, 

Wellfleet and Chatham still had viable fishing 

fleets, and these were only shadows of what 

they once were.56

Tourists still saw many of the remnants of old Cape Cod fishing in the landscape. Lobster pots and fishing floats sat in 

yards, and boats drifted on their moorings. 

Lighthouses stood on bluffs, and tourists purchased seafood in restaurants with caricatures 

of “old salts” and pictures of salvaged wrecks 

hanging on the walls. Visitors perceived fishing as an important aspect of the region’s distinctive character, a perception that had been 

nurtured by the local tourist industry since the 

1920s.57 To the visitor to the Outer Cape, it 

may have been difficult to tell that everything 

was not as it always had been. The abundant 

maritime images did not reflect the diminished 

place of fishing in the present economy of the 

region. 

By contrast, remnants of historically 

the most important agricultural activities on 

the Cape, grazing and berry harvesting, had all 

but disappeared by the mid-twentieth century. 

Without them, the heathlands that lined the 

cliffs and secondary dunes along the Great 

Beach were being overgrown with forest trees. 

Commentators at the Senate hearings knew 

that an economy increasingly based on tourism was not likely to provide the active management required for the open, agricultural 

landscape of old Cape Cod to survive into the 

future. 

In addition to bringing unwelcome 

changes to the physical landscape, those testifying at the hearings worried that the new 

national seashore might disrupt their strong 

traditions of community. Connected with the 

character of the Outer Cape, they described 

a sense of community based on interactions 

between people in the landscape. Senator 

Saltonstall recognized the connection between 

community and place, proposing, “The lower 

cape must also be viewed as a way of life, 

a culture which, though conditioned by its 

environment, finds its essence in the people 

who have lived and are living there.”58 At the 

start of the Senate hearings, a Saturday Evening 

Post editorial added, “The real charm of the 

Cape lies in the fact that it is a community, or, 

if the expression isn’t too hackneyed, a way 

of life.”59 

It was not the long-time, year round 

residents struggling to make a living from 

tourism or those involved in resource based 

industries that were trying to preserve the 

Cape. Rather it was the heirs to a earlier generation of genteel tourists and summer residents 

who most bemoaned the changes brought 

by the growing number of vacationers in 

the 1950s. This group saw the Cape Cod 

National Seashore as a further threat to their 

exclusive hold on the land. William L. Payson 

of Orleans expressed his feelings this way, 

regarding his family’s property on Pochet 

Island (which was to become part of the 

national seashore): “In 1886 my grandfather 

bought Pochet Island.... He, his four children 

and their descendents, five generations all told, 

have spent their vacations [there].... The place 

means more to us and our children and our 

grandchildren than any other spot and we 

don’t want to lose it.”60

23
Figure 26: Sunset view of the ocean from Wellfleet bluffs, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

Those testifying at the Senate hearings 

used the preservation of nature argument to 

voice their opposition to increased visitation. 

As Joshua Nickerson of Barnstable bluntly 

asked, “What are the objectives of the Park 

Service? Is their major objective conservation 

or is their major objective to provide amusement areas for vast numbers of people who 

live in cities?”61 Many residents attending 

the hearings saw a conflict between increased 

recreation and the Seashore’s stated goal of 

preservation. National Park Service officials 

assured the public that preservation of the 

Outer Cape landscape would be a top priority, 

but it was clear that residents understood that 

the Park Service would be developing facilities 

for even larger numbers of tourists.

As in other national park areas, those 

who saw the landscape in primarily aesthetic 

terms, as a source of beauty and inspiration, 

wanted to protect their vision from more 

active recreational land uses. At the time of 

the hearings, Mrs. Albert C. Read of Eastham 

wrote to the National Park Service that the 

draw of Cape Cod was inextricably linked to 

the area’s natural surroundings. “I earnestly 

urge that thought be given to some inspirational and aesthetic values of such a park,” she 

wrote, “values other than the recreational ones 

derived from swimming and bathing along the 

ocean beaches.” Victor F. Adams, Chairman 

of the Barnstable Board of Selectmen, felt 

that, “Only a few have the artistic temperament to fully appreciate the beauty of the 

sand dunes and the sea.” He then added 

in reference to the national seashore, “dunes 

are no longer attractive when swarms of 

people are climbing over them.”62 The conflict between aesthetics and recreation, imbed24
ded in the Cape Cod National Seashore’s 

founding, continues to affect management 

decisions in the park today.

Properly managed to preserve nature, 

a national seashore could be not only a 

refuge from the teeming masses, but also from 

modernity and materialism. After an impressive recounting of the various flora and fauna 

on the Cape and their attributes, Mrs. Read 

continued:

The very fact that millions of people 

seek our national parks for vacation 

only proves their need for the beauty, 

solitude, serenity, or religious significance which they find in unspoiled 

areas; a kind of soul satisfaction, 

enjoyment, and lack of tension, 

much needed in the materialistic 

and mechanized age in which we 

live today. Who can say what will 

become of art, music, poetry, and 

creative thinking of all kinds, when 

people go away to the seashore or 

country for aesthetic, inspirational, 

and restorative values, only to find 

such places destitute to them? 63 

Looking at the land around Pilgrim Springs, 

a planning consultant working on the designation of the national seashore remarked: 

I realized that since these (Pilgrim) 

springs were discovered, a phenomenal development took place all over 

this huge continent in world record 

time. Yet these sand dunes, marshes, 

and wooded hills along the Atlantic 

Ocean had remained just as the 

Creator and the elements fashioned 

them with incredible and inspiring 

beauty.... We allow some of our 

finest living pictures, that change 

from sunrise to sunset and all 

through the seasons, pictures from 

which our artists gather both inspiration and subjects, to remain brutally exposed to the profit-seeking 

assaults of ‘modern progress’.64 

James DeNormandie, a state Representative 

from Lincoln, MA, was moved by similar sentiments when he proposed that:

Above all it seems to me that this 

[national] park must serve the people...as a place where they can come 

and enjoy the open country with 

their families, with their children, go 

home realizing after seeing the dunes 

and the beaches and the oceans that 

there is something more to be looked 

for in this age of scientific achievement than just material things.65

The views and recollections of Cape 

Cod’s “nature” at the Senate hearings were 

highly personal, evoking notions of spirituality, wonder, emotion, creativity and inspiration. Long a favorite of artists and writers, 

the physiographic, vegetative, and climatic elements that interacted to create Cape Cod 

formed a unique landscape, one that is powerful and intimidating, subtle and intimate.66 

Charles Eliot II of the Trustees of Reservations testified that “the small scale of the 

landscape features and the intimacy of the 

nature on lower Cape Cod (could be) easily 

destroyed by over-development or overuse.”67

These subtle and small scale features of the 

landscape were the ones often cited, portrayed 

and cherished by those familiar with them. 

Figure 27: Park Ranger teaching surfcasting, 2003. 

(Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

25
Figure 28: Boardwalk, red maple forest, Fort Hill, MA. (Photo: UMass)

Citizen’s Advisory Committee and 

Cape Cod Commission

In the forty years since the creation 

of the National Seashore, the National Park 

Service and its partners have tried to ensure 

that the special landscape qualities of the 

Outer Cape are not overwhelmed by dramatic 

increases in population and associated commercial development. After 1961 the Cape’s 

population of permanent and seasonal residents continued to grow, and so did the 

number of weekend tourists and day trippers. 

The number of year-round residents quadrupled between 1960 and 2000, and the construction and real estate industries continue 

to grow as forces in the regional economy.68 

Land bordering the national seashore often 

was developed up to the park’s boundaries. 

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Park Service 

and its partners have noted that the Outer 

Cape’s special character remains subject to 

intense pressures and threats.

Among the Park Service’s active partners has been the Citizen’s Advisory Committee, created by the 1961 park legislation. From 

its inception, the committee has been involved 

in an ever-changing list of issues related to 

the management of the park, from policies 

regulating private residential development and 

commercial enterprises, to the location and 

design of visitor centers and camping facilities, to protecting the seashore from offshore 

oil and gas development.69 The Advisory 

Committee also helped towns amend their 

zoning ordinances to comply with standards 

set by the federal government, in order to 

suspend the condemnation of private proper26
Regional Policy Plan, and address such topics 

as land use and growth management, natural 

resources, open space and recreation, historic 

preservation, community character, economic 

development, affordable housing, and community services and facilities.76 

In response to a growing consensus 

that transportation concerns were affecting 

environmental, character and quality of life, 

the Cape Cod Commission worked with the 

U.S. Department of Transportation and the 

Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority to form 

the Cape Cod Transit Task Force, which 

developed a five-year plan addressing regional 

public transportation. The plan is intended 

to respond to growth pressures in a way 

that does not diminish Cape Cod’s historic 

and natural character by reducing automobile 

dependency, mitigating seasonal traffic, and 

Figure 29: Areas of heaviest nude sunbathing. (Source: 1974 

National Park Service study, Management Alternatives Addressed to Nude 

Bathing and Related Concerns.)

ties. Current issues include nude sunbathing, 

developing guidelines for the “improved properties” within seashore boundaries, and offroad vehicular access to beaches.70 Charles 

Foster notes how the Cape Cod National Seashore Citizen Advisory Committee has served 

as a model for other National Park Advisory 

Committees, and how its existence provides 

a sense of citizen participation with the management of the park.71

Another important partner in the 

management of the Outer Cape over the 

past decade has been the Cape Cod Commission, a regional planning and regulatory 

organization overseeing all fifteen towns on 

Cape Cod.72 The Commission issued its first 

Regional Policy Plan in 1990, and has updated 

it every five years. Each Plan seeks to find 

ways to allow future growth on the Cape without destroying the things that make Cape Cod 

such a special place.73 As stated by the Commission:

It is a plan that recognizes the Cape 

as a fragile and beautiful place: a 

land of pine barren, kettle pond 

and sand dune; piping plover and 

gray seal; beach, salt marsh, and 

bay; village lane and stone wall. It is 

a Plan that seeks to protect habitat, 

in the awareness that Cape Cod is 

home to endangered species of global 

significance. It is a Plan to conserve 

a cultural landscape shaped slowly 

over 10,000 years of human habitation.74

The Cape Cod Commission has the 

authority to approve or deny developments 

over a certain size, known as “Developments 

of Regional Impact,” as well as the authority 

to regulate local management of places of 

regional significance, assess impact fees, and 

deny privileges to towns which fail to complete comprehensive plans.75 It also supports 

the towns with funding and technical support 

as they develop their own local comprehensive plans. These plans usually reflect the 

policies and guidelines of the Commission’s 

27
incorporating smart growth and land use planning. The plan is intended to be part of a 

much longer range plan for transportation.77 

In addition to the Citizens Advisory Committee and the Cape Cod Commission, the 

Cape Cod National Seashore is near many 

research institutions. From time to time, these 

institutions either independently or in partnership with the Park Service conduct studies 

pertinent to the management of the park. 

These studies range from planning studies, to 

cultural research, to highly technical oceanographic explorations, but all share in common 

their pertinence to the landscape character and 

ways of life of Outer Cape Cod.78

The National Park Service Studies 

and Plans

The National Park Service has itself 

commissioned numerous studies and reports 

in the effort to identify the special and unique 

character of the Outer Cape and to guide 

actions to better protect it. No national park 

operates without a general management plan. 

The first such document for the Cape Cod 

National Seashore titled, Master Plan, Cape Cod 

National Seashore, was prepared by the Park 

Service’s Denver Service Center in cooperation with the park in 1970. This document 

was followed by many other planning documents intended to guide management and 

development.79 In 1992 the Park Service 

produced a “Resource Management Plan” 

examining existing natural and cultural 

resources and documenting current management programs and needs.80 In addition to 

listing numerous recommendations for natural 

resource-related projects, the document lists 

cultural resource “project statements,” ranging from surveying historical archaeology to 

preparing a cultural land use study. Cape Cod 

National Seashore’s Strategic Plan places the 

park in compliance with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA).81

The plan establishes quantifiable and measurable performance goals, allocates resources to 

accomplish them, and describes how to measure progress.

Recent studies on water quality, such 

as the 1993 report, Water Quality Monitoring and 

Research Plans for Kettle Ponds, Cape Cod National 

Seashore,

82 and a 1995 study titled Baseline Water 

Quality Data Inventory and Analysis: Cape Cod 

National Seashore,

83 provide valuable data to 

park managers. More recently the national 

seashore was selected to be part of a pilot 

ecological monitoring project for the national 

park system through the Natural Resource 

Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program. 

The program was established in selected 

national parks to help prevent the loss of 

valuable natural communities through the 

development of better monitoring programs 

that can be integrated with park planning and 

28
management.84

The Park Service has also explored 

the cultural heritage of the region. The 

first major effort was a preliminary archaeological survey of the Outer Cape produced 

in 1980 by the agency with the goal of producing information on the “locations, abundance, characteristics and relative importance” 

of prehistoric and historic resources on the 

Outer Cape.85 Although a comprehensive 

archaeological study of the entire park region 

has never been completed, the park has 

produced many other studies, documenting 

cultural heritage including a draft Cultural 

Landscape Inventory and Cultural Landscape 

Reports for the Truro Highlands Historic District and the Fort Hill area.86 These reports 

provide historical information and analysis of 

special sites of cultural, historical, and ethnographic importance, and also help in the 

development of management plans for these 

areas. In 1998 the archeology branch of the 

Park Service in Lowell, Massachusetts published the Historic Cultural Land Use Study of 

Lower Cape Cod: A Study of the Historical Archeology and History of the Cape Cod National Seashore and the Surrounding Region.

87 This pilot 

project study was undertaken to build a structure for investigating historic archaeological 

resources in National Parks. The Park Service 

selected Cape Cod National Seashore for the 

pilot study because it contains a rich history 

and a wide variety of historic and archaeological assets. The study was intended to help 

determine the importance of individual sites 

with the goal of assessing their eligibility for 

listing in the National Register of Historic 

Places.

The new studies of Cape Cod culture 

and history inform the most recent General 

Management Plan for the Cape Cod National 

Seashore, completed in 1998. Perhaps no 

Park Service document better describes the 

need to extend protection efforts beyond natural resources and physical features to encompass the traditional and characteristic patterns 

of life that shape, and have been shaped, by 

the landscape.88 

Cape Cod is a dynamic place 

where human and natural forces 

have interwoven to create a distinctive regional character. Cape Cod 

National Seashore was established 

to preserve vital elements of the 

Cape’s character, including flora and 

fauna, physiographic conditions, historic sites and structures, cultural 

heritage, and other unique natural 

and cultural features. This character also includes a certain ambience that is subtler and harder to 

define but that provides both a sense 

of peace and relative isolation. A 

distinctive pattern of human activity 

has both shaped, and been shaped 

by, this special place. Management 

of the seashore is a delicate balance 

in which human needs of today and 

tomorrow must be addressed within 

the context of both preservation and 

tradition.89

The plan also states the central mandates of 

the Cape Cod National Seashore:

1) Preserve the nationally significant 

and special cultural and natural features, distinctive patterns of human 

activity, and ambience that characterize the Outer Cape, along 

with the associated scenic, cultural, 

historic, scientific, and recreational 

values;

2) Provide opportunities for current 

and future generations to experience, 

enjoy, and understand these features 

and values.90 

The landscape character, current 

trends in development, and history of the 

Outer Cape are inextricably intertwined. The 

greater the pressure for development and 

redevelopment in recent years, the more residents and visitors care about preserving the 

traces of the past which remain. The more 

the character of the Cape changes, the more 

concerned organizations seek to identify and 

protect its essence. The following section of 

the report examines prototypical landscapes 

29
on the Outer Cape, each illustrating the presence of the past on the contemporary landscape and the particular interaction of nature 

and culture that have made the landscape of 

the Outer Cape over time. 

30
Figure 30: Rock Harbor, Orleans, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

PART II

The Cultural Landscape: Landscape Headings

This section is organized as a series 

of Landscape Headings, which are both categories and directions (in the nautical sense) 

of both places and activities that were identified as significant components of the cultural 

landscape of the Outer Cape. As described 

in the Introduction, an understanding of landscape character can be used to inform future 

planning, design, and management decisions. 

Individual landscapes and places were examined, researched, drawn, and photographed. 

Contributing landscape characteristics and features were described graphically and in writing. At a broad regional scale, GIS analysis 

provided context and conclusions not otherwise available. The activities and ways of life 

that have shaped these places, and continue 

to be at the heart of their significance to 

Outer Cape communities, were researched and 

described through public meetings, interviews, 

literature review and professional observations.

Six broad Landscape Headings were 

the result, and are intended to be representative of the way of life and the landscape of 

the Outer Cape. The Landscape Headings 

were conceived to capture and integrate the 

physical features of landscapes with the activities and values of the people that inhabit and 

use them. The Headings also are a means to 

describe some specific issues associated with 

the management of these landscapes, and, 

therefore, of the Outer Cape landscape as 

a whole. The premise of these Landscape 

Headings is that for landscape character to 

be maintained, that character must be adequately described, documented, and analyzed 

in terms of reaching an understanding of 

which aspects-tangible or intangible-of the 

cultural landscape are critical to the perpetuation of its character. 

31
Figure 31: Bicyclists on trail, 2003. CCNS/NPS

The Great Beach

“The Great Beach” is the inevitable 

and predominant experience that perhaps 

more than any other is an essential part of 

visiting or living on the Outer Cape. Always 

shifting and changing, the sands of the Great 

Beach make up the most dynamic of landscapes. Yet the opposition of open sea and 

flat strand are at the same time an immutable 

and eternal juxtaposition. In the nineteenth 

century the Great Beach was perceived more 

as a terrible threat to navigation than as a recreational resource. But as going to the beach 

increasingly became a recreational phenomenon in the twentieth century, the Great Beach 

was reinvented in the minds of its users as 

a place for adult relaxation, children’s games, 

and above all vacations. While contentious 

issues persist, a remarkable and somewhat 

complex sharing exists in this landscape, balancing Off-Road Vehicles (ORV), surfcasting, 

piping plover birds, and what at times seems 

like most of the families and small children of 

New York and Boston.

Waterways

“Waterways” addresses the inland and 

bayside watery places of the Outer Cape. If 

the Great Beach has unparalleled drama, the 

harbors and wetlands of the Outer Cape are 

where most people have made their livings 

and their homes. Sea captains were said never 

to want an ocean view in their retirement 

homes, and sheltered kettle ponds are welcome, fresh water swimming holes for many 

ready for a break from the sun and salt of 

the beach. Harbors and rich tidal wetlands 

occur on the bayside, and towns such as Wellfleet and Provincetown grew up around them. 

Today fishing and recreational boating, historic towns, and fragile wetlands continue to 

characterize these places.

Towns

“Towns” examines the role of densely 

built communities in life on the Outer Cape. 

This Heading looks at main streets, historic 

buildings, and the activities that animate 

and enliven these centers, such as shopping, 

entertainment, and myriad services provided 

by hundreds of small and large businesses. 

Town-centered development was characteristic of the Outer Cape (at least before World 

War II) with businesses and residences clustered together near major harbors. Automobiles and tourism changed both patterns of 

daily life and patterns of commercial development. Types of businesses changed as well; 

buildings that once served fishing and related 

industries are more likely today to be art 

galleries, restaurants, and retail stores. Civic 

buildings are less likely to play the same role 

in a community of mostly seasonal residents. 

But towns continue to be the center of much 

community and cultural life on the Outer 

Cape, and the downtowns of Provincetown, 

Wellfleet, and Chatham, in particular, are for 

many the very essence of community life in 

the region.

Farms and Forests

“Farms and Forests” describes the traditional land uses and setting that characterize 

the Outer Cape, including agriculture, deforestation, and reforestation. What once was a 

largely open, agricultural landscape of many 

distant views has become a mainly wooded 

and enclosed experience that only periodically 

32
Figure 32: Beach Architecture, Truro, 2003. (Source: UMass)

features dramatic vistas to the sea. Where 

they persist, agricultural landscapes on the 

Outer Cape are increasingly rare reminders 

of what once was a more typical pattern 

of meadows, sandy exposed soils, and heathlands. The more wooded landscape has also 

screened from view many of the vast number 

of residences that have been built during the 

later twentieth century.

Getting Around

“Getting Around” examines circulation systems including railroads, highways, 

traffic, and roadside development, as well sand 

roads and drives, bicycling, and other experiences of getting from here to there on the 

Outer Cape. How people circulate through 

the Outer Cape landscape influences their 

experience of it and their perception of character. Above all, Route 6, often choked with 

traffic and lined with roadside development, 

nevertheless represents the “front door” of 

the Outer Cape. It is probably the one Outer 

Cape landscape that every visitor and resident 

alike experiences on a daily basis. For better 

and for worse, the experiences offered by 

Route 6 need to be considered as part of the 

character of the region.

Homes

“Homes” examines different eras of 

settlement, historical house types, and other 

aspects of residential patterns and life that 

contribute so much to the character of the 

Outer Cape. Modest Cape Cod summer cottages, historic architecture of the town centers, the clustering of houses along pamets, or 

hollows, are all examples of residential settlement types and patterns. The culmination 

of the automotive resort economy influenced 

such patterns profoundly. The communities 

of Wellfleet’s Ocean View Drive are examined 

as a particularly characteristic and well-preserved example of tourist cottage development of the period.

33
34
And there’s places on the Cape even in the summer if you want 

to walk far enough you can be where there’s no one around. 

 Frank Szedlak, Jr., Cape Conversations, 2003.91 

The Great Beach 

From Nauset Beach, to the cliffs 

of Truro, to the Province Land dunes, the 

isolated and wild landscape of the Great 

Beach has always fascinated resident and 

visitor alike. While the beach regularly 

experiences radical physical change, it 

retains an eternal beauty and awesome 

simplicity. This is a sublime landscape of 

minimal composition-ocean, beach, bluff, 

dune-that extends undeveloped for forty 

miles, as it has through many centuries.

The experience of the Great Beach 

progresses through a series of distinct, 

physiographic sections, as barrier islands 

give way to bluffs, which break down into 

Figure 33: Aerial view, Great Beach, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)

dunes. One of the longest uninterrupted 

beaches on the Atlantic coast, the Great 

Beach was the primary reason for the 

creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Heavily used, the Great Beach is 

shared by many groups in a remarkable 

series of arrangements between towns, 

the National Park Service, user groups, 

and the millions of individuals who visit 

every summer. As beach recreation has 

become increasingly important to Outer 

Cape visitors and residents over the last 

fifty years, the Great Beach has strengthened its hold on the public imagination 

as a foundation of the character of the 

region.

35
When our children were small we 

would climb Mount Ararat and 

slide down...on empty boxes and 

things. Now you’re not allowed to 

go there at all. And it used to be 

crowded. 

Ruth Sprague, Cape Conversations, 2003.92

Figure 34: Cliffs along Great Beach, 2003. (Source:UMass )

Figure 37: Parabolic dunes. (Source: UMass)

Figure 35: Beach grass, Great Beach, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 36: Cliffs on Great Beach, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Topography

There are several distinct landforms 

that give particular sections of the beach their 

own topographic character: barrier beach, 

bluffs, and dunes. In Chatham and Orleans, 

the land meets the sea in a barrier beach 

known as Nauset Beach. The spit is a 

long narrow strip of sand with low dunes. 

The present topography is of relatively recent 

origin. Earlier in the twentieth century Nauset 

Spit had its own bluffs, but they have since 

been washed away by hurricanes and storms, 

especially those in 1938 and 1978.93

Further north, bluffs on the landward 

side flank the beach. Cahoon Hollow Beach 

in Wellfleet, for example, features forty to seventy-foot bluffs, which are typically sparsely 

vegetated at the top, with steep sand slopes 

leading down to the beach. Erosion often 

occurs when waves undercut the base of 

bluffs. The cliffs of Truro are up to 100 and 

150 feet high, and the sheer face of the cliffs 

exhibit layers of exposed silt and clay, with 

low heathland dune plants at the top.

The parabolic and other sand dunes of 

Provincetown give the Great Beach another 

distinctive topographic situation. The highly 

unusual parabolic dunes are characterized by 

their U-shaped formation with dune grasses 

on the trailing arms of the dunes. The dunes 

run from west to east, perpendicular to the 

prevailing winds. The dunes of the Province 

Lands cover hundreds of acres near the far 

extremity of the Great Beach. These grasscovered dunes are continuously shifting in 

36
Figure 39: Access to Meadow Beach, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 40: Erosion on the Great Beach, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

response to the constant forces of wind, 

waves, and rain. Their rolling topography and 

sparse vegetation creates an atmosphere of 

mystery, isolation, and elemental minimalism.

The topography of the Great Beach 

is characterized by constant change. The 

narrow peninsula of the Outer Cape seems 

terribly vulnerable to the wind and currents 

that move thousands of cubic yards of sand 

every season. The Great Beach will forever 

be at the mercy of the encroaching sea, and 

in this sense the landscape also conjures feelings of awe in the face of great powers of 

destruction and creation.

Figure 38: On the Great Beach, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

37
Lighthouses and Lifesaving

The presence of lighthouses standing 

guard over the Great Beach remind us that the 

waters of the Outer Cape were once among 

the most treacherous of the Atlantic Coast 

due to strong currents, storms, and numerous 

sandbars. The nineteenth-century perception 

of the beach was colored by the dangers 

of the coastal shipping routes around the 

Outer Cape. Henry David Thoreau found the 

Outer Cape rough and desolate. He described 

the dunes surrounding Provincetown as “the 

dreariest scenery imaginable,” and suggested 

the Great Beach was a place where things 

came to die.97

Certainly this was true for a fair share 

of merchant shipping vessels. More than 

1,000 ships and small fishing boats wrecked 

along the coast between 1843 and 1903.98 

Numerous efforts were undertaken to make 

coastal shipping less dangerous. Built in 1797 

at the request of George Washington, Highland Light, also known as Cape Cod Light, 

was Cape Cod’s first lighthouse. Over twenty 

lighthouses were built on the Cape over the 

next 200 years. Given their necessarily vulnerable sitting, many lighthouses have succumbed 

to winds, waves, and erosion over time. Many 

were rebuilt or moved inland. Both Highland 

Light and Nauset Light have been moved back 

from the edge of eroding bluffs. Although 

the Cape Cod Canal greatly diminished the 

need for lighthouses on Cape Cod, those 

that remain link the landscape to its maritime 

past. Nine light stations still exist on the 

Outer Cape. The Highland Light Station 

(1796), Race Point Light Station (1816), Long 

Point Light Station (1826), Three Sisters Twin 

Lights (1838), Wood End Light Lookout Station (1872), Chatham Light Station (1877), 

and Nauset Beach Light (1922) are all listed on 

the National Register of Historic Places. The 

lighthouses at Race Point, Chatham, Nauset 

Beach, Long Point, Wood End and Highland 

Lighthouse are still in operation and are popular destinations.99 Images of the lighthouses 

proliferate souvenir shops and are central to 

Erosion is a constant of life on 

the Cape and Islands and has been 

a regular topic of resigned dinner 

conversation for a least a century 

and a half.” 

Paul Schneider, Enduring Shore, 2000.96

I am going to say something blasphemous: I do not think this landscape 

is beautiful. I am not even sure I 

like it. To me, this landscape looks 

honest (in that it is undisguised and 

uncultivated), blank, and defeated...for me and for others, there is a 

lingering fear of this place. 

Oona Hyla Patrick, “The Shack of Art and 

Healing”, 2003.95

Off on the end, the edge, past the 

cities and the suburbs, the fixed 

house lots, the fields, and plains that 

make a patchwork of an entire 

nation, here is a country let go, 

barren, down to an essential minimum, but tossing and flowing with 

its own momentum in an envious 

proximity to the sea. It is the first 

and last land in America. 

 John Hay, “Dune Country” 1993.94

38
Figure 41: Sketch and map indicating existing lighthouses on the Outer Cape, 2003. (Source: UMass)

Figure 42: Shipwreck. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

the character and perception of the Outer 

Cape.

The establishment of the Life Saving 

Service, the predecessor of today’s U.S. 

Coast Guard, was a major step in aiding 

shipwreck victims. Life saving stations were 

built at Monomoy, Chatham, Orleans, Nauset, 

Cahoon Hollow, Pamet River, Pecked Hill 

Bars, Highland and Race Point, and over time 

others were added to the system. After the 

construction of the Cape Cod Canal in 1914, 

the number of shipwrecks declined greatly, 

and in 1915 the life saving stations were incorporated into the newly created U.S. Coast 

Guard.100 Today the Coast Guard still staffs 

operational life saving stations in Provincetown and Chatham, though neither is located 

in their original structures.

39
We soon met one of these wreckers, 

- a regular Cape Cod man, with 

whom we parleyed, with a bleached 

and weather-beaten face, within 

whose wrinkles I distinguished no 

particular feature. It was like an 

old sail endowed with life.

Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod, 1865.102

Figure 43: Race Point Lighthouse, Provincetown, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Figure 44: Postcard, Race Point Life Saving Station. 

(Courtesy: James O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod)

The landscape of the Great Beach was 

for centuries associated with the perils of 

the open sea, and inevitably evoked tales of 

shipwrecks, “mooncussers,” and heroic life 

saving efforts. The regularity of shipwrecks 

supported an industry based on salvaging. 

Beachcombing was not an entirely respectable 

occupation but it was common. Professional 

“wreckers” commonly kept their rigs ready 

with crowbars, axes, and other implements 

used to break open a ship and haul away anything worth salvaging.101

Figure 45: Marconi Beach, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

The Beach

The ocean side of the Outer Cape was 

historically called the “backside” by residents 

and had long been considered too rough and 

forbidding for recreational pursuits. By the 

1920s swimming had grown in popularity as 

recreation acceptable for people of all ages 

and walks of life. Recreational culture on 

the beach began to take on a new image. 

The very young and very old also enjoyed the 

beach, simply by reading, shell collecting, or 

playing in the sand.103

Today the Great Beach has nine 

town-managed beaches and five Park Service 

beaches. The town beaches provide parking 

lots and bathrooms and require resident permits. The Park Service beaches accommodate 

40
There are two or three days, the 

hottest days of the first weeks of 

August maybe, where [beach parking] will actually fill up. But there 

aren’t too many days...when you 

cannot go to the beach. 

Edward Sabin, Cape Conversations, 2003.104

Figure 46: Town beaches, 2003. (Source: UMass)

a far greater number of day visitors and feature larger parking lots, stairs to the beach, 

and buildings such as bathhouses, visitor centers, life saving stations and historic lighthouses.

The beach is the obvious reason so 

many tourists head to the Outer Cape each 

summer. The seemingly endless stretches of 

sand allow for a variety of experiences, even 

on the busiest of days. Most people tend to 

cluster around the access points and facilities, 

setting up camps of umbrellas, coolers and 

brightly colored towels. A short walk north or 

south, however, can often yield a more solitary 

experience.

Along the Great Beach are private residences that are tucked in hollows on the 

steep cliffs and between low dunes. Many of 

these cottages date to the 1940s and 1950s. 

These modest low-profile cottages peek out 

from the bluffs and hollows. The creation 

of the National Seashore effectively stopped 

new residential development on the Great 

Beach, but there is a recent trend of redevelopment and enlargement of some existing 

private properties, potentially creating a very 

different visual presence.

41
Figure 47: Race Point, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 48: Surfcasting, Race Point, Provincetown, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Surfcasting

The first year I moved here in September, the tourists had left. I went 

to Marconi Beach. I was the only 

fisherman on the beach and I caught 

a giant striper. It’s the only big one 

I’ve ever caught. And there was 

nobody there. 

Frank Szedlak, Jr., Cape Conversations, 2003.105

Downturns in the commercial fishing 

industry have done little to dampen the enthusiasm for sport fishing on the Outer Cape. 

With forty miles of ocean access, the Great 

Beach offers wonderful opportunities for surfcasting. Waves churn up the ocean bottom, 

exposing sand eels and other prey for large 

fish. Record-breaking bluefish and striped 

bass have been caught along the shoreline. 

Surfcasting can range from a passive summer 

beach activity to a serious year-round sport 

with its own etiquette and specialized knowledge. Catches may include bluefish, striped 

bass, yellowfin, false albacore, bonito or some 

fluke and flounder. Newcomb Hollow Beach 

in Wellfleet, Nauset Beach in Eastham, and 

Race Point Beach in Provincetown are popular 

surfcasting locations along the Great Beach. 

Surfcasting is a perfect example of an activity 

that is deeply associated with a particular 

place, the Great Beach, and one that needs to 

be understood and considered in many related 

management contexts. 

42
Figure 49: Off-road vehicles route, 2003. (Source: UMass)

ORV Access and Piping Plovers

The practice of driving on the beach 

with Off-Road Vehicles (ORV) has been a tradition on the Outer Cape for decades. Generations of families have been coming to the 

Great Beach to use the sand trails to gather 

with friends, camp on the beach, or surfcast. 

This use of the beach has been also been the 

subject of contentious debate. In 1981 the 

Park Service produced a Management Plan for 

ORV use within the park, which eventually 

lead to the closing of considerable areas of 

the beach to ORV access.106 The Park Service 

manages ORV access on the northern section 

of the Outer Cape, from Race Point Beach 

to Long Nook Beach, with zones of use at set 

times of the year. This practice helps to conserve the beach as a resource for visitors as 

well as to protect wildlife habitat. ORV traffic 

is limited to the “backshore” or area between 

the spring high tide line and the normal high 

tide line.

Because tensions developed between 

ORV users and the Park Service, the agency 

commissioned an ethnographic study of 

There is peace and quiet yet it’s so 

intriguing and dynamic where the sea 

meets the land. You think more 

clearly out there because you are 

really by yourself. 

Cape Cod Surfcaster, “Surfcasters and Off 

Road Vehicle Use Ethnographic Study”, 2001.107

Figure 50: Race Point, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Outer Cape surfcasters and ORV users in 

2001. The study discovered that surfcasters 

tend to be local men who cherish the Cape 

and have been surfcasting for decades. They 

come from many occupations including commercial fishing and construction. They fish 

as regularly as every day during the season, 

even organizing their work around fishing. In 

addition, surfcasting is often passed down as 

a family tradition, and together with driving 

on the beach, represents traditional lifeways 

that many residents and visitors feel should 

be protected by the National Seashore.108 For 

these groups, surfcasting defines much of the 

character of the Great Beach. Restriction of 

ORV access to less than nine miles of the 

forty-mile Great Beach remains a sore point 

for many who do not see the necessity of such 

a broad restriction.

The Great Beach is a landscape used 

by both people and wildlife, and Seashore 

managers continually negotiate a balance 

between preserving habitat and providing for 

43
The term Cape Codder implied 

a close cantankerous individualism 

defended to the last.

Henry Kittridge, Cape Cod: Its People 

and Their History, 1968.109

Figure 51: Plover Enclosures, Race Point, Provincetown, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass/LARP)

recreation. The piping plover (Charadrius melodus), a federally listed threatened species, has 

often been the flash point in this contentious 

negotiation.110 Because the plover nests on 

undisturbed, open beach sites (sites which 

are increasingly rare), the Great Beach has 

become a vital, remaining source of nesting 

sites. Enclosures around nests, signs, and 

restrictions on Off-Road Vehicle (ORV) 

access all have helped increase the numbers of 

breeding pairs recorded on the Outer Cape.111

They are trying to save the plover at 

the expense of the commercial fishermen. Commercial fishermen are the 

almost extinct species. It’s a dying 

way of life and the National Park 

Service is not helping. 

Cape Cod Surfcaster, “Surfcasters and Off Road 

Vehicle Use Ethnographic Study”, 2001.112 

The Great Beach is one of the most 

remarkable public spaces of North America. 

This narrow strip of sand is bounded by the 

limitless expanse of the Atlantic on one side, 

and high bluffs or extensive dune landscapes 

on the other. While it must serve large numbers of visitors, as well as competing purposes of recreation and habitat protection, the 

overall sense of the place is nevertheless one 

of wilderness, or more specifically the overwhelming wildness of the open sea. Although 

the beach landscape changes with every storm 

and tide, its overall spatial organization and 

sense of place remains remarkably unchanged. 

Because of its steep topography, residential 

development remains almost completely out 

of sight. Although the number of visitors 

can be enormous in summer months, often 

a brief walk from public access points can 

restore a sense of solitude. Even today, one 

can experience the Great Beach described by 

Thoreau.

The continued integrity of this experience depends very much on the public planning process and the management policies 

of the Park Service. Various user groupsincluding nesting birds-share the beach today 

through a complex set of arrangements that 

are the result of many studies and long hours 

of public meetings and negotiations. While 

certain compromises still evoke a sense of loss 

of traditional uses or practices, to a notable 

degree the Park Service has managed to strike 

a balance in which the long, narrow space of 

the Great Beach is shared through the zoning 

both spatially (certain uses restricted to certain 

areas) and temporally (certain uses restricted 

by time of day and season). There remains 

some threat of the redevelopment of private 

improved properties in a manner that would 

create a visual encroachment on the beach; 

but with the concerned interests of the six 

towns and the Park Service, this should be 

possible to avoid.

Overall, it is fair to say that the Great 

Conclusion

44
Figure 52: Piping plover distribution on Outer Cape Cod, 1988-1993. (Source: UMass/MassGIS)

Beach has fared well as a public landscape 

since the designation of the National Seashore 

in 1962. Its continued well being must be 

at the heart of any intention to identify and 

preserve the landscape character of the Outer 

Cape.

The flux and reflux of the ocean, 

the incomings of waves, the gatherings of birds, the pilgrimages of the 

peoples of the sea, winter and storm, 

the splendour of autumn and the 

holiness of spring - all these were 

part of the great beach. The longer 

I stayed, the more eager was I to 

know this coast and to share its 

mysterious and elemental life. 

Henry Beston, The Outermost House, 1928.113

45
Figure 53: Aerial view, dunes in Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)

46
Waterways

Interactions between people, land, 

and water on the Outer Cape are not limited to the region’s beaches. Waterways 

include bayside places such as marshes 

and estuaries, as well as inland features 

such as white cedar swamps and kettle 

ponds. These places are valued for walking, exploring, swimming, boating, and 

bird watching. Occupations, such as 

aquaculture, are linked to these landscapes and are intertwined with issues 

related to environmental quality. Waterways support many of the region’s economic and recreational opportunities and 

form a crucial part of the Outer Cape’s 

character.

There are few places where both 

the ferocity and gentleness of the sea are 

experienced in such proximity as on the 

There is a waterness to it. It is changeable, growing 

and draws people from different points of view.

John Thomas, Provincetown, 2003.114

Outer Cape. In sharp contrast to the 

roar of the ocean along the Great Beach, 

the waters on the bay side can be placid. 

The warmer waters of Cape Cod Bay contrast with the colder, open expanses of the 

Atlantic just a mile or two away, across the 

dunes and bluffs.

The most vital resources for life on 

the Outer Cape occur where the ocean 

merges with the protected shores of Cape 

Cod Bay. Distinct margins of land and 

water trace small bays, inlets and harbors, 

providing fishermen and pleasure boaters 

with easy access to the ocean. Transitional land-sea margins produce tidal flats 

and salt marshes, which are ecologically 

rich environments offering prime shellfishing and providing essential habitat and 

nutrients for aquatic life.

Figure 54: Aerial view, Nauset Marsh, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)

47
Figure 55: Distinctive hydrography of the Outer Cape. (Source: UMass/MassGIS)

Harbors

Figure 56: Rock Harbor, Orleans, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

The harbors on the sheltered bay side 

of the Outer Cape retain a sense of their 

great maritime history, and they continue to 

contribute to the region’s economy. Harbors 

are associated with all the towns of the 

Outer Cape, and often feature prominent artifacts from the maritime past, including docks, 

wharves and historic homes. Small commercial fishing fleets still make port at Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Chatham. They share 

the waters with numerous deep-sea chartered 

fishing boats, whale-watching boats, and thousands of recreational craft.

48
Figure 57: Wellfleet marsh/Duck Creek, Welfleet, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Figure 58: Salt marsh. (Photo: UMass)

Salt Marshes

Salt marshes exist in areas where saltwater and freshwater mix. With nutrient rich 

soils and water, these nurseries of the sea 

shelter and nourish a diverse array of species 

including marsh grasses, shellfish, mollusks, 

fish, wetlands, birds, and microorganisms. A 

resident of Wellfleet noted that the smell of 

decay, the mosquitoes and the black flies are 

all part of the experience of exploring salt 

marshes.115 Others enjoy the variety of animal 

life supported by salt marshes such as spring 

peepers and numerous birds. Marshes have 

long been a source of recreational and economic opportunity for Cape Cod’s residents 

and visitors. Today, salt marshes cover more 

than 13,000 acres of Cape Cod as a whole.

At the age of six, I learned to 

swim. or learned I could swim, in 

Minister’s Pond. “Dog paddling” 

in shallow water was second nature 

for some time, but going into 

deeper water was too scary until 

Wilbur and Robert gave me a ride 

in an ancient rowboat they had 

salvaged...We were about thirty feet 

from shore when it slowly settled 

into the water and sank. I just dogpaddled to shore, to the approving 

applause of the older boys. After 

that, armed with the knowledge that 

I could swim, I joined the others 

in exploring the further reaches of 

Minister’s Pond.

Donald B. Sparrow, 

Growing Up on Cape Cod, 1999.116

Kettle Ponds

Wetlands cover almost one quarter of 

all the land of Cape Cod, making contributions to water quality while providing unique 

wildlife habitat in an area of relatively dry 

soils. Kettle ponds, in particular, stand as 

cool, deep oases on the ancient glacial outwash plain. Salt ponds are also kettle ponds, 

but are connected directly to ocean waters. 

There are twenty kettle ponds located within 

Cape Cod National Seashore.117

Kettle ponds on the Outer Cape are 

sensitive to groundwater use, development, 

and pollution, making the careful planning of 

surrounding structures and activities essential 

for their sustainable use. People use most of 

the kettle ponds located inside the Seashore 

for a variety of recreational purposes, such 

49
Figure 59: Aerial view, kettle ponds, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. 

(Copyright: PANDION)

Figure 60: Woman floating in kettle pond, 2003. (Photo: UMass) Figure 61: Tannin stained water, Atlantic white cedar swamp, Cape 

Cod National Seashore, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Cedar Swamps as non-motorized boating, swimming, fishing 

and hiking.118 The shores of the ponds are 

also valued locations for residences, and many 

are ringed with sand roads and older cottages 

hidden in the trees. The potential redevelopment of existing cottages could severely 

change the visual character of several important ponds. The future of these ponds as 

freshwater oases serving water resource, recreational, scenic and habitat needs lies in 

coordinating future management with town 

governments and property owners.

Atlantic White Cedar (Chamaecyparis 

thyoides) swamps are a globally rare habitat type 

that can still be found on the Outer Cape. 

They form in shallow depressions in glacial 

outwash plains and develop in cool, shady 

environments.119 The ancient trees require 

nutrient-poor, alkaline, water-saturated soils. 

These swamps buffer surrounding communities from floods and aid in the detoxification 

Suddenly I was aware that the 

woods were filled with dozens 

of high-peeping little birds, flitting 

through the branches like small 

grey-green leaves, moving with a definate though staggered and erratic 

motion, as though blown by a 

common wind.

Robert Finch, Special Places, 2003.120

50
Figure 62: Birdwatchers, 2003. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS) 

Wildlife and Bird Watching

With these big huge houses up on 

the hills...[they] don’t want to see 

the fishermen out there. They absolutely do not want to see them out 

there. And they are fighting tooth 

and nail to get them out of there. 

Cyndi Moe, Cape Conversations, 2003.122

The waterways of the Outer Cape are 

home to many wildlife species, including several federally and state listed endangered and 

threatened species. These include birds such 

as the sharp-shinned hawk, piping plover, least 

tern, roseate tern, and common moorhen, and 

aquatic species, including the northern right 

whale and shortnose sturgeon. Cape Cod Bay 

is federally designated as Critical Habitat for 

the North Atlantic right whale.121 

Lands protected within the Cape Cod 

National Seashore and the Massachusetts 

Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary 

of water. Moreover, they are filled with many 

other wetland plants including red maple, 

tupelo, ferns and wetlands shrubs. White 

Cedar swamps are home to wetland species 

such as spotted turtles. Dark and slightly 

eerie, they are places to explore slowly, and 

on foot. While this habitat type once covered 

an estimated 2,400 acres of Cape Cod, it was 

largely destroyed through peat farming, cranberry farming and lumber harvesting. Only 

a few narrow strips of Atlantic White Cedar 

Swamps exist today, including a large one at 

Marconi Station in Wellfleet. Walking through 

this rare ecosystem provides a memorable 

experience unique to the Outer Cape.

provide safe habitats for numerous species 

of birds, turtles, snails, frogs, crabs, eels, and 

shellfish. In turn, the wildlife populations 

provide numerous educational and enjoyment 

opportunities for hikers, school groups, and 

bird watchers. With so many different habitats, observers are likely to see an array of 

coastal and upland species. Connecting with 

nature and observing wildlife creates lasting 

memories and associations with the character 

of the Outer Cape.

Shell Fishing

Shellfishing on the Outer Cape has 

also become caught in the wake of the real 

estate boom of the last decade. Many people 

who have recently paid high prices for their 

beachfront property and views of Cape Cod 

Bay do not like looking out at shellfishing 

leases at low tide, nor do they feel shellfishermen should have the right to haul their gear 

across their beachfront. As a result many 

shellfishermen find themselves in legal battles 

with landowners.123 Nevertheless, many towns 

are encouraging locals to harvest shellfish, regulating the shellfish stocks through permits 

and size and catch restrictions. Each town 

enforces its own restrictions and controls 

which beds are open.

The Outer Cape has long been famous 

for its shellfish. When Samuel de Champlain 

sailed into Cape Cod Bay in 1606, he 

described it as “Port aux Huitres,” or Oyster 

51
Figure 64: Shellfishing leases, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass/Wellfleet Shellfishing Department)

Figure 63: Clam diggers, Provincetown, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

I met a young man [who said that] 

he can’t sell directly. The season is 

too short and he can’t do it himself. 

He has to go through a wholesaler. 

Then the restaurants buy from the 

wholesalers. So he’s really losing out 

financially. My father used to sell 

directly like that out of the back of 

his truck and it wasn’t fish but it 

was interesting how that’s the way it 

was done back then.

Eleanor Dumais, Cape Conversations, 2003.125

Harbor.124 To this day, Wellfleet Oysters are 

prized for their quality and flavor. 

The tradition of commercial shellfishing continues to provide a link between 

people, the landscape, and the sea. Boot-clad 

fishermen still carry buckets brimming with 

fresh mussels, steamers, cherrystones, quahogs 

or razor clams pulled from the rocks or tidal 

flats. Restaurants still serve this bounty within 

yards of the waters that produced it.

52
Figure 66: On the Flats. 

(Copyright: ORION Photos Production, photo by Nathan Johnson)

Figure 65: The fish man, Wellfleet, MA, 1948. 

(Courtesy: Bob Arnold, photo by Carey E. Melville)

The Waterways of the Outer Cape are 

a counterpoint to the awesome Great Beach. 

Here the complex and subtle rhythms of the 

bay, estuaries, marshes, swamps, and kettle 

ponds contrast with the power of the open 

sea. Many human rhythms and patterns of 

life, as well, intertwine with the natural systems of the Outer Cape’s Waterways. 

Waterways afford an assortment of 

experiences all of which contribute to the 

landscape character of the Outer Cape. For 

example, kettle ponds, long prized for their 

beauty and refreshing waters, provide a cool 

reprieve from the sun and salt of the ocean 

beach. They also attracted some of the oldest 

residences and vacation homes in the region. 

Waterways are also fragile environments that 

feature rich and diverse habitats for the Outer 

Cape’s wildlife. Waterways continue to be 

the scene of active maritime occupations-fishing and shellfishing-which are some of the 

few economic activities in the region that do 

not relate to tourism and services. Many of 

the cultural landscapes and traditional activities that have characterized life on the Outer 

Cape have been centered around Waterways.

Maintaining the environmental and 

visual character of Waterways is one of the 

great challenges of protecting the landscape 

character of the Outer Cape. Waterways 

are both environmentally sensitive, and heavily populated and used. Sustaining traditional 

uses-such as shellfishing-remains important to 

visitors and residents, who not only value this 

as a source of income but as a working 

connection to their landscape. At the same 

time, increased levels of use and encroachment can easily degrade delicate water quality 

and disrupt vital habitat. Waterways are rich 

and diverse, and have attracted many different 

kinds of uses. These activities and the landscapes-harbors, marshes, and kettle ponds-that 

have shaped them, are among the most vital 

contributions to the overall character of the 

Outer Cape. 

Conclusion

53
Figure 67: Aerial view, shellfishing leases, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)

Now I am fascinated with East 

Harbor (Pilgrim Lake). Two days 

ago eighty percent of it was covered 

with ice, and the churning water of 

the northernmost basin was a deep 

cranberry color because it’s so shallow. It’s different all the time in 

color and appearance. 

Diana Worthington, North Truro, 2003.126 

54
Figure 68: Aerial view, Provincetown and Pilgrim Lake, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)

55
56
rants geared more for tourists than for routine activities such as grocery shopping or 

handling the mail. The town centers of 

Outer Cape towns grew up around their 

harbors, but today the activity in these 

harbors centers more on recreational boating than fishing industries. The tall masts 

of whaling and fishing ships have given 

way to the smaller sails of recreational 

sailboats and the low profiles of motor 

boats. But several towns have made a 

commitment to helping fishermen remain 

a part of the Outer Cape, and the sight 

of fishing boats in the harbors are still a 

reminder that the character of the Outer 

Cape remains somehow tied to an ongoing and working relationship with the sea.

Town Centers & Harbors

The centers of Outer Cape towns 

have historically served as anchoring spots 

for communities as well as ships. They 

were lively places, where commercial, civic 

and family life intersected. Most town 

centers housed the town post office, the 

town hall, banks and shops. Both yearround residents and tourists frequented 

them daily. These bustling centers helped 

to reinforce the sense that the Outer Cape 

was a special place where one knew one’s 

neighbors. Changing economic factors, 

new building codes, and some government policies have caused many of the 

functions that were traditionally linked to 

town centers to move out to Route 6. 

Many older buildings in town centers now 

house galleries, retail shops, and restauThere are no outstanding wonders on Cape Cod. The real charm lies in the 

fact that it is a community, or a way of life. Cape Cod is not an industrial 

community, nor is it an agricultural one; it is essentially residential. It is 

a community of homeowners, engaging in trades of their individual talents 

to provide for their financial requirements, and implementing their income by 

attracting summer tourists, retired persons, and others of financial means. 

Mrs. Walter P. Chrysler, North Truro, 1960.127 

Figure 69: Aerial view, Wellfleet Harbor, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)

57
Figure 70: Fishing flakes, Provincetown, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

These blackfish, only less valuable 

for oil than whales, down to recent 

times were occasionally beached in 

shoals on the Cape, and the stench 

of the rotting carcases carried for 

miles.

Mary Rogers Bangs, Old Cape Cod, 1920.131

The first European settlers on the 

Cape did not fish commercially, but relied 

on plentiful cod, mackerel, and bass in the 

surrounding waters to supplement their subsistence farming efforts.128 Early European 

settlers also occasionally butchered beached 

whales for their valued oil. This practice 

slowly developed into the industry of shore 

whaling, where farmers would take turns scanning the water from stations along the coast, 

and then try to kill or beach whales using 

small boats. As Cape settlement became more 

established, the population turned more to 

the sea, and fishing for local consumption 

flourished in coastal towns. Fishing permits 

and leases were granted, and for a time the 

income generated by permit sales funded local 

schools.129

As demand for fish grew in distant 

markets, Cape Cod fisherman began venturing 

out of the protected waters of Cape Cod Bay 

and sailing nearly 1,000 miles to the Grand 

Banks off the coast of Newfoundland. TravFishing and Whaling eling greater distances required larger ships, 

which in turn required larger and deeper harbors. Although small-scale fishing continued 

throughout the Cape, towns with deep harbors such as Chatham, Wellfleet, and Provincetown became the centers of the region’s 

fishing industry. Whalers, like fishermen, 

eventually chased their prey further and further from shore, and developed an industry 

that lasted from the late eighteenth to the 

middle of the nineteenth century.130

The growing fishing and whaling 

industries helped spur the development of 

concentrated town centers and introduced 

58
Figure 71: Beached pilot whales. (Source: D. Lombardo, Images of 

America: Wellfleet A Cape Cod Village, Charleston SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2000)

Figure 72: Fishing boat, Wellfleet Harbor, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

new features to the landscape, such as the 

slatted fish drying platforms, called “flakes,” 

that lined the streets and beaches of coastal 

towns. The towns of the Outer Cape, especially Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Chatham, 

were busy and prosperous places in the early 

nineteenth century. Boatyards, sail makers, 

rope makers, and saltworks, among many 

other businesses, were all linked to the business of exploiting the bounty of the great 

fishing banks. Many great whaling captains 

built impressive homes in the architectural 

styles of the day that helped to define the 

centers of these Outer Cape towns.

The Civil War brought great changes to the 

resource based economy of the Cape. By the 

end of the war Cape Cod’s fishing industry 

was in decline, and only Provincetown and 

Wellfleet continued extensive, deep-sea fishing. Independent Cape fishermen could not 

compete with large, commercial fishing operations that could afford bigger boats and newer 

technology.132 The decline continued, even 

as tourism began to take hold as a new economic foundation in the region. By the 1950s, 

as automotive tourism reached unprecedented 

levels, there was little left of the once dominant maritime industries.

59
Figure 73: Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA.

(Courtesy: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association)

Today the activity in town harbors centers 

more on recreational boating than on commercial fishing. The masts of whaling and 

fishing vessels have given way to the smaller 

sails of recreational sailboats and the buzz 

of motorboats. Nevertheless, several towns 

have made a commitment to helping fishermen remain a part of the Outer Cape, and 

the sight of a few commercial fishing boats in 

the harbors is a reminder that the character of 

the Outer Cape is still tied to a long-standing 

working relationship with the sea.

Provincetown

In the course of the nineteenth century, Provincetown grew to be the richest 

town (per capita) in Massachusetts. Over 700 

ships crowded into the harbor and docked at 

the town’s fifty-four long wharves. To support this industry a thriving community arose 

with a distinct commercial center characterized by neat rows of buildings on narrow 

streets, punctuated by the more opulent 

homes of sea captains and merchants.

By the twentieth century, tourism 

began to compete with fishing as Provincetown’s major industry. Rooming houses and 

campgrounds sprang up along Beach Point 

and bathers flocked to New Beach (Herring 

Cove). Vacationing writers, painters, and 

other artists and cultural figures flocked to 

Long before cross-dressing meant 

anything, Provincetown was a place 

where going out to drag, though 

never in drag - was crucial to 

the town’s way of life. Dragging 

for fish...is Provincetown’s signature 

fishery.

Seth Rolbein, The Cape Cod Voice, 2003.133

the area. Provincetown boasted a number 

of art schools, the most famous of which 

was Charles Hawthorne’s Cape Cod School of 

Art, started in 1899. The Provincetown Players began in a small building located on the 

wharf in Provincetown, performing works by 

its members, including Eugene O’Neill.134

The height of the original Provincetown art scene had arguably passed by the 

time the National Seashore was created. Hans 

Hoffman, a longtime Provincetown artist, 

claimed the “ruin of Provincetown as an art 

center dated from the construction of Route 6 

in the 1950s and the flood of cars it brought 

to the tip of the Cape.”135 But the arts community persisted, although perhaps in different forms. In 1949 the famous “Forum ‘49” 

exhibition of abstract painting began a new 

era of Provincetown art galleries and exhibitions. In keeping with the time, Provincetown 

took on a more “beatnik” feel in the 1950s, 

and gay-friendly bars like the Atlantic House 

began to open. As one artist commented 

about the coffee house Ciro & Sal’s, “Artists 

got special tables, special prices. Artists were 

welcome there. If you were an artist you were 

not treated like a tourist. You were treated as a 

member of the family.”136

By the 1950s Provincetown was the 

home to several identifiable and unique communities. Although the primacy of fishing 

had faded by this time, a vibrant, Azorean 

Portuguese community remained. Today the 

60
Figure 74: Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 75: Aerial view, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)

61
Figure 76: Wellfleet center, view over Duck Creek, 

Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Thousands of towns in our country 

are so alike that someone set down 

from the air, blindfolded, would not 

know his whereabouts, not one town 

from another. A person so set down 

in the back lands of Provincetown 

can at once exclaim, “This must be 

Cape Cod.”

Mrs. Hazel Hawthorne Werner, 

Provincetown, 1960.138

Portuguese influence can clearly be seen at 

many restaurants and festivals in town. A 

resident recently described Provincetown as 

a “summer-long street carnival.”137 All lifestyles-straight, gay, lesbian, transvestite, artist, 

laborer, tourist, and local-co-exist in this small 

town at the very tip of Cape Cod. A stroll 

along Commercial Street, the three-mile long 

thoroughfare, is an experience of sensory 

overload. One might glimpse cross-dressers, 

fishermen, and roller-bladers, mixed with typical vacationing families out to enjoy a day of 

whale watching. Provincetown is an eclectic 

community that prides itself on its irreverence.

Colorful characters are not the only 

point of interest in Provincetown. The varied 

architectural fabric of Provincetown, from sea 

captain’s mansions to artisan cottages, showcases the town’s rich heritage. Rather than 

giving way to large-scale commercial development, the community maintains its historic 

scale. Much of the town is covered by a large 

National Register district, and the architectural 

charm of nineteenth-century buildings, the 

density of development and the exceptional 

quality of light combine to create a unique 

environment. 

 

Wellfleet

Wellfleet is a historic town that draws 

thousands of visitors every year who come 

to admire its architecture and go to its restaurants, art galleries, and shops. Visitors and 

residents alike remark on the charming character of the community, its pedestrian scale, fine 

buildings, and working harbor.

Wellfleet officially became a town in 

1775, after the “Billingsgate” district (as it was 

then known) was separated from Eastham.139 

Like Provincetown, Wellfleet prospered from 

whaling, fishing, and oystering. At one time 

there were as many as thirty whaling vessels 

based in the harbor, and their successful sea 

captains built fine homes in town. The 

town center became more consolidated in the 

mid-nineteenth century as people from Wellfleet’s fishing villages, which had been dispersed over Wellfleet “islands” (such as 

Bound Brook Island, Griffiths Island, and 

Billingsgate Point), migrated to Duck Creek. 

This resulted in the construction of fishing 

wharves in Duck Creek.140

The compact nature of Wellfleet, and 

its rolling topography and narrow, winding 

streets, create a continuous sense of discovery. 

The visitor is never sure what lies around the 

bend. Roads running along and against the 

grade of the landform create unique view corridors and dynamic spatial sequences. From 

62
Figure 77: Postcard, oyster shacks, Wellfleet, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Figure 78: Main Street, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass)

certain spots, picturesque glimpses appear of 

Wellfleet Harbor, with its sailboats, sport fishing, and commercial fishing boats. The steeple 

of the belfry in the Congregational Church is 

visible from almost all points, and serves as 

a central landmark. The church’s clock tower 

evokes the seafaring past by striking ship’s 

time to the puzzlement of newcomers.

Dense, two-story, residential-style 

development along Commercial and Main 

Streets reinforces a village feel with narrow 

streets, on-street parking, and sidewalks 

framed by structures set close to the road. 

Old linden trees dressed with vines shade 

streets and provide a canopy. Off the main 

thoroughfares, small houses with tiny gardens 

are nestled into the landscape. Such compact 

development patterns impart a pedestrian 

scale and neighborhood feel to the whole 

of downtown. The presence of the historic 

Town Hall near the intersection of Main and 

Bank streets forms an important civic and 

commercial cluster, which is located in the 

heart the Wellfleet Center National Register 

Historic District. The town library, the historical society, several markets, restaurants, and 

banks are all within easy walking distance of 

this intersection.

If some of our yards contain old 

cars, tools, building materials - the 

clutter of active working families 

- well, that is just part of our identity as a real, full-bodied town, not 

just an antiseptic bedroom suburb or 

retirement destination.

Brent Harold, Wellfleet and the World, 2003.141

63
Figure 80: Main Street, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 79: Fish market, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Tourism

As Outer Cape towns lost their maritime industry base, they gained the tourist 

trade. In the twentieth century, towns diversified to meet the needs of tourists and artists 

drawn by the beauty of the landscape. Thus 

began a long and continuing trend whereby 

town centers that were formed and structured 

around maritime industries came to be transformed into service-oriented centers. Many 

docks and shellfishing shacks crumbled, and 

the larger homes of merchants and sea captains were converted into restaurants, art galleries, and seasonal rentals.

Most town centers, however, retain their 

importance and remain lively places. Commercial, civic, and family life continue to intersect in the busy centers of Provincetown, 

Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Chatham. 

Many town centers house the post office, 

town hall, banks, and shops. These centers 

help to reinforce the sense that the Outer 

Cape is a place where one knows one’s neighbors.

64
A guidebook should have better 

manners, I suppose, than to point 

back to the tourist as one of the 

‘principal features of interest.’ But 

manners or no manners, a Cape 

Cod guidebook must single him 

out for this distinction; for within 

the past two decades, the tourist 

has stepped into the leading role; 

‘summer business’ has overshadowed 

all others; for most of the towns, it 

is now the mainstay.

There has been other commerce for 

the people of this sandy sliver of 

New England, industrial booms on 

which enduring fortunes were built. 

But the whaling, the foreign trade, 

the ship-building, the salt-making, 

all have passed; and the same evolution that wrote finis to each of these 

has brought the motor car and the 

hard-surfaced highway.

Jeremiah Digges, Cape Cod Pilot, 1937.142

Between seventy percent and seventyfive percent of our property is owned 

by nonresident taxpayers, twenty-five 

percent by resident taxpayers. In a 

town the size of ours, which in wintertime is 1,400 people and in the 

summertime is 10,000 people, we 

have a fairly good idea among those 

1,400 people how they believe....

There was once a time we could tell 

what anyone had for breakfast. We 

can’t tell that anymore. 

Charles Frazier, Jr., Wellfleet, 1960.143 

When people come to Wellfleet they 

know that on Friday and Saturday 

night they can walk around to different galleries and have a wine tasting and look at the art. 

Frank Szedlak, Jr., 

Cape Conversations, 2003.144

65
People come down here and they see 

the lobster pots sitting in backyards. 

And they see fishermen and the old 

boats and stuff lying around. And 

they think, oh, it’s so quaint. And 

then they get here and they want to 

clean it all up. And that bothers 

me. That always bothered me. 

Cyndi Moe, Cape Conversations, 2003.146

Figure 84: Wellfleet Town Hall, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 83: Wellfleet Post Office, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Drawn by the natural beauty of the 

seashore and the charm of Outer Cape towns, 

the proportional number of residents not 

born on Cape Cod-or “washashores”-has long 

been increasing. Over time Outer Cape towns 

have struggled to maintain their identity as 

places where people live and work. This is 

difficult in what are still essentially seasonal 

communities. In Wellfleet, for example, a 

population of 2,700 is joined by some 17,000 

seasonal residents in the summer.145 During 

the summer months the streets of Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Chatham buzz with tourists and shoppers. This bustle of activity 

is largely seasonal and sharply declines by 

Columbus Day. Some locally-owned businesses have been able to adapt to seasonal 

cash flow. Although community residents and 

tourists alike do not want to see large chain 

stores invade the Outer Cape, increasing numWashashores

bers of them drive to Orleans to buy goods 

from shopping malls. 

In recent years changing economic 

factors have caused some of the routine functions that were linked to town centers, such 

as grocery shopping or handling the mail, to 

be moved to Route 6. Although the towns of 

the Outer Cape have retained their humanized 

Figure 82: Wellfleet Harbor snack shack, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Figure 81: Jacob Fanning Gallery, Wellfleet, MA 2003. (Photo: UMass)

66
scale of streetscape and historic architecture, 

they have struggled to maintain the functional 

authenticity of their town centers. The 

quaint, meandering, pedestrian scale streets do 

not allow easy access for the large service 

trucks needed to supply stores, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, bars, and art galleries, which 

have all but replaced private homes, grocery 

stores, and post offices.

The Towns of the Outer Cape have 

been the centers of residential, civic, and commercial life since the eighteenth century. If 

their central importance in this regard has 

diminished somewhat in the post-World War 

II era, it has done so less than in most regions 

of the country. The Towns of the Outer 

Cape-even if they have lost post offices and 

grocery stores to their peripheries-remain the 

center of community life. New functions, 

including theaters, retail stores and bed and 

breakfasts, may have replaced old, but the 

sense of community often endures.

While roadside and peripheral development has sapped some of the economic 

vitality from the Towns, their historical and 

architectural significance has become more 

appreciated than ever. Wellfleet and Provincetown, in particular, are exceptional concentrations of nineteenth-century commercial, 

ecclesiastic, and residential architecture, a 

fact recognized through the establishment of 

extensive National Register districts. The 

Towns of the Outer Cape are themselves cultural resources. They also continue to function, grow, and change, inevitably reflecting 

the patterns of life today, as much as the past.

The Towns are a vital component of 

the character of the Outer Cape which, perhaps more than any other component can 

Conclusion

and do benefit from traditional planning tools 

and ordinances. They represent a legacy 

of concentrated, pedestrian-oriented development, and will benefit from policies that continue to encourage this kind of growth. The 

towns still serve as civic centers, and will 

continue to do so, to the degree to which 

public functions and buildings can persist in 

them. Future development outside town centers-especially shopping centers with largescale retail chain outlets-would change more 

than just the roadside areas they would cover; 

they also would substantially alter the economic and social functions of the Outer 

Cape’s historic Towns.

As for the increased movement of 

civic and commercial functions outside of 

town center, careful study and controls over 

design and development will have enormous 

impacts on regional character.

67
Table 3: Demographic Data for Outer Cape Towns (U.S. Census 2000).147

68
climate, and hydrology, combined with a 

long history of human influence, have 

resulted in pine and oak forest, open 

meadows and heath lands. Management 

of remnant agricultural landscapes and 

heathlands (which are themselves often 

another remnant of agriculture) demand 

a balanced understanding of how natural 

systems and cultural practices have been 

interwoven for thousands of years on this 

delicate landscape of fragile soils and 

occasionally severe weather.

Farms & Forests 

As in so much of New England, the farms 

and forests of the Outer Cape are really 

one landscape, in that farms were once 

forests, and most forests in the area have 

grown where there were once farms. The 

pattern of agricultural and wooded land 

on the Outer Cape today has resulted 

from alternating patterns of succession, 

disturbance, and use. Much of the Outer 

Cape landscape has gone from forest to 

agricultural landscape and back to forest. 

Existing natural conditions, such as soils, 

Nature will take over...the area of the National Seashore, except for the 

beaches dunes and marshes, will be a second-growth wilderness of oak and 

scrub pine, of poison ivy and briars. 

Quincy Shaw, Eastham, 1959.148

Figure 85: Pamet Bog house and bog, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

69
Figure 86: Soil horizon showing podzolic soil, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 87: Pennimen chickens, Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

The soils of the interior lands on the 

Outer Cape are very different from the beach 

sands. Most of the soils are Podzolic, which 

means that although they are capped with a 

surface accumulation of organic matter, they 

are usually dry, poor in nutrients, and acidic 

due to extensive leaching action. They are 

generally low in agricultural value and typically 

support forests.149 As a result, the landscape 

of the Outer Cape we know today is mostly 

covered with pine and oak forest.150 Also 

present in these forests are hardy species such 

as bearberry, sedges, broom crowberry and 

lichens.

Soil

Human influence on the Outer Cape 

landscape has been continuous for thousands 

of years. Archeological remains of pottery 

and arrowheads date back 7,700 years, 

although people are thought to have first 

inhabited the region at least 9,000 to 12,000 

years ago.151 Groups of Wampanoag inhabited the Outer Cape in late sixteenth century 

and practiced clearing and burning techniques 

for hunting and agriculture that may have kept 

significant portions of the landscape open 

and unforested.152 In any case, agriculture 

was being practiced on the Outer Cape long 

before European contact. When Champlain 

explored New England in 1604 - 1606 he 

saw “a great deal of country cleared up and 

planted” in Massachusetts Bay and on Cape 

Cod.153 Later Captain John Smith during 

his 1614 exploration noted “many miles all 

planted with corn,” and remarked on the 

number of houses and gardens.154

With the arrival of European colonists, entirely new relationships developed 

between people and the landscape of the 

Outer Cape. Soils were generally more suitable for cultivation on the Upper Cape than 

Agriculture

70
I remember when there were no trees 

or bushes - it was barren. I remember the sad sound of the railroad.

Joyce Johnson, Eastham, 2003.157

Figure 88: Truro landscape. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Deforestation

on the Outer Cape, but agriculture had a 

strong presence on the Outer Cape, nevertheless, from the early settlement period. Early 

Colonial farmers mixed cultivation and husbandry. In a typical farmstead most land was 

used for hay or pasture with small areas for 

woodlots. Maize, or “Indian Corn,” was a 

hearty staple.155 Early agriculture depended 

on-and was limited by-the potential of the 

poor land to support grazing animals.156 Livestock was often allowed to roam, browsing 

in trees and grazing understory plants. This 

type of grazing eventually was one factor 

that encouraged the establishment of extensive heathlands.

European farming practices dramatically changed the landscape of the Outer 

Cape. As European settlers enlarged their 

farms, they cleared forests for lumber, firewood, and for the creation of more fields. 

Repeated cutting, cultivation, grazing, and 

burning of the lands on the Outer Cape 

changed the structure of soils, and left few 

remaining forests. The lack of forest cover 

hastened the silting in of many harbors. By 

the end of the eighteenth century, areas of 

the Outer Cape had also become unfit for 

farming because of soil erosion.158 Tree cutting was banned in the area of the Province 

Lands in an attempt to stop sand drifting 

over croplands and silting in at the harbor 

71
Figure 90: Saltworks, Provincetown, MA ca. 1840. (Source: William F. 

Robinson, Henry David Thoreau’s Complete Text with the Journey Recreated 

in Pictures, Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1985, 175)

 

Figure 89: Haying, Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

at Provincetown. A Massachusetts Bay general law was also passed to regulate burning of 

woodland (and to prevent the destruction that 

sometimes followed uncontrolled forest fires). 

But by the turn of the nineteenth century, 

forest resources were severely depleted and 

wood had to be imported to the Outer Cape. 

Truro began planting pine seeds (in ploughed 

furrows) to try to bring back forests; Eastham 

had used up its oak and white pine for ship 

building; in Orleans peat replaced wood burning for cooking and heating. By mid-nineteenth century the Outer Cape was only about 

forty percent wooded.159

Until the late nineteenth century, the 

most common way of supporting animals 

through the winter was by planting and harvesting hay, and by harvesting salt hay from 

marshes. Some of the earliest settlements 

on the Cape were chosen for their proximity 

to salt marshes.160 When land shifted from 

common to private ownership, salt marsh lots 

became basic investments for Cape Cod farmers. In many cases, non-milk producing livestock subsisted solely on a diet of wild hay. 

Harvesting salt hay had to be timed exactly 

with the tides, and farmers often worked 

together to cut and gather a marsh. Today, 

more limited harvests of salt hay are still made 

by some nurserymen and landscapers, who use 

it as mulch, since it is rich in minerals and 

effective at preventing weeds.

Salt Hay

Figure 91: Windmill, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass )

Associated with agricultural harvests 

and the grinding of grains, windmills were 

once a part of the agricultural landscape on 

the Outer Cape. Windmills were also used to 

power pumps for the saltworks industry. In 

1935 the Farris Windmill of West Yarmouth 

was purchased and moved to Henry Ford’s 

museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The move 

angered many Cape Codders, causing communities to take stock of the area’s built heritage. 

Historic structures on the Cape were frequently linked to other cherished elements of 

the landscape. Windmills eventually became 

recognized as important symbols of Cape history and the landscape itself. Towns such 

as Eastham undertook restoration efforts to 

save local structures for historical reasons as 

early as 1920. Other windmills were purchased by wealthy homeowners and moved to 

their properties.161 The windmill in Eastham 

is visible from Route 6 and a windmill in 

Chatham is listed in the National Register of 

Historic Places. 

Windmills

72
Heathlands are open areas covered by 

thick mats of low, tenacious shrubs that gain 

a foothold in the sandy soils and help prevent 

erosion. Heathland plant species colonize 

soils disturbed by intensive agriculture and 

deforestation, including burning, which began 

in the late seventeenth century.162 Heathlands 

can be seen along the coast and inland on 

patches of cleared land such as roadsides 

and abandoned farmland. Coastal heathlands 

are comprised of bearberry, beach heather, 

and black huckleberry; inland heathlands are 

dominated by bearberry, huckleberry, golden 

heather, and bushy rockrose. Although 

once abundant, this habitat type has suffered 

a sixty-three percent decrease since 1962. 

Heathlands are disappearing because of development (outside National Seashore boundaries) and forest succession.163 A relatively rare 

habitat in the U.S., heathlands support a diversity of plant and animal species as well as 

Heathlands

Figure 92: Heathland vegetation on the Outer Cape, 2003. 

(Source: UMass/MassGIS)

Figure 93: House in the heathlands, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

provide a sense of openness and light, and 

enabling expansive views of sky, ocean and 

landscape. 

73
By the mid-nineteenth century, the 

industrialization of textile manufactures offCape made production of wool more profitable, and sheep farming expanded in 

Chatham, Orleans, and Truro. Egg and poultry production increased during this time. The 

area also became known for shipbuilding, 

and the industry relied on a local supply of 

lumber.164 Vast improvements in shipping and 

land transportation in the later nineteenth century aided the decline in farming on the Outer 

Cape, as goods brought from other regions 

became increasingly affordable. Some farming persisted into the twentieth century, but 

most farmers switched to more specialized 

and profitable crops that could be shipped to 

distant markets. Asparagus, cranberries, and 

turnips were all produced for local and distant 

Market Agriculture

As young boys our major chores were 

helping with asparagus and turnips 

and cutting wood for the kitchen stove.

Donald B. Sparrow, 

Growing Up on Cape Cod, 1999.166

Figure 94: Horse and plow, Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Figure 95: Farm loss on the Outer Cape, 1940 - 1990. (Source: UMass/MassGIS)

markets, and subsistence-type farming all but 

ended.165 Little of this activity remains on the 

Outer Cape today. 

74
Figure 96: Pitch pine forest, Outer Cape, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

No comprehensive descriptions of the 

forest of Cape Cod at the time of European 

contact exist, but it is possible to estimate 

their composition and extent using early 

descriptions of the area in conjunction with 

records of population and land use.168 Upland 

areas were probably occupied by a fairly 

open forest containing large expanses of pitch 

pine or oak (scarlet, black and white) with 

scattered red maple, gray birch and white pine. 

Pollen analysis indicates that at time of European settlement, oak-chestnut forests probably dominated most of the Outer Cape.169 

These forests may have been maintained in a 

fairly open state through periodic burning. At 

lower elevations more moisture was present 

and fires were less intense, and so a variety 

of hardwood species were common. Trees 

at these elevations were probably taller and 

better formed than those at higher elevations, 

with an understory of shrubs and vines. 

Many bogs contained nearly pure stands of 

Atlantic white cedar. Shrubs dominated other 

low areas. 

Forest Succession

This picture here would not have 

looked much different if it were 

taken in 1604 when the French 

explorer came here and mapped the 

area. That’s the neat thing about 

having the Seashore here. 

Edward Sabin, Cape Conversations, 2003.167

As the changing economics of agriculture caused people to abandon farms almost 

everywhere in New England, reforestation 

began. By 1951 the woodlands of all of Cape 

Cod had returned to cover over sixty percent 

of land area. This trend was reversed by 

postwar residential and commercial development, and in 1990 only forty-three percent of 

the entire Cape was forested, although most 

of this loss has been on the Upper Cape.170

The regenerating forests on the Outer 

Cape are not the same as those that existed 

prior to European settlement. Recent studies 

have confirmed that prior land use has a 

profound effect on the species that re-colonize an abandoned agricultural area, and these 

effects can influence modern species composition and abundance for many years. The 

change in forest species composition has significant implications for conservation efforts 

and reinforces the idea that cultural and natural processes are inseparable, highly interrelated factors responsible for the formation of 

the Cape Cod landscape.171

Figure 97: Windy Willows estate, 1900 and 1993. 

(Courtesy: Truro Historical Society and CCNS/NPS)

75
Figure 98: Vegetative succession. (Source: UMass)

Figure 99: Forest cover on the Outer Cape, 1848 and 1990. (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

Agriculture left an indelible mark on 

the landscape character of the Outer Cape. 

At the first public hearing on the creation of 

the National Seashore, Quincy Shaw, a wealthy 

landowner in Eastham argued that farming 

created the character of the Cape as it was 

then known, “As our hardy forefathers cleared 

the land...and tilled their farms, the vistas 

opened up. The sea could be seen across the 

rolling farmlands; and it was during the 1800s 

that the Cape we think of, as such, came into 

being.”172 To a significant degree, much of 

the “historic landscape character” described 

in the 1950s (as the creation of the National 

Seashore was being debated) was the result 

of an agricultural history that had come to 

an end by that time. The open landscape 

described by Shaw belonged to another era, 

and to another basic premise of the relationship between the people of the Outer 

Cape and their landscape. As tourism, not 

agriculture, became the most important economic foundation, residential use predominated. The more enclosed landscape of 

regenerating forests is the result of the new 

way of perceiving and using the land, essentially as tourists, not farmers. The densely 

wooded landscape blocked many vistas, and 

eventually resulted in a strikingly different 

visual landscape character than had existed 

in the nineteenth and early twentieth centu76
Figure 100: Fort Hill site plan, Eastham, MA. (Source: UMass/Cultural Landscape Report for Fort Hill: Cape Cod National Seashore.)

ries. However, the overgrown landscape also 

served to screen out and hide much of the 

new residential development of the postwar 

era. If the open, deforested conditions of 

earlier times were to return, the once open 

vistas would only be blocked with houses, 

instead of trees.

Fort Hill

Fort Hill is an area of land that overlooks the entrance to Nauset Harbor in Eastham. A map of the land around Nauset 

Harbor produced by Samuel de Champlain in 

1605 depicts Native American agriculture in 

the area. Fort Hill is now part of the Nauset 

Archaeological District and other National 

Register listings and contains high concentrations of Native American shell and stone 

77
Figure 101: Postcard view, Pennimen house, Eastham, MA. 

(Courtesy: CCNS/NPS) 

I know a woman who has lived in 

Orleans for a long time. She talks 

all the time about how open the 

Cape landscape used to be. And 

it was like the English countryside 

with clear open hills and hedgerows 

and that sort of thing. And she 

just would love to see it return to 

that but I don’t know how you do 

that economically.

Patricia Crow, Cape Conversation, 2003175

Figure 102: Fort Hill, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

tool remnants. Today the 100 acres of the 

Fort Hill area covers open fields, salt marsh, 

and forests. The Captain Edward Penniman 

House, the Avery House, and the Burrill 

House are also here. The Penniman House 

is an impressive Second Empire structure, and 

is the only example of a whaling captain’s residence within the boundaries of the National 

Seashore.173

The Fort Hill landscape is a powerful 

symbol of the agricultural past of the Nauset 

Figure 103: Fort Hill, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

area, and the entire Outer Cape. The site 

layout of Fort Hill stands as a representation 

of traditional land practices that have ceased, 

but have left unmistakable marks on the 

landscape. The sweeping landscape dotted 

with visible remnants of agricultural activities 

requires regular burning or mowing to remain 

open. The Park Service’s Cultural Landscape 

Report for Fort Hill recommends such treatment for maintaining the site and to prevent 

succession to forest.174

78
Figure 105: Highland Light and buildings, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 104: Highland Light. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Museum)

Truro Highlands is a dramatic and 

windswept site that sits high on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Early European 

settlers used this fertile area for farming. In 

1797 the Highland Light was built on the cliff 

and became the first lighthouse on the Outer 

Cape. In the nineteenth century the area was 

converted into a resort under the ownership 

of the Small family. The Highland Resort 

became a popular destination spot during the 

first period of tourism, and reached its peak 

between 1870 and 1920.176

Under early Park Service management, 

the site was primarily viewed as a “natural 

area” and many historic buildings and cottages were removed. In 1975 the Highland 

House and Highland Golf Links were listed 

Truro Highlands

in National Register of Historic Places due 

to their significance as an early resort. In 

1996 the Park Service teamed up with the 

U.S. Coast Guard and the Truro Historical 

Society to fund the relocation of the 450-ton 

Highland Light back from the eroding cliff. 

79
What I’d like preserved is the roses 

at Nauset Light, near the lighthouse, a field of roses. I’d like them 

to stay there and proliferate. 

Eleanor Dumais, Cape Conversation, 2003.177

Today the Truro Highlands Historic District is 

recognized as a landscape of distinctive character that links the history of farming on the 

Outer Cape to the area’s popularity as a tourist 

destination in the late nineteenth century.

For many people, cranberry bogs epitomize agricultural endeavors on Cape Cod. 

Cranberries came to symbolize Cape Cod, 

since the region’s acidic peat soils, ample water 

supply, and long growing season provided a 

perfect setting for the growth of wild and 

cultivated cranberries. The legacy of cranberrying still holds strong in the minds of many 

Cape visitors and residents and contributes 

to the special character of the Outer Cape. 

Before the 1830s, wild cranberry bogs were 

public property that residents of the Cape 

were free to pick. Cultivation of the cranberry began in 1816, when Captain Henry 

Hall of Dennis began transplanting wild 

plants and growing them on his property. As 

cranberrying became more popular and more 

profitable, towns established regulations on 

Cranberries

And if you go out to the dunes 

you can see the wild cranberries still 

growing in the low, wet parts, which 

is just such an anomaly when you 

come over those dry hills and then 

all of a sudden there are cranberries 

growing there. 

Patricia Crow, Cape Conversations, 2003179

Figure 106: Postcard, “Placing Cranberries in Trays.”

(Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Figure 107: Cranberry screening. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Society)

Figure 108: Postcard, Cranberry Workers, UMass Experimental Station, East Wareham, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

harvesting.178

In the early days of cranberry cultivation, the harvest was a community operation; children left school, and husbands, 

wives, grandparents, and neighbors lined up 

on their knees and combed the bogs by hand. 

As demand for cranberries rose, financially 

worthless acres of Cape Cod wetlands suddenly became valuable. Families were able to 

80
We used to glean bogs when I was 

a kid. After they commercially 

cleaned them... my sister and I 

would go out and my cousins and 

we’d basically take boxes and fill up 

several boxes from the gleanings, you 

know, the stuff that the commercial 

truck didn’t pick up. 

Bill Doherty, Cape Conversations, 2003181

Figure 109: Children harvesting cranberries. 

(Courtesy: Truro Historical Museum)

Figure 110: Postcard, “Harvesting Cranberries on Cape Cod.” 

(Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

plant cash crops instead of subsistence crops, 

and cranberries provided economic opportunity as maritime industries declined. After 

the cranberries were harvested, local residents 

were allowed to “glean” the remaining berries 

in the bog, and this second harvest could provide a winter supply of cranberries.180

income for Cape Codders.183 But although 

commercial cranberrying was significant for a 

time on the Outer Cape, Plymouth County 

and the Upper Cape produced far more at the 

industry’s height.

Pamet Cranberry Bog

The Pamet Cranberry Bog is located 

within the National Seashore in North Truro 

and covers twenty-seven acres. Like many 

Cape Cod cranberry bogs, this swampy land 

was once covered by a forest of red maple, 

and much of it has reverted to that condition. 

The Pamet bogs are thought to have contained cranberries throughout the last 7,000 

years and were likely used by Native Americans.184 The earliest records specific to the 

Pamet Cranberry Bog include a map of the 

area drawn in 1848 that depicts the basic outline of the bog, as it appears today, with the 

open pond evident in the southeast corner. 

The bog house is situated on the main tract 

north of the road between the two cranberry 

bogs. Historically the bogs were open and full 

of cranberries, and the area surrounding the 

Pamet River was clear and used for grazing 

animals. The bog was first cultivated for cranberries by James F. Howe when he purchased 

the site in the late 1880s and hired Clarence 

Parker to manage the cranberry business. The 

bog was enlarged and passed from company 

to company and from family to family until 

With increasing commercial demand 

by 1890, cranberry operations soon began to 

employ immigrant laborers, including Cape 

Verdeans and Finns. These immigrant communities, particularly the Cape Verdeans, 

became strongly associated with the cranberry 

industry on the Cape.182 In 1888 the Cape 

Cod Cranberry Growers Association was 

formed in Massachusetts. During the Depression, cranberries were a crucial source of 

81
Figure 111: Pamet cranberry bog site plans, 1840s and 1940s. (Source: UMass/NPS)

Figure 112: Pamet bog, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

the land fell into disuse. The bog produced 

an all-time high of 166 barrels of cranberries 

from the 1953 harvest, but ten years later 

commercial production ceased when it was 

purchased by the Park Service.185 

Currently there are two cranberry 

bogs at the Pamet site covering about twelve 

acres. Much of the rest of the site consists 

of rolling uplands that afford views of the 

surrounding countryside, and from some sections, glimpses of the ocean. The upland 

soil is sandy with a very light top-soil covering. Groundcover consists of a vine called 

hog cranberry, sparse wild grass, beach plum 

bushes, and some sections of scrub oak and 

pine. Today the site is heavily overgrown 

with several types of successional vegetative 

communities, and the upland area around the 

bog is forested with pitch pine and other species. Numerous walking trails traverse the site, 

which is interpreted as a cultural landscape.

82
Figure 113: Pamet Bog site plan, 1990s. (Source: UMass/NPS)

Figure 115: Pamet bog, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 114: Pamet bog house, 1912. (Courtesy: Elizabeth Haskell as 

depicted in Images of America, Truro)

I know people who go out cranberrying still on a regular basis, pick 

their cranberries and then they’ll 

make cranberry crisp and cranberry 

cake. And it’s an important and 

integral part [of life on the Outer 

Cape].

Kaimi Rose Lum, Cape Conversations, 2003186

Picking wild and cultivated berries is 

an old tradition on the Outer Cape, and one 

that is an appreciated aspect of the character 

of the area. Following cranberry harvests, 

neighbors were permitted to pick whatever 

berries remained. The tradition of berry 

gleaning relates to older traditions of berry 

picking. Generations of residents harvested 

berries for personal consumption or to supplement their income by selling berry products such as jams, pies and scented candles to 

tourists on roadsides. Berrying brought Cape 

Cod residents into close personal contact with 

their surroundings, forming economic bonds 

as well as specialized local knowledge of the 

landscape. The purchase of these items was 

also a desirable way for visitors to involve 

themselves in the lifeways of the Cape.

During the Senate Hearings regarding 

the creation of the National Seashore, Dr. 

Madelane Winslow raised the importance of 

access to wild food sources:

Many families here augment their seasonal wages, earned 

during the summer months, by picking the beach plums, blueberries, 

Rosa rugosa, pine cones, and bayberries...Some of the berries are 

Berry Picking

83
I walk a path through scrub pine 

and maple to one high berry bush, 

half grey and brittle, and half 

blooming with berries. As I pick, 

I day dream: blueberry pancakes, 

blueberry pie, blueberries floating in 

a bowl of cream. I’m greedy for 

blueberries.

Necee Regis, Boston Globe, 2003190

Figure 116: Woman with berries, Hawk Mountain. 

(Courtesy: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary)

Figure 117: Jam stand, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

shipped directly to wholesalers for 

use in industrial factories...The 

fruit berries are made into jellies by 

individuals and offered for sale on 

their premises. In many instances 

the jellies are used to stretch costof-living dollars in their own food 

budgets.187 

Dr. Winslow went on to mention the exported 

quantity of certain wild berries, citing an average of one to two tons of bayberries every 

year.188

Some feared the creation of the 

National Seashore would limit access to wild 

berry crops, thereby endangering this traditional livelihood and local cottage industry. 

Although the Park Service prohibits collecting 

wild berries for commercial use, residents are 

permitted to harvest berries for personal consumption, making pies, jams, and other homemade specialties. This connection to the 

bounty of the landscape holds strong in the 

memories of many Cape residents, although it 

is not as popular as it once was. Successional 

forest growth is slowly overtaking the habitat 

and reducing the number of wild berries available for picking. Additionally, “ticks have put 

a crimp on berry picking” as one resident of 

Eastham stated.189

84
Conclusion

The Forests and Farms of the Outer 

Cape are a complex landscape mosaic that 

represent hundreds of years of cultural activities and natural processes occurring together. 

These landscapes clearly reflected the patterns 

of life of the residents in the past, as they do 

today. The open meadows and grazed lands 

seen in nineteenth-century views belonged to 

an agricultural life that has been all but abandoned. The wooded landscape more typical 

of today indicates that most residents make 

their livings in very different ways. Today’s 

wooded landscape is essentially a residential 

landscape, not a productive one.

The most dramatic change in landscape character of the Outer Cape over the 

last 100 years is the ratio of open farmland 

to pine forests. The overall sense of an 

open landscape-with frequent vistas to the 

sea-has all but disappeared from many areas 

of the Outer Cape. In its place is a more intimate, wooded landscape, in which the sense 

of enclosure is punctuated by only infrequent 

openings offering a view. It may be just 

as well that the landscape is more visually 

enclosed; if it were open it would reveal 

the extensive residential development of more 

recent decades.

Heathlands and other landscapes associated with historical agriculture also continue 

to diminish, and with them cherished activities 

and pastimes, such as berry picking. But 

the scale and extent of this landscape change 

make it impossible to do much to prevent 

it or alter its course. Certain important 

vestiges of agriculture remain, such as Fort 

Hill and the Truro Highlands, and these are 

being actively managed as significant cultural 

landscapes. In general, however, it is quite 

impossible to maintain an agricultural regional 

character where tourism, not agriculture, is the 

principal economic foundation. With or without the creation of the National Seashore, the 

agricultural landscapes (and associated ways 

of life) that were disappearing in the postwar 

period could not be perpetuated economically. 

The management of existing heathlands, forests, and other former agricultural 

areas of the Outer Cape, however, depends 

on understanding the effects of historical land 

uses. The preservation of cultural activities 

associated with agricultural traditions also is 

a desirable objective for many Outer Cape 

residents. In both cases, the management of 

cultural landscapes such as Fort Hill and the 

Truro Highlands will be vital laboratories and 

examples. 

85
86
Getting Around

This is a neighborhood of sand roads. A mere one lane in width, they 

can be inconvenient for cars, as when one must back up to a widening to 

let another pass. Bust they are soft, sinuous, undulating-easy on the eyes, 

easy on the legs. 

Brent Harold, Wellfleet and the World, 2003.191

Figure 118: Aerial view, Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION)

from here to there on the Outer Cape. 

Route 6, often choked with traffic and 

lined with roadside development, nevertheless represents the “front door” of the 

Outer Cape. It is the one Outer Cape 

landscape that every visitor and resident is 

likely to experience on a daily basis.

How people circulate through the Outer 

Cape landscape influences their experience of it, and their perception of character. Getting Around examines the history 

of railroads, highways, traffic, and roadside development, as well sand roads and 

drives, and other experiences of moving 

87
Figure 119: Wellfleet, MA, 1893. (Source: UMass/UNH) Figure 120: Name signs on Thoreau Way, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Route 6 follows the topographic spine 

of the Outer Cape and it is the primary conduit for most movement on the peninsula. 

Shifting from a limited access highway to 

a high-speed connector road at the Orleans 

rotary, Route 6 is fed by numerous small collector roads that radiate out towards the east 

and west. The road has several distinct zones, 

each with its own feel. In Eastham, it carves 

through the town center, stopping at several 

major traffic lights and passing by many twentieth-century motels and newly constructed 

commercial clusters. In places where old 

homes still exist next to the road, formidable 

wooden fences shield the view, forming a disconnection between road and roadside. In 

Wellfleet and Truro, both sides of the highway 

are often bordered by thick woods interspersed with the occasional business or motel. 

Heading towards Provincetown, drivers are 

treated to sublime vistas of the bay to the west 

and the majestic spire of Pilgrim Monument 

Circulation on the Outer Cape

in the distance. It is here, as the road traverses 

the narrow causeway separating Pilgrim Lake 

from the waters of the bay close to the west 

that Route 6 seems to be swallowed up by the 

encroaching ocean.

A network of roads and sand drives, 

often following hollows or “pamets,” link 

Route 6 to the Ocean and the Bay. These 

small back roads lead to branching networks 

of subordinate roads, composed of either 

short straight spurs, as in the neighborhoods 

of Eastham, or more curvilinear routes that 

follow the topography, as in Wellfleet. Typically these side roads have narrow right-ofways, dense roadside forest cover, and curving 

alignments.

88
CM: And now we have a thing going 

because of the police 911. They have to 

number all your houses. And every street 

has got to have a name. Now in Wellfleet 

we have a lot of places called Way...Way 

63, Way 10, 105, Way whatever. We 

don’t have street names. Well it gets confusing for the emergency vehicles...so [they] 

want to have every street named and every 

house numbered. Well it’s just typical 

Cape Cod to put your foot down and say, 

no I’m not going to do it. So they’re 

trying to mark every house with a number. 

Good luck to ‘em.

ES: That doesn’t seem like a bad thing 

to do.

CM: No, it doesn’t except people just 

like to think that they’re still living very 

rural. 

ES: But they’re not.

CM: No, they’re not. They’re not. 

You’re right. They’re not. But they like 

to think that. 

Exchange between Cyndi Moe and Edward 

Sabin, Cape Conversation, 2003.192

Figure 121: Sand drive, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 122: Sand road, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) Figure123: Shell driveway, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Sand Roads and Drives

One of the landscape features that 

lends a rustic, casual feel to communities of 

the Outer Cape is the presence of sand roads 

and shell drives. By their very structure, sand 

drives force drivers to cruise along slowly 

and take in the view. These are narrow, 

rural roads, winding and flecked with pebbles. 

Their narrow width enables pitch pine and 

oak trees to grow close to and overhang the 

road, creating an intimate sense of enclosure, 

a defining aspect of the Cape’s landscape character. After a long journey across miles of 

highway and traffic in a packed car, the simple 

act of turning onto a sand drive leading to 

a cottage or campsite marks the beginning of 

vacation for many visitors. At that moment 

one has truly arrived and left the cares of 

the frenetic, paved world behind. These sand 

passageways are continuously affected by the 

elements and must be regularly maintained, 

but their existence is integral to the special 

character of the seaside homes on the Outer 

Cape. 

89
Figure 124: Railroad, Truro, MA, 1910. 

(Courtesy: Diana Worthington as depicted in Images of America, Truro) 

Hollows, or “pamets” as they are 

sometimes known, are long valleys, usually 

perpendicular to the central spine of the 

Outer Cape. The hollows also lead to the 

Great Beach. In some cases they create a 

break in the bluffs and form natural access 

points. Their fresh water streams and shelter 

from the wind made them excellent choices 

for early houses and homesteads sites. Today 

they still feature winding rural roads and older 

farms and cottages. The roads often derive 

their names from early settlers: Newcomb’s, 

Cahoon’s or LeCount’s Hollows, for example.

Hollows

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, 

access to the Outer Cape was usually by boat 

or stagecoach. The railroad first reached 

Sandwich in 1848 and extended to Provincetown in 1873.193 Small clusters of buildings 

sprung up around train depots and began to 

define new inland town centers. The railroad 

also made the Outer Cape more accessible to 

tourists, which helped spur the rise of the 

first large resorts on the Outer Cape such as 

the Highland House and the Chequessett Inn. 

But the railroad era on the Outer Cape was 

relatively late and short lived, and automobiles 

and improved highways began to replace them 

in the early twentieth century. Today there are 

no active railroads on the Outer Cape. 

Railroads

Figure 125: Eastham roads, 1910. 

(Source: UMass based on map in Barnstable County Atlas)

Roads

The earliest roads on the Outer Cape 

most likely began as a series of Native American trails. The idea of roads or “highways” 

as we think of them today contrasts markedly 

with the pre-1775 era concept of the word 

“highway” that merely referred to a right of 

way to pass over parcels of land. Travelers 

often had to stop to open pasture gates in 

the middle of the road.194 Up until the 

end of the eighteenth century, most of the 

roads within Outer Cape towns were no more 

than unmapped, rudimentary paths, serving as 

informal passageways for scattered inhabitants 

traveling to local schools and meetinghouses. 

Many transportation needs during this time 

were made by boat. Early records indicate 

that these towns were loosely connected via 

a common way serving as the postal route, 

sometimes referred to as the “County Road” 

or “Kings Highway.” By 1727 this road, composed of a patchwork of local throughways, 

extended all the way to Provincetown.195

90
Whoever travels between Truro and 

Provincetown, though he goes up 

hill and down dale continually, runs 

his wheels over the virgin sand; for 

even the stage-coach, that plies daily 

backward and forward leaves no 

track that lasts longer than an hour.

W.H. Bartlett, The Pilgrim Fathers of the Founders 

of New England in the Reign of James the First, 

1953197

For many years roads were poorly 

maintained as upkeep was left to the whims 

of individual towns that dedicated scant 

resources to the effort. Road deterioration 

was a constant problem. Roads running north 

from Truro reverted to paths in the endlessly 

shifting dunes, and as late as the 1830s poor 

road conditions stopped stagecoaches traveling down the spine of the Cape at Orleans. 

Although the Old King’s Highway, running 

from Bourne to Provincetown became a hardsurface road by the late 1890s, many side 

roads on the Cape remained dirt or sand until 

after World War II.196

Figure 126: County road, North Truro, ca. 1890. 

(Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

Improved road conditions coupled 

with the construction of new bridges across 

the Cape Cod Canal in 1935, effectively ended 

the isolation of the Outer Cape.198 By the 

1950s the Mid-Cape Highway stretched incrementally closer to the Orleans rotary, connecting traffic that crossed the Sagamore 

Bridge with the Outer Cape. With other road 

improvements such as Route 3 coming south 

from Boston, the area was now within one 

day’s drive of nearly 50 million people living 

along the Atlantic seaboard, causing one Cape 

Cod resident to remark, “God help us...if 

they all arrive at the same time.”199 

The popularization of the automobile 

affected the landscape of the Outer Cape 

more than any other social or technological 

trend since the days of salt works and whaling. The slow nature of horse and train travel 

limited access and encouraged long vacation 

stays. Affluent families often “spent the 

season” of July and August. A lack of mobility on the Outer Cape also precluded much 

travel away from the hotel resort communities 

where most vacationers stayed. In contrast, 

the influx of automobile traffic encouraged 

roadside development and empowered vacationers to leave their vacation accommodations to explore the region’s shops, restaurants 

and distant beaches. 

In the 1950s motor courts booming 

with tourists became a familiar roadside feature along Route 6. Builders looking to make 

a quick profit erected strip developments and 

subdivisions along the road. Many of these 

structures were close to the road and followed 

contemporary Modernist architectural trends, 

employing cost saving construction techniques 

and materials. The accompanying gas stations, mini-golf courses and food stands that 

catered to the crowds, were also set fairly close 

to the road with modest parking lots. 

91
Today the Route 6 corridor remains 

the main transportation route on the peninsula, and virtually everyone who visits or lives 

in the region passes through it regularly. Drivers exiting the limited access highway at the 

Orleans rotary, leave a fast-paced, guard-railed 

highway experience filled with little more 

than exit signs and surrounding forest behind 

them. After passing the rotary, Route 6 

changes into a road that cuts directly through 

communities and allows for sightseeing. Yet, 

as the Outer Cape becomes increasingly develRoute 6 Today

Figure 128: Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass)

Figure 127: Postcard, Mid-Cape Highway. 

(Source: James O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod)

92
Figure 130: Route 6, Eastham, 2003. (Courtesy: CCNS/NPS)

oped, and tourism continues to rise, this road 

grows ever more congested by legendary traffic tie-ups and jams. During peak season, 

Route 6 is often transformed into a landscape 

of chrome and glass, shrouded in exhaust 

fumes simmering in the heat.

The high traffic volumes have 

attracted a continuous strip of commercial 

development from Orleans to Wellfleet, and in 

parts of Truro. In fact, the only significant 

undeveloped stretches of the corridor are 

those protected by the national seashore in 

Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. For the 

most part, the character of the existing development recalls the mid-century era of independently owned small businesses, roadside 

cottage colonies and motels. More recently, 

hotels, such as the full-service Sheraton Four 

Points Hotel in Eastham, and shopping clusters styled after colonial architecture and 

sited off the main road exemplify a new 

scale of development. These commercial 

clusters were constructed in an effort to guide 

development architecturally and to limit the 

number of curb cuts along Route 6. The midcentury structures that remain, however, help 

frame the road and provide most of the setting for the continuous line of summer traffic 

crawling by.

Route 6 presents a common transportation dilemma: it needs to expand to accommodate current traffic volumes but expansion 

will attract more traffic. In addition, land 

use regulations on the Route 6 corridor allow 

for even more commercial uses in the future. 

Maintaining landscape character along this 

Figure 129: Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass)

corridor as traffic increases and new commercial uses appear will be a major challenge. 

93
Figure 131: Building set backs, Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. 

(Source: UMass)

Figure 132: Sheraton Four Points Hotel, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Different ways of Getting Around on 

the Outer Cape represent modes of perception as much as landscape features. As 

automobiles became the dominant, and then 

virtually the only, means of getting to and 

around in the course of the twentieth century, 

the implications were profound not only for 

landscape features (such as highways and 

roadside development), but also for how residents and tourists alike most commonly experience the landscape: through a windshield. 

This shift coincided with the dominance of 

an economy based on tourism, an increasingly 

wooded (rather than agricultural landscape), 

and an increase in population and new services those residents required.

Features such as sand drives should be 

considered for the mode of perception and 

experience they offer as much as their visual 

presence. New modes of perception, such 

as the bikeway and potentially increased ferry 

Conclusion services, will probably grow, and enrich what 

has been an often too monotonous experience 

of automotive highway travel.

Because of the near universality of 

certain experiences of the Outer Cape-such as 

the Route 6 corridor-such landscapes should 

not be dismissed as “already spoiled.” Controls over the design and location of new 

development will have enormous impacts on 

the perception of regional character in such 

heavily traveled corridors. Careful study of 

historical patterns of roadside development 

may offer guidance for future strategies to 

protect-or ameliorate-this dimension of landscape character.

94
often tucked into hollows along unpaved, 

traditional sand roads and drives, or on 

farmsteads. Many of the larger historic 

homes provide important examples of the 

Georgian, Greek Revival, Federal, Italianate, and Shingle styles on the Outer 

Cape. Over centuries buildings in different architectural styles have been juxtaposed in such a manner that the older 

sections of Outer Cape towns are a 

menagerie of structures in scale with one 

another. The result is a richly textured 

and delightfully varied experience that is 

somehow unified and harmonious.

Homes on the Outer Cape

...these homes have history dating back nearly 300 years, and represent a 

culture and way of life which is unique and a truly significant part of the 

charm of the Cape. 

John Worthington, Truro, 1959200

Few landscape features bear the 

imprint of Cape Cod’s cultures, climate, 

and geography more than the region’s 

distinctive architecture. The residential 

architecture of the Outer Cape extends 

beyond the signature Cape Cod cottage 

and includes an assortment of styles that 

reflect the history of the region. The 

Outer Cape’s early historic architecture 

encompasses a number of lesser-known, 

vernacular styles of houses, in addition to 

many churches, town halls, hotels, banks, 

and stores. These structures are often 

closely sited around narrow streets or 

town squares. Historic residences are 

Figure 133: Aerial view, houses on bay shore, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

95
There’s not enough recognition of 

accelerated loss of good quality, old 

housing stock being replaced by large 

undistinguished, poorly designed, 

over-scaled buildings. And not 

enough people recognize that this is 

a major problem that’s right there on 

the horizon.

James Hadley, Cape Conversation, 2003201

Figure 134: Cape Cod cottage, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 135: Residential development on Cape Cod, 1951 and 1999. 

(Source: UMass/MassGIS)

Twentieth-century residential architecture on the Outer Cape is epitomized by cottage colonies in both the classic Cape Cod 

cottage style and the Modernist style. Much 

of the architecture and construction of the 

1950s contrasted with more traditional patterns of Cape Cod development, and raised 

the concern that the regional character that 

had made the area famous would disappear as 

a result.

In recent years, modest cottages are being 

torn down and replaced by sprawling residences that sometimes feature gated driveways, atriums, and Palladian windows. Other 

new homes represent a more successful effort 

to blend well into the surrounding landscape 

by maintaining a low profile, simple rooflines 

and traditional materials. The past several 

years have seen rapid residential development 

on the Outer Cape. Eastham and Orleans 

have seen much of their landscape converted 

into housing as shown dramatically on maps 

depicting land change over the past century.

96
Figure 136: Land use change, Orleans, MA. (Source: UMass/MassGIS)

Settlement Patterns

Settlement patterns and architectural 

styles on the Outer Cape are a product of 

historical trends in maritime industries, farming and tourism. In the eighteenth century 

Outer Cape residents clustered their dwellings 

around protected bayside harbors, or in hollows, shunning the harsh landscape of the 

open sea and the incessant wind. These early 

structures were nestled into the landscape and 

certain buildings seemed to fit better than 

others. Already in the mid-nineteenth century, 

Thoreau wrote that “generally, the old-fashioned and unpainted houses on the Cape 

looked more comfortable, as well as picturesque, than the modern and more pretending 

ones, which were less in harmony with the 

scenery, and less firmly planted.”202

The remoteness of early Outer Cape communities forced residents to form tight-knit social 

groups within their towns. For much of the 

nineteenth century, those who did visit considered it a wild and remote setting. Historian 

James O’Connell notes that when Thoreau 

first visited the Cape in 1849, it was precisely 

because “it was so far off the beaten track.”203

The success of the maritime industries not 

only provided income for small, cottage dwellings, but also supported the construction of 

many grand homes that were most often 

located in town centers. As the wealth of 

New Englanders increased, and the railroad 

extended to the Outer Cape, this remote quality began to draw summer vacationers hoping 

to escape the bustle of industrial cities. 

Between 1870 and 1930 increased 

access due to rail transportation spurred a 

boom in tourism. The comforts and services 

of resort hotels such as the Hotel Mattaquason in Chatham, the Chequesset Inn in Wellfleet, and the Highland House in Truro drew 

many wealthy urban dwellers that began to 

value the Outer Cape as a place to spend 

the entire summer. They also purchased 

the declining former homes of sea captains, 

97
Figure 137: Highland House, Truro, MA. (Courtesy: Truro Historical 

Museum)

Figure 138: An Outdoor Shower, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Cape Cod Cottage

The Cape Cod cottage was one of 

the predominant residential home styles from 

the seventeenth century until the 1830s. The 

Cape Cod cottage’s functional, weathered and 

unadorned appearance became a trademark. 

When people daydreamed about vacationing 

on the Cape, they often envisioned a “cottage,” snug and simple, lying low on the 

land. A typical cottage had a low profile, 

one and a half stories, with weathered, wood 

shingle exteriors, and a simple porch. Cottages were often surrounded by saltspray rose, 

beach plum, and other untamed vegetation 

clinging to the sandy soils and the weathered 

shingles. 

By the twentieth century, staying in such a cottage typified vacationing on Cape Cod. Many 

cottages (whether historic structures or built 

in the twentieth century for tourists) were unand other residences.205 Outer Cape towns 

remained a mix of stately homes of the 

wealthy and the more modest homes of the 

working people. 

Here was a kind of soft scrubbiness 

in the landscape, and a sweetness 

begotten of low horizons, of mild 

air, with a possibility of summer 

haze, of un-regarded inlets where 

on August mornings the water must 

be brightly blue. Ransom had 

heard the Cape was the Italy, so 

to speak, of Massachusetts; it had 

been described to him as the drowsy 

Cape, the languid Cape, the Cape 

not of storms, but of eternal peace. 

He knew that the Bostonians had 

been drawn thither, for the hot 

weeks, by its sedative influence, by 

the conviction that its toneless air 

would minister to perfect rest...They 

wanted to live idly, to unbend and 

lie in hammocks, and also to keep 

out of the crowd, the rush of the 

watering-place. 

Henry James, The Bostonians, 1886.204

98
 Figure 139: Aerial view of Day’s cottages, North Truro, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION )

insulated, unheated, and closed for the winter. 

Walls were thin and children often slept in the 

unfinished loft. The cottage represented the 

experience of a no-frills summer on the Outer 

Cape, redolent with salty ocean breezes, and 

filled only with the sounds of a screen door 

banging shut, or the cry of seagulls overhead. 

An outside shower, and a small clothesline 

supporting brightly colored beach towels and 

swimsuits might have completed the image. 

Everything about such a cottage suggested 

that Outer Cape life was meant to be lived 

outdoors. It offered an uncomplicated lifestyle, away from the extravagances and comforts of home. The embodiment of this 

dream still exists today, although many quintessential cape cottages have been refurbished 

and enlarged until they seem no different 

from a standard suburban home. 

During the Depression and postWorld War II era, the Cape Cod cottage 

assumed an iconic position for residential construction all over the country. The charm of 

the Cape Cod landscape, in this case, directly 

contributed to the adoption of the Cape-style 

house in tract subdivisions. Cottage colonies 

offered a quaint yet effective way to meet 

the demand for vacation homes and rentals 

in the 1950s. One of the first and most 

famous Cape cottage colonies opened in 1931 

on Beach Point in North Truro. At the time 

of the National Seashore’s creation, modernized Cape Cod cottages were still being built 

both as homes and vacation cottages on the 

Outer Cape.

A Cape Cod house, with all its 

quaint and subtle charm, has developed an identity that can’t be mistaken. The shingles, the shutters, 

the white picket fences, the low eaves 

with simple doorways and windows 

snuggled up under them - all lend 

to the charm of the infinitely livable 

houses found on Cape Cod. 

“A Genuine Cape Cod House”, 

Better Homes & Garden, 1938.206

99
Figure 140: Ocean View Drive, Wellfleet, MA, 1999. 

(Source: UMass/USGS/UNH)

Figure 141: House on Ocean View Drive, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Ocean View Drive

Figure 142: Ocean View Drive, Wellfleet, 2003. (Photo: UMass/LARP)

In the nineteenth century and earlier, 

residential development on the Outer Cape 

was concentrated on the bay side and in hollows or other sheltered areas. The ocean 

side was considered less desirable, because of 

the wind and occasional devastating weather. 

The lifesaving stations, dune shacks, and lighthouses were the only visible cultural presence 

along the Great Beach.

The attraction of the Great Beach for 

recreation increased in the twentieth century, 

especially after World War II. Shacks and 

summer vacation homes were beginning to 

make their presence felt along the ocean 

side. During the 1950s many architects 

began to vacation and build Modernist homes 

on the Outer Cape. Aside from strip commercial development, contemporary homes 

had spread along the arterial roads, kettle 

ponds, and along Ocean View Drive in Wellfleet, which was constructed to connect beach 

access roads in the 1950s. The Surfside community of summer homes, the first of its 

kind in the area, and later Wellfleet-by-the-Sea, 

made for attractive destinations with their 

quintessential Outer Cape appeal.

The popularity of the two communities 

increased interest in developing the area; however the National Seashore was established as 

plans were underway thus prohibiting further 

construction. As a result, the area offers an 

increasingly rare scene of period residential 

development, brought to a halt before it completely filled in with houses of different styles 

100
Figure 143: House on Ocean View Drive, Wellfleet, 2003. (Photo: UMass/LARP)

or in a denser pattern. The presence of the 

National Seashore has prevented this type of 

development from overrunning the surrounding landscape, securing the magical quality of 

a rustic, summer escape a stone’s throw from 

the mighty force of the Atlantic Ocean. Today 

this elevated scenic drive offers breathtaking 

views to the ocean framed by the bordering 

heathlands. With its wild, untamed vegetation, momentary glimpses of the ocean, and 

relative seclusion, the drive is a special Outer 

Cape experience. Redevelopment of existing 

Ocean View houses should be carefully managed to retain the unique and characteristic 

views that many enjoy today. 

Surfside and Wellfleet-by-the-Sea

Surfside was started as a residential 

community in the 1940s when Wesley Reid 

and Michael Ulrich bought their first lot for 

seventy-five dollars. By 1959 they had a 

bustling vacation community with eighteen 

cottages constructed in a Modernist style. 

Wellfleet-by-the-Sea, a community of ten cottages situated on the bluffs between Ocean 

View Drive and the beach, was built soon 

after.207 Surfside embodies local character 

with its typical Cape Cod style cottages set 

in the undulating slope of the bluffs. Today 

houses in both developments fetch high seasonal rental fees, as renters cherish the rustic 

atmosphere, breathtaking views to the ocean, 

and immediate access to the beach.

Cottages at Surfside are close together: 

spaced twenty to thirty feet apart with a building footprint of about fifteen by twenty feet. 

They are trim, uncluttered and independent 

of one another, with outdoor showers and 

clotheslines at the rear. Whereas the close 

spacing is indicative of its communal intent, 

101
Figure 144: Area plan, Surfside and Wellfleet-by-the-Sea, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass/MassGIS)

Figure 145: Surfside, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) Figure 146: Surfside cottage, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

the untamed vegetation and absence of connecting pathways is reflective of a more private, independent character.

The houses at Wellfleet-by-the-Sea are 

more uniform, taking the form of modest, 

rectangular, one-storied Cape Cod cottages 

with gray cedar shack siding, white trim, brick 

chimneys and low-pitched roofs. Each has a 

deck running along its side facing the ocean. 

The houses are raised above the ground on 

stilts, giving them an elevated prospect of the 

ocean but not high enough to block others’ 

views from above. Snow fences and wood 

post fences run along the paths throughout 

the community holding back the vegetation 

and eroding sand banks. The areas between 

the cottages are filled with low-growing, wild 

vegetation.

Both cottage communities on Ocean 

View Drive derive their unique character in 

102
Figure 148: Surfside section, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass )

Figure 149: Wellfleet-by-the-Sea, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

Figure 150: Wellfleet-by-the-Sea, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass)

part from the surrounding vegetation and natural topography. At Surfside, the landform 

drops thirty-five feet within the 120-foot distance over which the cottages are spread. The 

slope directs the cottages towards the ocean. 

Raised vegetated mounds along the road shield 

the cottages from people passing by, increasing 

the sense of privacy and solitude of the space. 

Closer to the ocean, the vegetation tapers 

off to low growing grasses, heaths, partridge 

berry and bearberry, providing a few cottages 

unhindered views to the ocean. The vegetation around Wellfleet-by-the-Sea is shrubby 

and stunted. Existing growth is too short to 

obstruct the view or protect the cottages from 

the harsh wind; however, it does create a physical barrier that restricts movement, directs 

circulation and protects the sandy banks of 

the bluffs from erosion. 

Figure 147: Wellfleet-by-the-Sea cottage, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. 

(Source: UMass)

103
Figure 151: Area plan, dune shacks, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass/NPS)

Perhaps nothing symbolizes the precious sense of escape and isolation that can 

still be found on the Outer Cape more than 

the dune shacks of Provincetown and Truro 

and the rustic “camps” of Nauset Beach. 

These tiny structures, perched on the edge of 

the sea, grew out of a tradition of erecting 

rudimentary shelters for fishermen and shipwreck victims. The famous dune shacks 

of the Province Lands evolved from Charity 

Huts built by the Massachusetts Humane 

Society in the nineteenth century. The 

shacks, sometimes composed of the debris 

of wrecked ships found on the beaches, were 

intended to shelter seamen who survived shipwrecks along the Outer Cape. The original 

dune shacks were spaced sporadically from 

Race Point to east of Pilgrim Lake in Truro, 

and along Nauset Beach in Eastham. Later 

dune shacks were built as recreational shelters 

for beach dwellers. Countless fishermen and 

hunters have used the Nauset and North 

beach camps.

Dune Shacks and Beach Cottages

As the Outer Cape became increasingly known as a place of beauty in the 

twentieth century, many artists, writers, and 

playwrights came to find inspiration in the 

dunes, fishing villages, and the quality of light. 

The dune shacks in Provincetown - and to 

a limited extent, those on Nauset and North 

Beach - were also a unique part of this artistic 

culture, providing artists the opportunity for 

isolation, inspiration, and communion with 

the dunes and the ocean. One famous resident of these shacks was the eccentric Harry 

Kemp, self-proclaimed “Poet of the Dunes.” 

The dunes have also drawn other famous artists, such as Hans Hofmann, Tennessee Williams, Jackson Pollack and Edward Hopper 

among others. The Dune Shacks of the 

Peaked Hill Bars Historic District was listed in 

the National Register in 1989, largely for the 

association of the shacks with cultural figures 

who have used them. 

104
Figure 152: Harry Kemp at his dune shack. 

(Source: Images of America: Provincetown)

Late in the afternoon, there descends 

upon the beach and the bordering 

sea a delicate overtone of faintest 

violet. There is no harshness here in 

the landscape line, no hard Northern brightness or brusque revelation; 

there is always reserve and mystery, 

always something beyond, on earth 

and sea something which nature, 

honoring, conceals.

Henry Beston, The Outermost House, 1928.208

Henry Beston, unlike many others, 

chose to reside in a small structure on Nauset 

Beach, next to the Nauset Marsh, where he 

wrote his book, The Outermost House. This 

work has since continued to inspire others 

to have similar experiences among the dunes. 

The opportunity for this kind of experience 

continues today through the efforts of nonprofit organizations such as the Peaked 

Hill Trust, and Artist-in-Residence programs, 

which allow artists and others the experience 

of dune shack life for a week to two weeks 

at a time.

The exceptional quality of light of the 

Outer Cape is perhaps best experienced on 

the dunes, away from the distracting artificial 

glow of modern nightlife. The light changes 

from warm to harsh to subtle, transforming 

the sea and sand with each passing hour. The 

light of the Outer Cape casts innumerable 

hues upon the landscape, conjuring countless 

moods.

I think it’s a romantic vision of a 

lost way of life because the way of 

life out there is exactly the same 

now as it was one hundred years 

ago. The only difference is we have 

a composting toilet and a propane 

stove and a refrigerator.

Joyce Johnson, Eastham, 2003.209

These camps are as close to heaven 

as I’m ever going to get. 

Dana Eldridge, Eastham, 2003.210

105
Figure 153: Found art, Race Point Beach, Provincetown, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Figure 154: “The Dunes” by Katherine Baltivik. 

(Courtesy: Charles-Baltivik Gallery, Provincetown, MA)

Figure 155: “In Late Afternoon Haze” by Sheila Benzer. 

(Courtesy: Lyman-Ayer Art Gallery, Provincetown, MA)

Figure 156: Dune shacks, Provincetown, MA. (Source: UMass)

Figure 157: Euphoria Shack, Provincetown, MA. (Source: UMass)

Dune Shacks of Provincetown 

and Truro 

The dune shacks of Provincetown and 

Truro are set into a landscape of undulating 

dune topography, and although some are relatively close they are visually separated by 

mounds and dips of sand. Most of the structures are located on the first ridge of dunes 

off the water, dwarfed by the topography, 

desert-like vegetation, and expansive views of 

land, ocean, and sky. The sand that makes 

up the dunes of Provincetown and Truro is 

constantly buffeted by wind and water. This 

adds to the surreal and dynamic character of 

the landscape, imbuing the area with a sense 

of timeless isolation. In the past, the erosion 

of the dunes due to wave action has caused 

dune shack structures to fail and others to be 

moved back from the water.

These shacks are small, unpretentious, 

one or two-room structures that allow for 

easy movement. Euphoria Cottage measures 

twelve by sixteen feet and has a low profile, 

and is a typical example. Many of these primitive structures were constructed of cheap, 

recycled materials, and lacking electricity most 

are equipped with outhouses, gas stoves, and 

106
Figure 158: Restored dune shack, Provincetown, MA 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

Nauset/North Beach Camps

The Nauset/North Beach “camps,” a 

name derived from associations with hunting 

and fishing camps, are different structures 

from the dune shacks in Provincetown and 

Truro. There are approximately thirty-five 

camps on the Nauset Spit, with twelve in 

Orleans and the remainder in Chatham. The 

camps are slightly more elaborate than the 

dune shacks, and vary in size and style. A typical building may measure sixteen by twentyone feet, and rise to one or one and one 

half stories. The most famous of the Nauset 

camps was “Fo’castle,” Henry Beston’s shack. 

The quest for isolation has drawn 

many to these camps and shacks. The dune 

shacks can be reached by a long walk through 

the dunes and bluffs. Shack owners have vehicle access. The emptiness of the surrounding 

landscape coupled with the vastness of the 

sky and the ocean creates a distinct atmosphere. Topography plays an important role 

in the sense of isolation, as the rolling dunes 

hide shacks from visitor’s eyes. In contrast to 

water pumps. The lack of amenities creates 

a bare bones living environment that fosters a 

feeling of austerity.

I left the road and walked east. 

. .to enjoy the incomparable view 

of the great...marshes and the 

dunes. Viewed from the...moors, 

the marsh takes form as the greener 

floor of a great encirclement of rolling, tawny, and treeless land. . .the 

vast flat islands and winding rivers 

of the marsh run level to the yellow 

bulwark of the dunes...so beautiful 

was the spacious and elemental scene 

that I lingered a while.

Henry Beston, The Outermost House, 1928.211 

You’re faced with yourself out there. 

You really get to be restored out 

there and a lot of people have that 

same experience. 

Joyce Johnson, Eastham, 2003.212

Figure 159: Nauset Spit, Eastham and Orleans, MA. (Courtesy: MassGIS)

107
Figure 160: Henry Beston’s beach camp “Fo’castle”, Nauset Spit, 

Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore)

Figure 161: Beach camp, Nauset Spit, Eastham, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

In many ways, the changing meanings 

and character of Homes on the Outer Cape 

represent both the most cherished and the 

most threatened aspects of the area’s character. For many, it is the seaside cottage, the 

beach house, or the historic town house or 

farm that are the center of everything desirable about life on the Outer Cape. Nothing 

more directly expresses the aspirations and 

dreams of a chosen way of life than the character of dwellings.

In the twentieth century, as the economy of the Outer Cape became based in tourism, the landscape has become essentially a 

residential landscape; people are not here, primarily, to fish or farm any longer as much 

as simply to live here (or provide services to 

those who do). The growth of year round 

population and the proliferation of new (or 

expanded) residences, as well as the additional 

commercial services needed to serve such a 

population, have become the dominant facts 

of current trends in the landscape.

In this regard, it may be helpful to 

look back at the simple cottages (and even 

“shacks”) of the past to consider what has 

been deemed essential and desirable about 

domestic lifestyles on the Outer Cape. One 

theme comes through: more humble cottages 

and beach houses enabled a direct contact and 

appreciation of the landscape in which visitors played and residents sought inspiration. 

Larger, year round homes provide the conveniences available in mainland regions, but 

they also engender a more ubiquitous lifestyle, 

perhaps less carefully tuned to an immediate 

relationship to the landscape. The cottage 

communities of Ocean View Drive, the Provincetown Dune Shacks, and other examples 

of traditional lifestyles on the Outer Cape 

are reminders of important values, as well as 

significant landscape features. 

The potential redevelopment of 

improved properties within the National Seashore boundaries also deserves special considConclusion the now heavily wooded upland areas of the 

Outer Cape, the dune shacks are situated in 

a landscape of “big sky”, as Harry Kemp, proclaimed: “And here is all space that ever eye 

can see: The ocean completing all immensity, 

And the sky, mother of infinity.”213

To the observer, the presence of the 

diminutive constructions, juxtaposed against 

the open landscape, make the dunes appear 

more desolate than if there were no structures 

in sight. Such character is almost entirely 

absent elsewhere on the eastern seaboard.

108
Figure 162: Heading to the dune shacks, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

eration. The “Cape Cod Model” that brought 

the park into existence in 1962 did not anticipate the development pressures of the next 

century, at least not in this regard. Like other 

aspects of redevelopment on the Outer Capewhether of commercial or residential properties-the expansion of homes that once fit 

easily into their setting is one aspect of a new 

generation of challenges in maintaining the 

unique character of the Outer Cape.

109
110
“Places furnish the raw material for 

the symbols and collective memories 

of group communication.” 

Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, 1960.214 

Figure 163: Trap Fishermen, Truro, MA, ca. 1940. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Museum)

PART III 

Cape Conversations

Centuries of interaction between 

humans and nature produced the distinctive 

look and feel of the beaches, waterways, 

towns, farms and forests, transportation 

routes, and homes discussed as Landscape 

Headings on the Outer Cape. How do contemporary residents experience those landscapes today? The Cape Cod National 

Seashore has learned much about the landscape attitudes of Cape residents through 

ethnographic studies, written surveys, and 

individual interviews. In June 2003, a team 

from the Public History Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst added to 

this knowledge by holding a series of three 

“Cape Conversations,” one each in Provincetown, Eastham, and Truro. The idea behind 

the Conversation format is that deeply held 

landscape values and perceptions are often 

articulated only in groups, through local residents’ conversations with one another. To 

stimulate these conversations about the landscape of the Outer Cape, the UMass historians invited local residents to view a slide 

presentation of contemporary and historical 

photographs, and listened to the comments 

and dialogue that emerged in response to 

each image. The juxtaposition of old and 

new, each section of images introduced by 

a quotation from the United States Senate 

hearings in 1959-60 that established the Cape 

Cod National Seashore, prompted thoughtful 

111
Figure 164: Houses, Mayo Beach, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

discussion of how the Cape has changed over 

the past four decades since the establishment 

of the National Seashore. Quotations from 

those discussions appear in earlier sections of 

the report analyzing particular aspects of the 

Cape landscape. This section of the report 

briefly summarizes the collective portrait of 

the changing landscape of the Outer Cape 

that emerged from the Conversations, and 

the perspectives of contemporary residents on 

where they live. 

The first set of images depicted 

people working the land and sea--fishing, clam 

digging, harvesting cranberries, and selling 

jam. Prompted by these images of work, residents sought to distinguish past from present 

economic activities. A historic photograph of 

fishermen prompted one resident at the Provincetown conversation to comment that “it 

was more like Nova Scotia than Cape Cod,” 

until he learned the photograph was taken in 

the 1940s. But the same man commented on 

a picture of clam diggers that the activity 

was still going on in 2003 and done in much 

the same way.215 Similarly, in response to a 

slide of Cape Verdeans picking cranberries, 

the group acknowledged that “although you 

still have bogs on the Cape the economics 

have changed a lot. Everything’s mechanized 

now so you don’t have these kinds of images 

anymore.” Yet someone pointed out that 

in Orleans there were still small individually 

owned bogs, “so you can’t say that they’re 

gone nor can we say that they are relics 

because they’re still actually used in the same 

way that they were used.”216 Residents also 

talked about picking blueberries, driftwood, 

beach plums, and other items from nature 

in their youth that historically supplemented 

Cape family diet and incomes. 

Participants in the Conversations 

observed that even if these traditional activities were not as widespread or significant to 

the overall economy of the Cape, they still 

held great meaning for local residents and 

tourists alike as aspects of the Cape’s distinc112
Figure 165: Bicyclists, Wellfleet Center, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. 

(Photo: UMass)

tive landscape character. In response to a 

picture of an old fishing boat, one man at 

Truro commented, “Sure that’s one of the 

reasons why tourists come though. If you go 

back to that picture and you look at that boat, 

tourists like to look at things like that. And 

if there aren’t any around, if it’s all modern, 

just regular fishing boats, it doesn’t mean as 

much.”217 As reminders of a time when their 

ancestors were primarily farmers and fisherman, and as focal points for the tourist 

economy, local residents identified more with 

images of the old Cape Cod than those of 

the new. 

 

The second set of images came from 

Outer Cape towns, mostly Wellfleet. Many 

of the participants in the Truro and Eastham 

Conversations lived in Wellfleet, and they had 

much to say about how in the 40 years 

since the creation of the National Seashore 

the physical characteristics of their town had 

remained much the same while the social 

aspects changed dramatically. Observations 

about the changing character of local society 

especially emerged in response to a picture 

of the row of shops and art galleries in downtown Wellfleet that now catered primarily to 

a new class of affluent tourists and summer 

residents. One woman observed that Wellfleet’s year-round residents no longer walked 

into town to get their essentials, but traveled 

by automobile to larger stores down Cape in 

Orleans and Barnstable. A slide of the Wellfleet Post Office, newly constructed on the 

outskirts of town, also prompted comments 

about the changing character of Wellfleet’s 

town center.218

The image that provoked the greatest 

response at all three Cape Conversations was 

a picture of a new house built on Mayo 

Beach in Wellfleet that dwarfed the neighboring ones. Those present roundly attacked the 

new construction for being way out of scale 

and driving up housing prices and tax valuations beyond the reach of most local residents. In the words of one Wellfleet resident:

“It’s a pity. When people come here, 

and they want to stay and they build 

the big houses and they put in these 

fancy lawns and they water them 

daily, you can no longer conserve 

what was here. And the people who 

were here can no longer afford to 

live here because it doesn’t make any 

sense to keep your property when 

you’re making fifteen thousand dollars a year and then you can sell the 

property for a million”.219

The picture of the house on Mayo 

Beach also prompted discussion about the 

changing demographics of the Cape towns, 

and in particular, how skyrocketing housing 

prices in response to rising demand for vacation and retirement homes has meant that 

local families of ordinary means cannot afford 

to purchase homes near where they grew up. 

Residents noted that the preponderance of 

expensive summer homes in Wellfleet boosted 

the town’s real estate prices to among the 

highest in the Commonwealth, but the average 

income of its year round residents remained 

among the lowest. “The families, the kids 

can’t afford to stay. Kids are moving out at a 

remarkable rate.”220

The third set of images depicted recreational activities-tourists in Provincetown, 

bicyclists in Wellfleet, bathers enjoying Mar113
“The greater power of place 

lies not in inhabiting it 

but remembering it.”

Robert B. Riley, “Attachment to the 

Ordinary Landscape,” 1992.223

coni beach, and surf casters camped in 

recreational vehicles at Race Point, near Provincetown. Most interesting was contemporary 

residents’ response to a quotation by Senator 

Saltonstall from the Senate hearings in 1960 

that “Americans, in dire need of the natural 

grandeur of the clean open spaces, will find 

[in the Cape Cod National Seashore] an outlet 

for their crowded grimy urban lives.”221 A 

man at the Provincetown Conversation commented that even with the opening of the 

National Seashore, the urban masses tended 

to go to Revere Beach, not the Outer Cape.222

The group acknowledged that the towns of 

the Outer Cape have always been more of an 

upper-middle class tourist destination, a characteristic reinforced in recent years by the high 

price of rentals and an explosion of expensive 

second homes. Looking at the images depicting Cape recreational activities, those at the 

Cape Conversations praised the variety of recreational opportunities that the land and sea 

offered them, even while declaring their opposition to more tourist development and the 

traffic it would bring. 

The Cape Conversations slide show 

concluded with images depicting areas where 

wild nature had overtaken the earlier landscape of fields and farms. Pictures of overgrown trees clustered on sand dunes and of 

former agricultural landscapes such as Fort 

Hill in Eastham and Pamet Bog in Truro 

prompted recollections of a time when the 

Cape vistas were much more open. Residents 

appreciated the natural beauty of these newly 

wooded areas, though also wondered whether 

it was feasible economically to bring back 

farming and other economic activities that 

kept the spectacular views to the ocean intact. 

Summarizing the three Cape Conversations, those present associated the most 

striking changes in the landscape character of 

the Outer Cape with the transformation of 

the region’s traditional economic base. For 

centuries, landscapes on the Outer Cape were 

shaped by the hard work of local residents 

harvesting national resources-farming, cranberrying, and fishing. Elements of these ways 

of life are still visible, and are far and away 

what residents and tourists think makes Cape 

Cod distinctive. But these activities are no 

longer the prevailing forces shaping the landscape. Rather, the landscapes of the Outer 

Cape are now primarily shaped by the leisure 

activities of a growing number of affluent 

tourists, summer residents, and retirees. Local 

residents feel the economic transformation of 

the past two decades has affected all aspects 

of Cape life, from the skyrocketing price 

of housing and the plummeting number of 

schoolchildren to the increasing pressure to 

build new and larger stores to serve the growing year-round population. Those attending 

Cape Conversations talked about the difficulty 

of curbing the development and redevelopment of second homes, the scarcity of 

affordable housing for their children, and the 

near-impossibility of finding tradespersons to 

work on their houses at reasonable rates. 

Looking down Cape Cod at the dense 

development in Orleans and below, those 

attending Cape Conversations applauded the 

efforts of the National Park Service and its 

partners to preserve open space within the 

boundaries of the National Seashore, and 

by and large credited the Seashore for channeling visitors to the beaches best designed 

to accommodate them. Local residents also 

appreciated Park Service attempts to conserve 

their traditional recreational activities such as 

surf-casting on the beach, driving off-road 

vehicles, and gathering beach plums and other 

wild fruits for jam. But local residents did 

not see how the Cape Cod National Seashore 

could help them with the larger “redevelopment” and “loss of historic character” issues 

transforming the landscape. The Seashore 

can help keep the piping plovers from becoming extinct, but not the resource-based indus114
tries responsible for the look and feel of the 

traditional Cape landscape.

The Cape Conversations revealed that 

the residents of the Outer Cape are suspended between past and present, caught by 

the dramatic changes to the landscape that 

have occurred within living memory. The historical photographs reminded those present of 

a time when they were young. Many now 

moving to the Cape as year round residents 

also have childhood memories of the place. 

But soon after their arrival, they become 

acutely aware that while the region has lost 

none of its natural beauty, the Cape to which 

they have moved is not the same as the one 

that they remember. Yet these new “washashores” do bring their memories to the landscape, infusing it with personal qualities that 

may only exist in their memories. 

Collecting and preserving the memories that local residents and visitors have of 

places on the Outer Cape that have since been 

transformed can help to protect its distinctive 

cultural landscapes. The Cape Cod National 

Seashore has often partnered with local environmental organizations to preserve the natural environment and unique wildlife. But Cape 

Conversations reveals a need on the Outer 

Cape, as in other areas of the world where 

landscape change is occurring quickly, to 

partner with local historical organizations in 

projects designed to capture the memories 

attached to places, so that new residents to 

the area can understand what happened there 

and the distinctive cultural heritage that they 

and future generations will be called upon to 

protect. Describing the landscape elements 

that she felt made the Outer Cape special, 

a woman at the Provincetown Conversation 

challenged the group, “There are things that 

are valuable to you. Maybe they are not valuable to the people who are coming along.”224

Cape Conversations demonstrated the 

challenge of protecting the traditional look 

and feel of the Outer Cape against the seemingly inevitable changes brought by a population growing larger, richer, and older. But 

there are still strategies for local governments 

to adopt that would protect the characteristics 

of the natural and built environment most 

associated with the Cape’s distinctive landscape character. These strategies are the subject of the Recommendations section that 

follows. 

115
116
PART IV 

Conclusions and Challenges, Retaining the 

Landscape Character of the Seashore

Figure 166: House, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass)

This study has been produced to 

better understand, document, and analyze the 

complex interactions of people and places 

on the Outer Cape, both historically and 

today. The purpose of this study is to 

provide the National Park Service, local government, other organizations, and all residents 

of the Outer Cape with an improved basis for 

making the decisions that will decide the fate 

of the landscape character valued by all. A 

central premise and conclusion of this study 

is that the character of the Outer Cape is 

based in the interplay of the landscape and 

its people. They are inseparable in the sense 

that culture and landscape have mutually influenced one another for thousands of years.

In this chapter we summarize the findings of the study regarding how the current 

trends in land use on the Cape will likely affect 

its future landscape character. Key topics 

are the redevelopment of existing homes and 

commercial structures, significantly increasing 

housing sizes, the related challenge of providing housing affordable to long-time residents, and a diminishing working waterfront. 

After describing these challenges, we identify 

a set of goals that the towns, Cape Cod 

National Seashore, and the Cape Cod Commission could strive for to meet these challenges. These goals are followed by a set 

of recommended actions and planning and 

zoning techniques that can address many of 

the issues raised in this report.

117
Figure 167: Photo simulation of potential housing 

redevelopment. Top: Existing Conditions, 2003. Center: Impact of 

one expanded cottage. Bottom: Impact of vertical development on 

two expanded cottages. Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass)

The cultural landscape of the Outer 

Cape landscape has seen dramatic changes, 

particularly over the last 300 years. But the 

next decades of landscape change may be 

critical in determining whether future generations are also able to appreciate the special 

and unique character of the region. The Net 

Usable Land Area analysis (NULA) included 

in Part One, estimates that only ten percent of 

the land area of the Outer Cape is available 

for new development. The rest is already 

protected, developed, or regulated. The fate 

of this last ten percent will have a major 

impact on the character of the Outer Cape. 

Choices need to be made: accept this incremental change, or consider alternatives. 

The redevelopment of existing homes 

and cottages and the redevelopment of commercial properties to serve a larger, permanent 

population have replaced new development as 

a major threat to the character of the Outer 

Cape. The significant building that occurred 

on the Cape during the 1980s and 1990s, 

along with natural and regulatory constraints 

on where development can occur, have left 

few undeveloped parcels that are available for 

new development. 

Constraints on the supply of new 

development, along with the demand for 

homes from retirees and second home buyers, 

have significantly raised the price of real 

estate. The increase in year-round residents 

leads to larger homes with more amenities, 

and stronger demand for nearby retail and 

service business. These changes also make it 

more difficult for long-time residents to afford 

property taxes, or for the children of longtime residents to purchase or to build a home 

on the Outer Cape. The lack of affordable 

housing was a strong theme in the Cape Conversations described in Part Three of this 

report.

Challenges

118
Recommended actions were developed from a dual goal of allowing for appropriate change that addresses current needs, 

but also supports the traditional ways of life, 

economy, and landscape character of the area. 

Policies should accommodate changes in the 

ways that are most supportive of the ecology 

and character of the existing landscape and 

the life ways of its people. Addressing these 

challenges needs to occur in ways that are 

respectful of the private property rights of 

landowners, as well as the autonomy of the 

towns and of the Cape Cod Commission. 

Many of what we view as the solutions to 

these challenges have already been proposed 

in one forum or another: excellent guidance 

is available through such documents as the 

zoning analyses and growth management recommendations sponsored by the National 

Park Service, the new Cape Cod Regional 

Policy Plan from the Cape Cod Commission 

and their model bylaws and regulations project, and the Commission’s publication entitled, 

Designing the Future to Honor the Past.225

The challenge appears to be not so 

much technical (in terms of the specifics of 

planning tools) as political. This relates, we 

believe, to the phenomenon of the invisibility 

of incremental change. It is difficult to see 

the impact of changes in the landscape when 

they happen gradually over years and are dispersed across the region. The sum total of 

these changes, however, can so change a landscape that is no longer unique, or even identifiable. Chain stores, strip development, and 

developer-designed, oversized residences, after 

all, can be found anywhere. If unchecked on 

the Outer Cape, these trends could result in 

the loss of a regional cultural landscape of 

national significance.

To address these challenges, we have 

identified the following goals followed by a 

series of recommended actions and planning 

and zoning tools and techniques.

• Establish and maintain a 

database of significant landscapes and development 

trends across the Outer Cape. 

• Increase cross-institutional 

understanding of managing 

seashore areas with public 

lands and significant private inholdings.

• Improve local ability to effectively preserve positive landscape attributes while allowing 

for acceptable and necessary 

change.

• Increase awareness of the 

effects of incremental change.

• Increase knowledge of issues 

and opportunities surrounding 

fishing and shellfishing on the 

Outer Cape.

• Implement techniques 

designed to increase community influence on the redevelopment of houses as well 

as the building of particularly 

large homes.

• Address the need for affordable housing both for workers 

and for next-generations Cape 

Codders.

Goals

119
The focus of our recommended actions is on 

ways to encourage citizens to see their landscape and its changes over time, to empower 

local communities in their planning, zoning 

and site reviews, and to improve the collaboration among the stewards of the Outer Cape. 

We present here a set of actions that we 

believe would contribute to the stewardship of 

the region. We do not provide legal advice 

here, but we do believe all these techniques 

would be legally practicable. Rather than a 

to-do list, these recommendations should be 

interpreted as a menu, ideas from which the 

six towns, the National Park Service, the Cape 

Cod Commission, and other stakeholders may 

select the items that appear the most feasible 

and effective for their particular situation and 

interests.

Identify Notable Landscapes

With this study, the Outer Cape has 

gained greater awareness of the most important types of cultural landscapes and their 

connections to the Cape’s history and future. 

Additional effort is needed for a comprehensive study and documentation of the Capes 

notable landscapes of the Outer Cape.

This inventory could be organized and 

maintained as a database of existing conditions and trends across the Outer Cape. The 

data could then be used to prepare design 

review guidelines for appropriate development 

within each type of landscape. We recommend the following actions:

Conduct a full inventory of the Outer Cape’s 

cultural landscapes. Components of this 

inventory include:

• Expand upon on the prototype landscapes identified as 

Landscape Headings in this 

report to conduct a comprehensive inventory 

Community Based Actions • Develop design review recommendations for each prototype 

landscape

• Identify spatial boundaries 

for identifiable landscape types 

across the entire Seashore

• Publicize these boundaries and 

the suggested design review 

guidelines for each type with 

the towns to encourage their 

adoption within town zoning 

practices

The Cape Cod Commission could collaborate with towns to generate a landscape 

study of the entire Outer Cape.226

120
Management of coastal areas is a topic 

of increasing importance but great complexity. The expertise and knowledge developed 

in the Cape Cod National Seashore can assist 

other areas, and the knowledge developed in 

other areas can suggest fruitful directions for 

National Seashore policy as well. 

To increase cross-institutional 

understanding of the challenges of managing seashores 

with significant in-holdings 

and broad public use, we recommend the following action:

• Sponsor a workshop that 

brings together experts from 

various seashores in the 

United States, and potentially 

internationally, as well as local 

residents, to investigate both 

problems and solutions as 

they have been addressed by 

the National Seashore and by 

other communities

The National Park Service could take 

a lead role in coordinating workshops with 

input from towns, local organizations, and the 

Cape Cod Commission.

The Outer Cape is rich in institutions 

and people committed to sustaining the character and livability of the area. Increased 

collaboration among these groups will help 

assure that policies and perspectives are 

shared, thereby increasing their effectiveness.

To improve local ability to 

effectively preserve positive 

landscape attributes while 

allowing for acceptable and 

necessary change, we recommend the following actions:

• Sponsor a new standing collaborative forum including the 

town governments, National 

Park Service, Cape Cod Commission, and town historical 

and conservation commissions, fishermen and other 

stakeholders to investigate 

ways to retain cultural landscapes. The forum should 

address both retention of built 

environment and retention of 

local jobs and shore-based culture

• Develop an updated set of 

recommended techniques for 

planning, zoning and permitting within and outside of the 

seashore 

• Develop techniques through 

the collaborative forum 

described above, to ensure 

local relevance and acceptability and increase political support and buy-in 

Share Knowledge Across Increase Regional Collaboration

Institutions

121
• Include design guidelines for 

specific landscape types 

derived in part from landscape 

character studies (See Action 

Step: Identify Notable Landscapes)

• Further ideas for discussion 

are listed in the next section 

under planning and zoning 

tools and techniques

To effectively carry out these actions, 

the towns, National Park Service, Cape 

Cod Commission and interested stakeholders 

would work together through a collaborative 

forum. 

Build Community Awareness

Implementing improved land use 

management on the Cape requires increased 

community awareness of the cumulative 

effects of incremental change and improved 

planning techniques to address this challenge.

Increasing awareness of the effects 

of incremental change requires collaboration and political support for 

good land use management among 

residents, municipalities, and institutional stakeholders in the area. Recommended actions include:

• Prepare presentations, posters, 

and displays demonstrating 

recent landscape change and 

likely future landscapes 

• Work with town planners and 

Cape Cod Commission staff 

to determine local perspectives 

on key issues to be addressed 

and most descriptive sites to 

illustrate change

• Present to town meetings, 

conservation committees, 

Lions clubs and other public 

gatherings

• Provide technical assistance 

to towns attempting to 

update zoning to include 

these recommended 

techniques and more appropriately address particular needs 

of the National Seashore lands 

within their boundaries.

• Assign a National Park Service 

staff member or consultant 

with land use planning expertise to be a liaison to towns 

and the Cape Cod Commission

• Meet with town staff to publicize new efforts at partnership 

in this area

• Assist towns in applying 

for funds, whether federal or 

from other sources, to update 

zoning and planning, with particular attention to the following issues:

• Redevelopment 

 design guidelines for 

 existing homes 

• Encouraging appro-

 priate density within 

 town centers while 

 discouraging it out-

 side of the town cen-

 ters

• Encouraging con-

 struction of town 

 facilities within town 

 centers, to enable 

 pedestrian and local 

 use of town centers

122
• Allowing for and protecting the interests 

of fisherpeople within 

zoning and planning

• Encouraging affordable housing, 

particularly targeted to 

long-term, year-round 

residents of the Cape 

and municipal workers, 

and possibly to service 

workers in tourist busnesses

The National Park Service could work 

in collaboration with towns and the Cape Cod 

Commission to strengthen community awareness of change.

Build Landowner Awareness

Many of the key decisions that affect 

the ecology and character of the Cape are 

based on the individual decisions of landowners. Recent purchasers are likely to have less 

connection to the Cape and less awareness 

of its ecology, history, and regulatory issues. 

Improved land management by newcomers to 

the area can address many challenges in a 

non-regulatory fashion, including retention of 

native plant species, awareness of the fragility 

of the aquifer, and housing and landscape 

designs that compliment the landscape character. We recommend the following actions:

• Develop a brochure for 

new property purchasers and 

renters that explains essential 

architectural, ecological and 

landscape characteristics of 

the Outer Cape and actions 

they can take to support this, 

plus Cape Cod National Seashore regulations and boundaries. Topics to address 

include:

• using of native plants 

and identification of 

invasive plants to be 

avoided

• protecting ground 

water through property owner actions

 minimizing use of fertilizers and options for 

organic gardening

• importance of working waterfronts and 

fishermen to the area 

and actions local property owners can take 

(or avoid) to support 

this industry

• Distribute the brochure to real 

estate brokers and ask them 

to include it whenever someone begins to look for property on the Cape and near the 

National Seashore, so that they 

are familiar with the unique 

qualities of the area from the 

start

• Distribute brochure to town 

offices and local libraries and 

other visible public locations

We recommend that the National Park 

Service take a lead role in developing and circulating this brochure to improve landowner 

awareness on land management issues.

123
Retain Working Waterfronts

The identity of the Cape developed in 

response to its importance as a fishing and 

shellfishing center. These activities continue 

to provide income for long-time residents and 

a sense of connection to local history and 

a unique character. With the shift to highincome homes and tourism, positive actions 

are needed to assure that these activities can 

continue, and thereby retain both jobs and 

authentic local culture.

To increase knowledge of 

issues and opportunities surrounding fishing and shellfishing in the Outer Cape, 

we recommend the following 

actions:

• Gather studies from other 

areas that have addressed this 

topic; resources from Maine 

may be the most applicable

• Undertake conversations or 

more formal focus groups 

with local fishermen as well 

as (although separately from) 

property owners known to 

have expressed dismay with 

fishing’s landscape effects to 

better understand local perspectives on the problems and 

future of that industry

• Sponsor a study or designate 

a staff person to develop 

recommendations for towns 

as to how to overcome obstacles and minimize conflicts 

between property owners and 

fishermen, and appropriate 

zoning or other regulatory 

techniques to encourage retention of this industry in the 

Outer Cape. 

• Build a ‘caught-locally’ campaign for bringing fish to restaurants and making patrons 

aware of this, to ensure an ongoing market for locally caught 

or raised fish and shellfish

• Provide capacity support for 

a strong fishermen’s cooperative organization, to increase 

their political profile at local 

and state levels

We recommend that the towns coordinate these actions with participation of the 

National Park Service and the Cape Cod 

Commission. These actions could be facilitated by the collaborative forum described earlier in order to retain the working waterfront.

124
Planning and Zoning 

Tools and Techniques 

Figure 168: Photo simulation of potential housing redevelopment. Left: Existing conditions, 2003. Right: The effect of an enlarged cottage along 

the shoreline. Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass)

Managing Super-Sized Homes

Redevelopment of existing homes, 

often with very large additions or tear-down 

and new construction of much larger homes 

is the key land use management challenge 

within the Outer Cape. Very large homes, 

if not sited and designed very carefully, significantly change the visual, historical, ecological 

and social character of the Cape.

Several planning approaches are 

designed to increase community influence of 

the redevelopment of houses as well as the 

building of particularly large new homes. 

These techniques would be triggered when 

particular conditions are met, such as homes 

or additions greater than “X” square feet or 

homes in easily viewed or otherwise sensitive 

locations. Techniques which have been used 

in other Massachusetts towns include:

• Require site design review 

at time of permit application 

for new homes and significant 

additions; review can be by 

town engineer or more fullscale design review by a committee including citizens and 

planners. Include criteria such 

as:

• Define percent of site 

or stated acres to be 

left uncleared during 

construction

• Set limitations on 

impervious surface as 

a percent of site or 

other techniques for 

retaining aquifer 

recharge and stormwater management

• Minimize sightline 

impacts

• Define appropriate 

design guidelines 

125
(materials, massing, 

height, details), which 

can follow from the 

findings of the Cape 

Cod Commission’s 

Designing the Future to 

Honor the Past or from 

National Park Servicesponsored studies and 

recommendations

• Implement limitations 

designed to assure that new 

homes and additions fit into 

scale and character of neighborhood and achieve ecological criteria. These would 

be zoning code changes that 

either:

• Limit overall size of 

home (difficult to sustain legally but possible), or

• Limit floor-area-ratio 

(FAR) and address 

number of stories outside the National Seashore area (building 

stories are already limited to three stories 

for homes within the 

National Seashore)

• Develop design review 

guidelines with a goal 

of minimizing sight 

line impacts for new 

homes or additions not 

set within forested 

landscape

• Determine whether 

it is appropriate to 

have stricter limitations 

within the National 

Seashore and more 

generous limitations 

outside of it

• Use landscape character studies as reference 

documents for setting 

limitations as well as 

existing National Park 

Service, Cape Cod 

Commission, and town 

studies

• Encourage cluster or cottage 

style development for new 

homes, and revise codes so 

that this form of development 

is just as easy as standard 

development to build under. 

• Outside of town centers, make clustering 

an as-of-right process 

rather than by special 

review, thereby increasing likelihood developers will use this 

technique

Each of the towns in the Outer Cape 

would be responsible for adopting these planning and zoning tools.

The enormous increase in property 

values within the National Seashore and the 

surrounding areas has made it difficult for 

the children of long-time residents to find 

homes in the area. The lack of affordable 

housing diminishes community diversity, and 

makes finding housing for seasonal workers 

particularly challenging. The great desirability 

of the Cape for retirement and second 

home development means that the Cape Cod 

National Seashore and the towns will need to 

take active steps if they wish to assure diversity in the available housing to meet the needs 

of a wider variety of existing and potential 

residents.

Encourage Affordable Housing

126
To address the need for 

affordable housing both for 

workers and for next-generation Cape Codders, we recommend the following actions: 

• Add a linkage fee for affordable housing to existing impact 

fees. Under this program, 

each developer of commercial 

or multiple residences would 

pay into a fund. The proceeds 

would be used to build or purchase affordable housing units. 

Some of these units could be 

reserved for existing Cape residents and their children. This 

fee may be able to be applied 

to very large homes as well, 

as they presumably will hire 

domestic help who will have to 

be housed somewhere on the 

Cape. 

• Provide incentives in zoning 

and permit approval process 

for small homes or projects 

that include an affordable 

housing component. Be sure 

there are techniques in place 

to assure that the affordable 

housing remains available for 

year-round residents or for 

seasonal workers, rather than 

seasonal visitors

Because of the restrictions on new 

development within the National Seashore, 

most of these actions will need to be taken 

outside the seashore area with town-based initiatives.

As described earlier, the influx of new 

residents without multi-generational connections to the Cape as a site of work, as well as 

the increase in property values, has made the 

Retain Working Waterfronts

lower-value and sometimes unaesthetic uses 

necessary for the local fishing industry more 

difficult to sustain. If the Outer Cape is 

to retain some continuity with its history 

as a working waterfront, the towns and the 

National Seashore will have to undertake policies that facilitate retention of working waterfronts necessary for fishermen to catch or 

raise and process fish and shellfish. 

To retain the working waterfront, the 

Outer Cape should evaluate other models and 

adapt successful programs. Significant work 

has been undertaken on this topic by the State 

of Maine as well as some towns in Massachusetts, but it is nevertheless a relatively new area 

of concern in planning, and therefore techniques are still being developed and tested. A 

few ideas may suggest possible directions for 

further consideration:

• Include in zoning an ‘aquaculture use notice’ similar to the 

agricultural use notices utilized 

by some towns. Such a notice 

would specify that the zone 

is one in which aquaculture 

may be practiced, and that 

nearby residents may experience side-effects from this 

including impairment of visual 

quality, access across beachfront, etc. In agriculture this 

is often linked to state right-tofarm laws, but the inclusion of 

aquaculture under these provisions is a matter of legal 

interpretation-in other words, 

whether towns could link a use 

notice to the right to farm laws 

is for the lawyers to decide.227

• Designate some portions of 

town waterfronts as working 

waterfronts, and zone for 

retention of processing facilities and docks while discouraging possibly conflicting uses 

such as residences

127
Like the actions recommended in the 

previous section for the working waterfront, 

these planning and zoning tools would be 

implemented by towns, with input from the 

National Park Service and Cape Cod Commission. 

128
It is instructive to consider alternative 

futures for the Outer Cape which “play out” 

specific premises, specifically to: allow status 

quo development, guide development to particular areas (e.g. infill sites), and/or advocate 

for specific types of increased protection for 

landscape resources. The landscape planning 

studio completed three alternative future scenarios for the Outer Cape which are briefly 

summarized below. All of these scenarios 

accept the inevitability of additional population growth on the Outer Cape. They differ 

with respect to the allocation of new residential land uses, and conversely with regard to 

the type, extent and location of new protected 

lands. 

The landscape planning studio began 

by examining the future development capacity 

of each town through a “Buildout” analysis. 

A study of Net Usable Land Area indicates 

that 10 percent of the land area of the Outer 

Cape is still available for development (see 

Figure 7). The buildout is a compilation 

of six Outer Cape town-based analysis produced by the Massachusetts Executive Office 

of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) in 2002. 

The buildouts were calculated for every community in Massachusetts to provide a theoretical maximum development level allowable 

given existing zoning, public, and known regulatory and physical constraints. The EOEA 

buildout for the six Outer Cape towns identified the potential for a 22 percent growth 

in population, residing in 2,578 new housing 

units, resulting in a 1.4 million gallon-per-day 

increase in water usage. Since being released, 

these buildouts and their associated population impacts have been misunderstood by 

many. It is important to recognize that these 

buildouts are not predictions, or projections 

of expected growth. Simply, they are an analytic exercise designed to identify the amount 

of “buildable” land in a community, and then 

to analyze this “buildable” land according to 

the permitted type and density of development allowed under current regulations. The 

buildouts provide a useful starting point for a 

community to discuss alternative growth and 

development paths into the future. For 

example, the buildouts often identify lands 

within a community that are important but 

currently unprotected by current regulations 

or public ownership. A community might 

then explore alternative means of protecting 

these resources such as regulating the development potential, purchasing conservation 

restrictions, or purchasing the land outright. 

Similarly, a community can “read” the buildout to locate areas that may be suitable and 

desirable to accommodate future development. The town could encourage development in these areas by modifying zoning to 

allow a higher density of development, to provide flexibility in lot sizes and dimensions, and 

to make public investments in infrastructure 

to support the development, such as roads, 

sewer, and utilities. 

With this understanding of the available land and buildouts, not as a prediction or 

scare tactic, but as a baseline planning tool, the 

study produced three visions, or scenarios of 

alternative futures for the Outer Cape. Each 

of these scenarios started with a premise presented in the form of a “what-if ” question. 

Just as the buildouts are not intended as predictions or plans, these scenarios are meant 

to be exploratory, and even provocative, to 

raise important questions relative to community attitudes towards growth and protection 

of land and landscapes. They all present alternative challenges the status quo, which is represented by the buildout analysis. 

Alternative 

Future Scenarios 

129
130
Conservation Scenario

The first alternative to the buildout is the 

Conservation Scenario, which asks the question: “what if a broad coalition of groups 

worked together to conserve more land in 

an effort to protect significant water, wildlife 

habitat, recreational and cultural resources for 

future growth and management?” Just as the 

Cape Cod National Seashore made an unprecedented public investment in land protection 

in 1961, a broad coalition of contemporary 

groups might collaborate on an ambitious 

effort to place a substantial amount of currently “developable” land into some conservation status through tax abatement, 

conservation restrictions, or fee simple acquisition. The goals associated with the Conservation Scenario include: water resource 

protection, wildlife habitat linkage and protection, enhanced recreational trail access, and 

new opportunities for environmental education. Specific objectives in support of these 

goals would include: 

• Protect fifty-two new well sites 

to assure future water supply 

for Outer Cape Communities. 

• Protect key aquifer recharge 

areas to maintain a sustainable 

water supply through 

increased recharge. 

• Maintain and build linkages 

between wildlife habitats, 

including three new safe road 

crossings (tunnels) for Rte. 6. 

• Extend existing recreational 

trails into areas that are currently not served, ultimately 

providing trail linkage from 

South Wellfleet to Provincetown.

• Build five new environmental 

education facilities in conjunction with new conservation 

areas. 

• Select areas that satisfy or contribute to more than one of 

the above objectives by recognizing the inherent compatibility of these conservation uses. 

While perhaps appearing ambitious, 

this scenario would claim only an additional 

3 percent of the total Outer Cape land area 

for the above conservation purposes. Most 

of the new potential conservation lands would 

be located in Truro and Wellfleet on nonSeashore land. However, since only 10 percent of the Outer Cape is currently available 

for new development, the 3 percent of new 

land required represents 33 percent of the 

remaining buildable land, thus requiring more 

concentrated development in the remaining 

lands. 

131
132
Town-Centered Scenario

The Town-Centered Scenario asks the 

question: “what if future development on the 

Outer Cape is concentrated within and adjacent to existing village and town centers?” 

This scenario applies the contemporary planning strategy of “infill” development to 

appropriate existing town centers across the 

Outer Cape. It can be characterized as an 

anti-sprawl approach. It assumes that space 

is made available within existing centers to 

accommodate additional development, producing a higher density and greater population 

in these areas. It presumes that municipal 

water supply and waste disposal are provided 

to accommodate the additional population in 

a safe and sanitary manner. The scenario 

would require changes in zoning to reduce 

minimum lot size, to allow higher density 

on existing lots, and to provide flexibility 

in lot dimensions. The goals associated with 

the Town-Centered Scenario include: concentrated development, increased support for 

land conservation, housing affordability, and 

public transportation. Specific objectives in 

support of these goals would include: 

• Provide affordable housing 

through smaller units in new 

construction, and in adapting 

existing structures.

• Expand public transportation 

to higher density areas including expanded bus service and 

seasonal water taxi service. 

• Centralize infrastructure 

including municipal water and 

sewerage.

• Preserve the existing architectural character of Outer Cape 

villages through architectural 

guidelines, and site plan review.

• Use the transfer of development rights program to purchase development rights to 

out-of-town lands in return 

for the development benefit of 

higher in-town densities. 

• Use the transfer of development rights program to conserve sensitive natural areas 

such as water supply protection districts and visuallyimportant areas outside of 

towns including high elevation 

districts. 

The landscape planning studio identified town centers on the Outer Cape that 

could potentially accommodate higher densities of infill development as well as sensitive 

areas such as high elevation districts that 

would be protected. Wellfleet Center would 

be the major infill zone, as would other 

existing centers in the Outer Cape including: 

Provincetown, Truro, Eastham, Orleans and 

Chatham. New high elevation protection districts in Truro and Wellfleet would complement the existing district in Provincetown.

133
134
New Villages Scenario

The New Villages Scenario asks: “what if 

the Outer Cape concentrated development 

in new traditional-density village centers and 

conserved a significant amount of new open 

space? This is a bold scenario in that it 

explores the creation new settlements, emulating traditional patterns of growth on the 

Outer Cape. The “New Villages” would be 

examples of the new urbanist communities 

that have been established around the United 

States. These “New Villages” would be situated where concentrated development could 

be supported environmentally and with existing infrastructure - thereby relieving development pressure from other lands. This scenario 

is progressive in that the higher density would 

enable the application of regenerative technology. The goals associated with the New 

Villages Scenario include: concentration of 

new growth, support for public transportation, employment of regenerative technology, 

and the creation of neo-traditional villages. 

Specific objectives in support of these goals 

would include: 

• Site new villages on Route 6 

to maximize the potential for a 

viable mass transit system. 

• Provide a mix of commercial, 

institutional, and residential 

uses including affordable housing.

• Create a pedestrian-friendly 

compact community to reduce 

the dependence on auto travel.

• Provide a light rail spine parallel to Route 6 along the Outer 

Cape to link the new villages 

and other existing centers. 

• Implement innovative stormwater management system to 

reduce off-site impacts and 

to maximize groundwater 

recharge. 

• Employ constructed wetlands 

to create new wildlife habitat 

while accomplishing biological 

treatment of wastewater.

Using data represented by geographical information system map layers in combination with the NULA data, the landscape 

planning studio selected two locations for 

New Villages, one in Wellfleet and one in 

North Truro, with a light rail system serving 

the Outer Cape. Each New Village would 

be designed to optimize energy efficiency 

and renewable technology, by locating buildings for optimal solar orientation and wind 

protection. Waste would be processed with 

a biological wastewater treatment system, 

integrated with a stormwater management/

cleansing system. 

These scenarios are not intended as 

plans for adoption. Rather they attempt 

to pose and explore specific “what if ” 

questions regarding future development and 

land protection to raise awareness of alternatives to status quo development, and to 

explicitly attach likely consequences to planning, zoning, and land protection actions over 

time. In combination with the previous section of this report, the scenarios can be used 

to stimulate a dialogue within the Outer Cape 

community and individual citizens for active 

and informed decision-making to plan for the 

future. 

Conclusion

135
136
ENDNOTES 

 

1 Brent Harold, Wellfleet and the World: Themes of a Cherished and Threatened Place (Wellfleet: Kinnacum Press, 

2003), 210. 

2 The term “Outer Cape” is used throughout this report to describe the six northernmost towns of 

Barnstable County, all of which have some land within the Cape Cod National Seashore boundaries. This 

region is also referred to as the “Lower Cape,” which is an older and perhaps more correct usage, since the 

other towns of Barnstable County are often described as the “Upper Cape.” “Outer Cape” is used here, 

however, for the sake of consistency; recent planning reports, including the park’s General Management Plan, 

use the term. 

3 National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Forging a Collaborative Future: Cape Cod National 

Seashore General Management Plan (1998). 

4 Bill Doherty, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

5 F. Heyer, Preserving Rural Character: Planning Advisory Service Report No. 429 (Washington, DC: American 

Planning Association, 1990). Much exploration has also been done by rural sociologists to discover what 

“ruralness” means to local residents, but this research has focused on social relationships rather than on 

physical elements of the landscape. See: J.J. Beggs, V.A. Haines and J.S. Hurlbert, “Revisiting the Rural–

Urban Contrast: Personal Networks in Non-Metropolitan and Metropolitan Settings,” Rural Sociology 61, 

no. 2 (1996): 306–325. 

6 Michelle Millage and Carol Tysdal from the University of British Columbia studied rural character in the 

Hazelmere Valley in the Frazer River Valley near Vancouver. They suggest that it is not enough to only 

preserve the physical features associated with rural character: “Politicians and bureaucrats may find 

themselves implementing the physical aspects of the plan and yet still not clearly understanding the 

concept of rural character retention and its importance.... Those features which make up rural character 

are inseparable from rural life; in preserving one we will preserve the other” (33). M. Millage and C. 

Tysdal, “Retention of Rural Character: the Role of the Landscape Architect,” Landscape Architectural Review 

7, no. 3 (1986): 31-33. 

7 Historian David Glassberg suggests that a sense of place is derived from an intermingling of ones 

experience of a particular environment with personal psychological experiences and social and political 

values. Glassberg, “Sense of Place: A Report to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities,” June 

(1992). 

8 Peter Smirniotopoulos discusses how the attachment of meaning to place is tied to both experience and 

memory: “The meaning of place has much more to do with substance and far less to do with style; yet 

stylistic concerns and imperatives continue to dominate discussion about place. This stylistic approach to 

place making fostered by a seemingly endless supply of design and real estate industry conferences, 

symposia and workshops, contrasts sharply with an understanding of the true meaning of place.” P. T. 

Smirniotopoulos, “The Meaning of Place,” Urban Land March (2001): 36-41. Geoffery Booth explores the 

dual nature of place making, both providing for everyday functions and increasing civic pride and appeal 

to the senses. G. Booth, “The New Sensory Law,” Urban Land October (2000): 14-16. Most places that 

have a distinct sense of place not only serve as functional places for people to work and live in, but they 

also function as the “third place”, the location where people can congregate to relax and connect. See L. 

Holst, “Place Making: Turning the Idea of Sense of Place into Reality,” Urban Land, 60 no. 5 (2001) 136. 

9 See Ervin H. Zube, James L. Sell and Jonathan G. Taylor, “Landscape Perception: Research, Application 

and Theory,” Landscape and Planning 9, no. 1 (1982): 1-33, for an analysis of the paradigms that have been 

137
 followed in assessing perceived landscape values, and a discussion of underlying theoretical and conceptual 

foundations. 

10 Brush, Chenowith and Barman found significant differences in preference for roadside landscapes in 

Wisconsin, attributable to different knowledge levels of agricultural, woodland and urban edge landscapes. 

Urban tourists visiting the area favored forest landscapes over farm and urban edges. Similarly, forestry 

professionals and loggers valued wooded areas the most, while farmers desired to drive through farming 

areas. R. Brush, R.E. Chenoweth and T. Barman, “Group Differences in the Enjoyability of Driving 

Through Rural Landscapes,” Landscape and Urban Planning 47, no.1-2 (2000): 39-45. 

11 Richard Florida delves into questions such as “What makes a place real?” and discusses the role of 

unpredictable outcomes of experience as a crucial aspect of places that are popular. R. Florida, “A New 

Sense of Place,” Urban Land, March (2001): 39. 

12 James O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod: Creating a Seaside Resort (University Press of New England, 2002), 135-

136. 

13 Cape Cod Commission, Community Vision, 1998. 

14 Samuel Chamberlain, Cape Cod in the Sun (New York: Hastings House, 1937), 1. 

15 Paul Theroux, “Summertime on the Cape,” in Sunrise with Seamonsters: Travels and Discoveries, 1964-1984 

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), 299, 302. 

16 In a 1992 study for the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, David Glassberg and others noted 

that the sense of ownership and the notion of residents being land stewards that was strongly present in 

other Massachusetts communities was starkly absent on the Cape. “Discussions of place soon transmute 

into discussions of marketing” and “the sense of place on the Cape Cod is overwhelmingly shaped by 

efforts to supply the kinds of sensations that tourists expect to find there.” Glassberg, “Sense of Place: A 

Report to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities” (June 1992), 8. 

17 NPS, Cape Cod National Seashore General Management Plan, 90. 

18 Frank Szedlak Jr., Cape Conversations in Truro, June 26, 2003. 

19 Cape Cod Commission, Cape Cod Regional Policy Plan (Barnstable: Cape Cod Commission, 2001), 16.

20 Cape Cod Commission, Cape Cod Regional Policy Plan.

21 Cape Cod Commission, Outer Cape Capacity Study (Barnstable MA: Cape Cod Commission, 1996), 2-3; 

O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 133. 

22 Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, Report House Price Index, Fourth Quarter 2002 (March 2003), 

15. 

23 Summary from: Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Report: House Price Index, Fourth Quarter 

2002, March 2003, 15. 

24 Cape Cod Commission, Cape Cod Regional Policy Plan, 43. 

25 S. X. Cadrin and J. King. Stock Assessment of Yellowtail Flounder in the Cape Cod, Gulf of Maine Area. (Woods 

Hole, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center; Massachusetts Division of 

Marine Fisheries, Pocasset, MA, 2003). Also, J. Glasser, “Decline of the Cod Divides a New England 

Fishing Village,” U.S. News & World Report, 134, no. 20, (June 2003), 44. 

138
 26 Dramstad, Olson and Forman, Landscape Ecology Principles in Landscape Architecture and Land-Use Planning. 

(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996), 22-23.

27 Cape Cod Commission, Cape Cod Regional Policy Plan, 15. 

28 L. Martin, Investigation of Effects of Ground Water Withdrawals from the Pamet and Chequessett Aquifers, Cape Cod 

National Seashore: Technical Report 1987-91. (Fort Collins, CO: National Park Service, Water Resources Div., 

1993); Provincetown Local Comprehensive Planning Committee, Local Comprehensive Plan: Town of 

Provincetown (2000). 

29 Barnstable County Coastal Resources Committee, Coastal Resource Protection Update (2002), 2. 

30 Robert N. Oldale, Cape Cod Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket: the Geologic Story (Yarmouthport, MA: On Cape 

Productions 1992), 37-38. 

31 Beth Schwarzman, The Nature of Cape Cod (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002), 17. 

32 Dorothy Sterling and Winifred Lubell, The Outer Lands: A Natural History Guide to Cape Cod, Martha’s 

Vineyard, Nantucket, Block Island and Long Island (New York: Norton Press, 1978), 11. 

33 Sterling and Lubell, The Outer Lands, 16. 

34 Hurricanes in the past 100 years that have had major impacts on Cape Cod include the hurricane of 1938, 

in which winds reached 183 miles per hour. The hurricane of 1944 caused massive flooding and storm 

surges greater than 10 feet high. In 1954 a hurricane hit the east tip of Cape Cod, and most recently, 

Hurricane Bob struck on August 19, 1991. See David R. and Michael R. Dion, Southern New England 

Tropical Storms and Hurricanes: A Ninety-eight Year Summary 1909-1997 (Taunton, MA: National Weather 

Service, 2001). 

35 Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod (New York: Penguin Group 1987, first published in 1865), 225-226. 

36 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 8, 49. Cape Cod’s population as a whole declined from about 36,000 in 1860 

to almost 27,000 in 1920. 

37 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 63. 

38 Although World War II significantly reduced tourism and development on the Cape, several military 

installations, such as Camp Edwards, Woods Hole, Scorton Neck Beach, and Camp Wellfleet brought 

thousands of soldiers to the area. O’Connell observes that the troop buildup amounted to free advertising, 

as many soldiers returned to vacation on the Cape with their families after the war. James C. O’Connell, 

Becoming Cape Cod, 62. 

39 Lewis M. Alexander, “The Impact of Tourism on the Economy of Cape Cod, Massachusetts,” Economic 

Geography 29, (1953): 325. 

40 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 98. 

41 Charles H.W. Foster, The Cape Cod National Seashore: A Landmark Alliance (Hanover, NH: University Press 

of New England, 1985), 4-5. 

42 Francis P. Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore (Plymouth, MA: Leyden Press, Inc., 1977), 4. 

Page citations from Eastern National Press edition, 2000. 

43 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 4. 

139
 44 Massachusetts Department of Commerce, Plan, [Past, Promise] in Barnstable County, 1955, .n.p. in O’Connell, 

Becoming Cape Cod, 112-113. 

45 National Park Service, Cape Cod National Seashore: A Proposal, (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 

1959). 

46 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 5. 

47 National Park Service, A report on our vanishing Shoreline..., (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 1955), 

33. 

48 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 12-13. 

49 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 16. 

50 [Public Law 87-126, Section 7 (b) (1)]; [Public Law 87-126, Section 7 (b) (1)] 

51 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 22-27. 

52 The hearings were held by the Senate’s Subcommittee on Public Lands of the Committee on Interior and 

Insular Affairs. The section that follows relies heavily on David Jenkins’ digest of the 820 pages of 

hearings transcripts. David Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation: The Cape Cod National Seashore Hearings, 

1959-1961,” Draft Report, (Boston, MA: National Park Service Boston Support Office January 2003). 

53 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 10. 

54 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 26 

55 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 21. 

56 Marise Fawsett, Cape Cod Annals (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1990), 97. 

57 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 64. 

58 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 23. 

59 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 5. 

60 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 25. 

61 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 17. 

62 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 45. 

63 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 13 

64 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 7, 8. 

65 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 10. 

66 Robert Finch notes that “if there is one area in which the Cape has produced a nationally recognized 

literature, it has been what is loosely referred to as nature writing....At least two Cape-based books have 

achieved the status of classics.” Robert Finch, ed., A Place Apart: A Cape Cod Reader, (New York: Norton 

1993), 185. 

67 Burling, The Birth of the Cape Cod National Seashore, 28. 

140
 

68 Cape Cod’s population doubled from 1950 to 1970, then doubled again by 1990, jumping from 96,656 to 

186,605. With the rise in the permanent population, the real estate and the service economy have eclipsed 

tourism as the primary economic force on the Cape. O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 126, 128. 

69 G.H. Sanders, Developing National Parks in Densely Populated Areas: Two Case Studies. Master’s Thesis UMass 

Amherst, 1987. 

70 For further information on issues related to off road vehicular use at CCNS see: Eileen Mueller 

“Surfcasters and Off Road Vehicle Use at Cape Cod National Seashore,” (Boston MA: National Park 

Service, Northeast Ethnography Program, 2001). 

71 Foster, The Cape Cod National Seashore, A Landmark, 33. 

72 Cape Cod Commission, Cape Cod Regional Policy Plan, 2. 

73 Cape Cod Commission, Cape Cod Regional Policy Plan, 4. 

74 Cape Cod Commission, Cape Cod Regional Policy Plan, iii. 

75 Philip Herr, “The Cape Cod Village: An Endangered Species,” (Cambridge, MA: Design and Development 

Program, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991), 2. 

76 The Town of Orleans has recently replaced its Official Town Plan of 1991, with its Local Comprehensive 

Plan of 1999. Similarly the town of Provincetown expanded on its 1988 Master Plan by approving its local 

comprehensive plan in April of 2000. Orleans Local Comprehensive Plan Committee, Orleans Local 

Comprehensive Plan, (1999) Provincetown Local Comprehensive Plan Committee, Provincetown Local 

Comprehensive Plan, (1999). 

77 Cape Cod Commission, Transportation Staff, Cape Cod Traffic Counting Report, prepared in cooperation with 

the Massachusetts Highway Department and the United States Department of Transportation- Federal 

Highway Administration, (1993). Gives a summary of traffic counts between 1984-1993. Volpe National 

Transportation Systems Center for the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority, Cape Cod Transit Task 

Force, U.S. Department of Transportation, Five Year Public Transportation Plan (Draft), (2001). 

78 For example, in response to increasing development on the Cape in the 1980s, the Association for the 

Preservation of Cape Cod, the nonprofit organization, produced a planning document titled Options for 

Cape Cod’s Future: APCC’s Growth Report, 1985. This document includes growth forecasts and threats to the 

Cape’s natural resources and visual character and suggests techniques for managing growth. Woods Hole 

Oceanographic Institute often conducts studies and produces reports that provide information about the 

natural resources of the Outer Cape, such as Beach Changes and Management Options for Nauset Barrier Beach 

and Orleans Town Beach, Cape Cod, MA, (Woods Hole, MA: 1998). The NPS also benefits from studies 

conducted by academic institutions, such as the 1996 report from the Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology titled, Cape Cod National Seashore Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Report investigating the 

Wampanoag, Portuguese and Portuguese-American, and Cape Verdean cultures on Cape Cod. In 1989 

the University of Massachusetts Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning and the 

Center for Rural Massachusetts produced the Eastham/Wellfleet Route 6 Corridor Management Study, which 

addressed traffic, parking and land-use problems associated with Route 6. In 1994 the School of Natural 

Resources at the University of Vermont conducted the Cape Cod National Seashore Visitor and Resident Study

to learn more about the habits, attitudes and socio-economic status of park visitors and residents and to 

quantify the economic impact of the park on the region. 

79 See for example, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Assessment of Alternatives for a 

Development Concept Plan: Eastham Area, Cape Cod National Seashore (Denver Service Center, 1978); National 

Park Service, Department of the Interior, Eastham Area Development Concept Plan and Transportation Analysis, 

Cape Cod National Seashore, (Denver Service Center, 1981). National Park Service, Department of the 

141
 Interior, Water Resources Management Plan for Cape Cod National Seashore. (1999). This plan is an update of an 

earlier 1981 plan, and it focuses on the most important water resource issues facing the park including the 

impacts of groundwater withdrawal and cultural impacts to pond water quality. 

80 Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Resource Management Plan, Cape Cod National Seashore.

(prepared by David Manski and Michael Whatley, 1992). 

81 Department of the Interior, National Park Service, The Strategic Plan for Cape Cod National Seashore: Fiscal 

Year 2000 – 2005 (October 1, 1999 – September 30, 2005), (Wellfleet MA, 1999). 

82 See L. Martin, J. Portnoy, and C. Roman, Water Quality Monitoring and Research Plans for Kettle Ponds, Cape Cod 

National Seashore: Technical report of a workshop on March 2-3, 1992 (Fort Collins, CO: National Park Service, 

Water Resources Division, 1993). The 2-day workshop held on March 2-3, 1992 workshop involved 

numerous scientists and resource managers. It covered pond ecological processes and human use impacts 

with the intention of aiding in the creation of a kettle pond monitoring program for Cape Cod National 

Seashore. 

83 National Park Service, Baseline Water Quality Data Inventory and Analysis: Cape Cod National Seashore, Technical 

Report, (Fort Collins, CO, National Park Service Water Resources Division, 1995). 

84 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Natural Resource Information Division, Inventory 

and Monitoring Program, Inventory and Prototype Monitoring of Natural Resources in Selected National Park System 

Units 1999-2000. In 1999, the seashore and the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological 

Survey at the University of Rhode Island produced a conceptual plan for monitoring of natural resources 

in the CCNS. 

85 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Division of Cultural Resources, North Atlantic 

Regional Office, Archeological Survey of Cape Cod National Seashore (1980). 

86 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, 

Cultural Landscape Report for Truro Highlands Historic District (Boston: 1995). 

87 R. D. Holmes, C. D. Hertz and M. T. Mulholland, Historic Cultural Land Use Study of Lower Cape Cod: A 

Study of the Historical Archeology and History of the Cape Cod National Seashore and the Surrounding Region (Amherst 

MA: Environmental Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, and Lowell, MA: Archeology 

Branch, National Park Service, 1998). 

88 NPS, Cape Cod National Seashore General Management Plan. 

89 NPS, Cape Cod National Seashore General Management Plan, 17. 

90 NPS, Cape Cod National Seashore General Management Plan, 8. 

91 Frank Szedlak Jr., Cape Conversations in Truro, June 26, 2003. 

92 Ruth Sprague, Cape Conversations in Truro, June 26, 2003. 

93 Robert N. Oldale, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, The Geologic Story, revised edition (Yarmouthport, 

MA: On Cape Publications, 2001), 151-158. 

94 John Hay, “Dune Country,” in A Place Apart: A Cape Cod Reader, ed. Robert Finch (New York: Norton 

1993), 222. 

95 Patrick, Oona Hyla, “The Shack of Art and Healing” in Post Road Magazine [online magazine]. 

Provincetown, MA: 2003. Accessed April 5, 2003. Available from world wide web: 

http://www.postroadmag.com/HTMLPages/PostRoad/Issue_4/Nonfiction4/Patrick.htm. 

142
 

96 Paul Schneider, The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. (New York: 

Henry Holt and Company, 2000), 87. 

97 Thoreau, Cape Cod, 41, 235. 

 

98 Henry C. Kittredge, Cape Cod: Its People and Their History, second edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 

1968), 230. 

99 George Rockwell Putnam, Lighthouses and Lightships of the United States. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933). 

100 National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Heritage: Lifesavers on Cape Cod [online], National 

Seashore Website, Wellfleet MA: Department of the Interior, 2003. Accessed March, 20 2003. Available 

from world wide web: http//:www.nps.gov/caco/heritage/lifesavers.html. 

101 Paul Schneider, The Enduring Shore, 206. 

102 Thoreau, Cape Cod, 67. 

103 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 33, 41, 53, 98, 105. 

104 Edward Sabin, Cape Conversations in Eastham, June 22, 2003. 

105 Frank Szedlak Jr., Cape Conversations in Truro, June 26, 2003. 

106 The 1981 ORV Management Plan was challenged in U.S. District Court, but the amended plan in 1985, 

which established an 8.5 mile ORV corridor on the 40 miles of outer beach within the Seashore (50 FR 

31181), was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1989. National Park Service, Department of the 

Interior, ORV Management Plan, Cape Cod National Seashore (1981, Amended 1985) (50 FR 31181). 

107 Mueller, “Surfcasters and Off Road Vehicle Use,” 11. 

108 Mueller, “Surfcasters and Off Road Vehicle Use” 9-15. 

109 Kittredge, Cape Cod: Its People and Their History. 

110 United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Piping Plover Critical Habitat, [online]. U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service Piping Plover Critical Habitat. Washing D.C.: US Department of the Interior, 2001. Accessed 

August 20, 2003. Available from world wide web: http://plover.fws.gov/q&a.html. 

111 John Meisel, “Piping Plover Monitoring Report for 1991” unpublished CACO Natural Resource Report 

9101 (South Wellfleet, MA: 1991). 

112 Mueller, “Surfcasters and Off Road Vehicle Use,” 17. 

113 Henry Beston, The Outermost House. 10 (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1928). (page citations 

are to the Viking Compass Edition, 1970). 

114 John Thomas, Writer and Provincetown resident, interview by Bill Burke, Cape Cod National Seashore, 

NPS, March 19, 2003. 

115 Paul Rosen, interview by Bill Burke, Cape Cod National Seashore, NPS, March 10, 2003. 

116 Donald B. Sparrow, Growing Up on Cape Cod: Four Brothers Learning to Stand Tall (Eastham: Great Oaks 

Publishing, 1999), 95. 

143
 117 Woods Hole Research Center, “Critical Habitats of Cape Cod”. In An Electronic Atlas of the Cape Cod 

Environment [online]. Woods Hole, MA: Woods Hole Research Center, 1998. Accessed March 30, 2003. 

Available from World Wide Web: http://www.whrc.org/CCAtlas/habitats/crit_habs.htm. 

118 National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Water Resources Management Plan for Cape Cod National 

Seashore [online]. Wellfleet, MA: CCNS, 1999. Accessed June 6, 2003. Available from World Wide Web: 

http://www.nps.gov/caco/management/water_resources_plan. 

119 Kurt S. Pregitzer,“The Ecology of Northern White-Cedar,” in Workshop Proceedings Northern White Cedar in 

Michigan, February 21-22 1990, ed. D. O. Lantagne (Sault St. Marie, MI: Agricultural Experiment Station, 

Michigan State University, 1990). 

120 Robert Finch, Special Places on the Cape and the Islands (Beverly: Commonwealth Editions, 2003), 134. 

121 Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Rare 

Species Occurrence Lists by Town [online]. Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, 2003. Accessed 

March 3, 2003. Available from World Wide Web: 

http://www.state.ma.us/dfwele/dfw/nhesp/nhtown.htm. 

122 Cindy Moe, Cape Conversations in Eastham, June 22, 2003. 

123 For further discussion see, Anthony Flint, “Battle Over the Beachfront: Cape shellfishermen beat back 

homeowner’s bid to ban them,” Boston Globe, August 31 2003, Section A. 

124 Jim Coogan and Jack Sheedy, Chapter 3 excerpt, “Oysters, Iron Ore and Oxcarts” in Cape Cod 

Companion: The History and Mystery of Old Cape Cod [online]. Hyannis, MA: The Barnstable Patriot, 

2003. Accessed October 14, 2003. Available on the World Wide Web, 

http://www.barnstablepatriot.com/cccompanion/chapter3.html. 

125 Eleanor Dumais, Cape Conversations in Truro, June 26, 2003. 

126 Diana Worthington, North Truro Resident, interview by Hope Morrill, Cape Cod National Seashore, NPS, 

March 3, 2003. 

127 David Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 32. 

128 Fawsett, Cape Cod, 89. 

129 Fawsett, Cape Cod, 90. 

130 Fawsett, Cape Cod, 90-91. 

131 Mary Rogers Bangs, Old Cape Cod (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1920), 172. 

132 Fawsett, Cape Cod, 93-95. 

133 Seth Rolbein, “An Historic Kind of Drag: Trawling within Site of Land,” The Cape Cod Voice, (June 19, 

2003), vo1. 3, no. 4, 6. 

134 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 81-84. 

135 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 90. 

136 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 90. 

137 Cathy Skowron interview by Hope Morrill, NPS, March 10, 2003, Cape Cod National Seashore. 

144
 138 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 37. 

139 D. Lombardo, Images of America: Wellfleet A Cape Cod Village, (Charleston SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2000), 34. 

140 Two of the more famous wharves are Commercial Wharf, built in 1835 by Paine Atwood and Elisha Perry, 

and Mercantile Wharf, erected in 1870 at west end of Mayo Beach. Judy Stetson, (Wellfleet A Pictorial History

Wellfleet: The Wellfleet Historical Society Incorporated, 1963) 23. 

141 Harold, Wellfleet and the World, 48. 

142 Jeremiah Digges, Cape Cod Pilot (American Guide Series – Federal Writer’s Project, Works Progress 

Administration), (Provincetown and New York: Modern Pilgrim Press and the Viking Press, 1937) 1. 

143 David Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 29. 

144 Frank Szedlak, Jr., Cape Conversations in Truro, June 26, 2003. 

145 Massachusetts Department of Environmental Affairs Community Profiles: Wellfleet [online] Accessed March 

12, 2003, Available on world wide web: 

http://commpres.env.state.ma.us/community/cmty_main.asp?communityID=318. 

146 Cindi Moe, Cape Conversations in Eastham, June 22, 2003. 

147 US Department of Commerce, Census 2000. Data for Outer Cape Towns. Washington D.C.: US 

Department of Commerce, 2000. 

148 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation”, 5. 

149 Schwarzman, The Nature of Cape Cod, 32. 

150 Mario Di Gregorio and Jeff Wallner, A Vanishing Heritage: Wildflowers of Cape Cod (Missoula, MT: Mountain 

Press, 1989). 

151 G. Motzkin, R. Eberhardt, B. Hall, D. R. Foster, J. Harrod, and D. MacDonald, “Vegetation variation 

across Cape Cod Massachusetts: Environmental and Historical Determinants,” Journal of Biogeography 29 

(2002):1440. 

152 G.M. Day, “The Indian as an Ecological Factor in the Northeastern Forest,” Ecology, 34, no.2 (1953): 

329-346. 

153 W.L. Grant, ed., Voyages of Samuel de Champlain 1604-1618 (New York: 1907, 61-72, 95), from H.S Russell, 

A Long, Deep Furrow: three centuries of farming in New England (Hanover: University Press of New England, 

1976), 4. 

154 G.P. Winship ed., Sailors’ Narratives of Voyages along the New England Coast 1524-162 (Boston: 1905), 240. 

from H.S Russell, A Long, Deep Furrow: three centuries of farming in New England (Hanover: University Press of 

New England, 1976). 

155 Russell, A Long Deep Furrow, 135. 

156 Fawsett, Cape Cod Annals, 81. 

157 Joyce Johnson, Sculptor in Eastham, Interview by Bill Burke, Cape Cod National Seashore, NPS, March 

19, 2003. 

145
 158 R.L. Friedman, “Governing the Land: an Environmental History of Cape Cod, Massachusetts” (Ph. D. 

diss., Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 1993), 42. 

159 Hall, B., G. Motzkin, D.R. Foster, M. Syfert and J. Burk. “Three Hundred Years of Forest and Land-Use 

Change in Massachusetts.” Journal of Biogeography 29 (2002): 1319-1335. 

160 Fawsett, Cape Cod, 81. 

161 James C. O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 73. 

162 National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Vegetative Cover Type Report Cape Cod National 

Seashore by W. E. Randall, (South Wellfleet, MA, 1962). 

163 Woods Hole Research Center, “Critical Habitats” and Carlson, L., M. Babione, P.J. Godfrey and A. 

Fowler. Ecological Survey of Heathlands in Cape Cod National Seashore (South Wellfleet MA: National Park 

Service, 1991). 

164 Holmes, Hertz and Mulholland, Historic Cultural Land Use Study of Lower Cape Cod, 22-29. 

165 Fawsett, Cape Cod, 84. 

166 Sparrow, Growing Up on Cape Cod, 37. 

167 Ed Sabin, Cape Cod Conversations in Eastham, June 22, 2003. 

168 See G. Motzkin, R. Eberhardt, B. Hall, D. R. Foster, J. Harrod, and D. MacDonald, “Vegetation variation 

across Cape Cod Massachusetts: Environmental and Historical Determinants,” Journal of Biogeography 29 

(2002):1439-1454, for a complete discussion of the effects of past land use practices on present day 

vegetation on the Cape. 

169 W.A. Patterson and J.F. O’Keefe, The Vegetation History of the Pamet Cranberry Bog, North Truro, Massachusetts

(Amherst, MA: Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management, University of Massachusetts, 1980). 

170 T.A. Stone, “The Land Cover and Land Use of Cape Cod 1951 to 1990”. Environment Cape Cod, (1, 1999), 

35-49. 

171 Motzkin et al, “Vegetation variation across Cape Cod Massachusetts,” 2002. 

172 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 4. 

173 National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Cultural Landscape Report for Fort Hill, Cape Cod National 

Seashore, by Lynn Kneedler-Schad, Katherine Lacy and Larry Lowenthal, Olmsted Center for Landscape 

Preservation (Boston: 1995), 1-56. 

174 NPS, Department of the Interior, Cultural Landscape Report for Fort Hill, 98. 

175 Patricia Crow, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

176 National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Cultural Landscape Report for Truro Highlands, Cape Cod 

National Seashore, Olmstead Center for Landscape Preservation (Boston: 1995) 1-56. 

177 Eleanor Dumais, Cape Conversations in Truro, June 26, 2003. 

178 Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association, Cranberries: A Taste of America; Cranberries: the Splendor of the 

Crimson Fruit, [online]. East Wareham, MA: 2002. Accessed 28, April 2003. Available from world wide 

web: http://www.cranberries.org/thecranberry/tframeset.html. 

146
 

179 Patricia Crow, Cape Cod Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

180 “Growing up with Cranberries,” Cape Code Life, Vol.12, Number Five, Oct/Nov 1990) (no author) 

181 Bill Doherty, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

182 J. D. Thomas, Cranberry Harvest, A History of Cranberry Growing in Massachusetts (New Bedford MA: Spinner, 

1990). 

183 Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association, Cranberries: A Taste of America. 

184 Patterson and O’Keefe, The Vegetation History. 

185 Hillary Quarles, Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation “Cultural Landscape Inventory Summary 

Report: Pamet Cranberry Bog” (1995). 5-8. 

186 Kaimi Rose Lum, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

187 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 6. 

188 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 6. 

189 Joyce Johnson, Sculptor in Eastham, Interview by Bill Burke, Cape Cod National Seashore, NPS, March 

19, 2003. 

190 Necee Regis, “Seven Days in the Dunes,” Boston Sunday Globe, August 24, 2003, N.E. Travel Section, M9. 

191 Harold, Wellfleet and the World, 66. 

192 Exchange between Cyndi Moe of Wellfleet and Edward Sabin of Eastham, Eastham Cape Conversations, 

June 22, 2003. 

193 Kittredge, Cape Cod, Its People, 154. 

194 William D. Hershey, Cape Cod: 17th and 18th Century Roads, with particular attention to the King’s Highway, 

Courtesy of National Park Service, Wellfleet, MA 1962, 13-14, 57. 

195 L. Loparto and M Steinitzm, “Settlement and Social Development," in Historic and Archaeological Resources of 

Cape Cod and the Islands, ed. J.W. Bradley. (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1987), 80. 

196 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 29, 47, 52-53. 

197 W.H. Bartlett, The Pilgrim Fathers of the Founders of New England in the Reign of James the First (London: Arthur 

Hall, Virtue and Co., 1853), 190. 

198 Holmes et al, Historic Cultural Land Use, 128. 

199 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 5. 

200 Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 9. 

201 James Hadley, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

202 Henry David Thoreau, “A Cape Cod House,” in A Place Apart: A Cape Cod Reader, ed. Robert Finch (New 

York: Norton, 1993), 40. 

147
 

203 O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod, 3. 

204 Henry James, The Bostonians, 356, (London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1886), (page citation is to 

Random House Modern Library Edition, 1956). 

205 Judy Stetson, Wellfleet: A Pictorial History, 59. 

206 “A Genuine Cape Cod House”, Better Homes & Garden, January 1938 (no author listed). 

207 Wesley Reid and Michael Ulrich, interview by Nidhi Madan and Anna Ryan, UMass/Larp, telephone 

interview, April 4, 2003. 

208 Henry Beston, The Outermost House, 14. 

209 Joyce Johnson, interview by Emily Clarke and Laurice Ellsworth, Umass/Larp, telephone interview, April 

2003. 

210 Dana Eldrige, interview by Emily Clarke and Laurice Ellsworth, Umass/Larp, telephone interview, April 

2003. 

211 Beston, Outermost House, 157. 

212 Joyce Johnson, interview by Emily Clarke and Laurice Ellsworth, Umass/Larp, telephone interview, April 

2003. 

213 Harry Kemp, Cape’s End, The Sea and the Dunes, 10.

214 Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960), 4. 

215 Bill Doherty, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

216 James Hadley, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

217 Frank Szedlak, Jr., Cape Conversations in Truro, June 26, 2003. 

218 A developer intended the new Post Office to anchor a strip of stores that might have constituted a new 

commercial center for Wellfleet, but the stores never materialized, leaving the Post Office relatively 

isolated on the highway. 

219 Cyndi Moe, Cape Conversations in Eastham, June 22, 2003. 

220 Cyndi Moe, Cape Conversations in Eastham, June 22, 2003. 

221 Senator Leverett Saltonstall, quoted in David Jenkins, “Culture of Preservation,” 17. 

222 Bill Doherty, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

223 Robert B. Riley, “Attachment to the Ordinary Landscape,” in Place Attachment, ed. Irwin Altman and Setha 

Low (New York: Plenum, 1992), 20. 

224 Patricia Crow, Cape Conversations in Provincetown, June 17, 2003. 

225 Cape Cod Commission, “An Introduction to the Cape Cod Commission Model Regulations and Bylaws 

Project.” In The Official Website of the Cape Cod Commission [online], Barnstable, MA, November 5, 2003 

148
 [Accessed September 2003]. Available from World Wide Web: 

http://www.capecodcommission.org/bylaws/. 

226 Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation recently published, Reading the Land: 

 Massachusetts Heritage Landscapes, A Guide to Identification and Protection. April 2003. 

227 Regarding agricultural use notices see, Tom Daniels and Deborah Bowers, Holding Our Ground: Protecting 

America’s Farms and Farmland (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 1997). 

149
150
LIST OF FIGURES 

Preface 

1: Corn Hill, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

2: Two women walking on beach. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

Methodology 

3: Artistic view of Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

4: Landscape character public meeting, Wellfleet public library, 2003. 

 (Photo: UMass) 

Part I: Character, Current Trends, and History 

5: Cape Cod, 1795. (Courtesy: Wellfleet Public Library) 

6: Physiographic regions of the Outer Cape. (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

7: Net usable land area on Outer Cape today (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

8: Photographic simulation of housing redevelopment, Eastham, MA, 2003. 

 (Photo: UMass) 

9: Housing construction, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

10: Land for sale, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

11: Aerial view of shellfishing beds, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

12: Cape Cod population change, 1950-1990. (Source: Thomas A. Stone, Losing Cape Cod: 

 Landscape Change over 40 Years, Woods Hole, MA: Woods Hole Research Center, 1991) 

13: Glacial retreat. (Source: UMass from Dorothy Sterling and Winifred Lubell, The Outer Lands) 

14: Provincetown fleet. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

15: Cars at Nauset Light parking lot. (Courtesy: Eastham Historical Society) 

16: Swimmers, ca. 1920. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

17: Clambake, Billingsgate Island, Wellfleet, MA, ca. 1915. 

 (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

18: Ford and trailer, Cove Road, Wellfleet, MA, 1944. 

 (Courtesy: Bob Arnold, Photo by Carey E. Melville) 

19: Day’s cottages, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

20: Pres. John F. Kennedy signing the Cape Cod National Seashore into law, 1961. 

 (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

151
21: Cars at Coast Guard Beach, Eastham, MA, 1966. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

22: Coast Guard Beach, Eastham, MA, ca. 1965. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

23: Man in catboat. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

24: Thanksgiving dinner at Ed Knowles house, Eastham, MA, ca. 1920. 

 (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

25: Captain Penniman with gun and birds, Eastham, MA. 

 (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

26: Sunset view of the ocean from Wellfleet bluffs, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

27: Park Ranger teaching surfcasting, 2003. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

28: Boardwalk in red maple forest, Fort Hill, MA. (Photo: UMass) 

29: Map indicating area of heaviest nude sunbathing. 

(Source: 1974 National Park Service study, Management Alternatives to Nude Bathing and Related Concerns) 

Part II: The Cultural Landscape: Landscape Headings

30: Rock Harbor, Orleans, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

31: Bicyclists on trail, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

32: Beach architecture, Truro, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

 GREAT BEACH 

33: Aerial view, Great Beach, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

34: Cliffs along Great Beach, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

35: Beach grass, Great Beach, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

36: Cliffs, Great Beach, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

37: Parabolic dunes, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

38: On the Great Beach, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

39: Access to Meadow Beach, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

40: Erosion, Great Beach, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

41: Sketch and map indicating existing lighthouses on the Outer Cape, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

42: Shipwreck. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

43: Race Point Lighthouse, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

44: Postcard, Race Point Life Saving Station. (Source: James O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod) 

45: Marconi Beach, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

152
46: Town beaches, 2003. (Source: UMass based on sources provided by the National Park Service) 

47: Race Point, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

48: Surfcasting, Race Point, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

49: Off-road vehicle route map, 2003. (Source: UMass based on National Park Service sources) 

50: Race Point, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

51: Protection enclosures surround the nests of piping plovers, reducing predation and preventing 

 people from trampling on them, Race Point, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

52: Piping plover distribution, Outer Cape Cod, 1988-1993. (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

53: Aerial view, dunes in Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

WATERWAYS

54: Aerial view, Nauset Marsh, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

55: Distinctive hydrography of the Outer Cape. (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

56: Rock Harbor, Orleans, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

57: Wellfleet marsh, Duck Creek, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

58: Salt Marsh, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

59: Aerial view, kettle ponds in Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

60: Woman floating in kettle pond, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

61: Tannin stained water, Atlantic white cedar swamp, Cape Cod National Seashore, Wellfleet, MA, 

 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

62: Birdwatchers, 2003. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

63: Clam diggers, Provincetown, MA. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

64: Shellfishing leases, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass/Wellfleet Shellfishing Department) 

65: The fish man, Wellfleet, MA, 1948. (Courtesy: Carey E. Melville) 

66: On the flats. (Copyright: ORION Photos Production, Photo by Nathan Johnson) 

67: Aerial view, shellfishing leases, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

68: Aerial view, Provincetown and Pilgrim Lake, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

 TOWN CENTERS AND HARBORS 

69: Aerial view of Wellfleet Harbor, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

70: Fishing flakes, Provincetown, MA. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

71: Pilot whales on the beach. (Source: D. Lombardo, Images of America: Wellfleet 

 A Cape Cod Village, Charleston SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2000) 

72: Fishing boat, Wellfleet Harbor, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

153
73: Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA. (Courtesy: Pilgrim Monument Association) 

74: Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

75: Aerial view, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

76: Wellfleet center, view over Duck Creek. (Photo: UMass) 

77: Postcard, oyster shacks, Wellfleet, MA. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

78: Main Street, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

79: Fish market, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

80: Main Street, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

81: Jacob Fanning Gallery, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

82: Wellfleet Harbor snack shack, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (UMass) 

83: Wellfleet Post Office, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

84: Wellfleet Town Hall, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

 FARMS AND FORESTS 

85: Pamet Bog house and bog, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

86: The soil horizon shows podzolic soils. (Photo: UMass) 

87: Pennimen chickens, Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

88: Truro landscape. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

89: Haying, Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

90: Saltworks, Provincetown, MA, ca. 1840. (Source: William F. Robinson, Henry David Thoreau’s 

 Complete Text with the Journey Recreated in Pictures, Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1985, 175) 

91: Windmill, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

92: Heathland vegetation, Outer Cape. (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

93: House in the heathlands, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

94: Horse and plow, Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

95: Farm loss, Outer Cape, 1940 – 1990. (Source: UMass/MassGIS.) 

96: Pitch pine forest, Outer Cape, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

97: Windy Willows estate, 1900 and 1993. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Society and CCNS/NPS) 

98: Vegetative succession. (Source: UMass) 

99: Forest cover, Outer Cape, 2003 and 1848. (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

100: Fort Hill site plan, Eastham, MA. 

 (Source: Cultural Landscape Report for Fort Hill: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

101: Postcard, Pennimen house, Eastham, MA. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

154
102: Fort Hill, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

103: Fort Hill, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

104: Highland Light, Truro, MA. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Museum) 

105: Highland Light and buildings, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

106: Postcard, “Placing Cranberries in Trays.” (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

107: Cranberry screening. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Society) 

108: Postcard, Cranberry Workers, UMass Experimental Station, East Wareham, MA. (Courtesy: CCNS) 

109: Children harvesting cranberries. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Museum) 

110: Postcard, “Harvesting Cranberries on Cape Cod.” (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

111: Pamet cranberry bog site plans, 1840’s and 1940’s. (Source: UMass/National Park Service) 

112: Pamet bog, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

113: Pamet bog site plan, Truro, MA, 1990’s. (Source: UMass based on National Park Service documents) 

114: Pamet cranberry bog house, Truro, MA, 1912. 

 (Courtesy: Elizabeth Haskell as depicted in Images of America, Truro) 

115: Pamet bog, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

116: Woman with berries, Hawk Mountain. (Courtesy: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary) 

117: Jam stand, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

 GETTING AROUND 

118: Aerial view, Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

119: Wellfleet, MA, 1893. (Source: UMass based on 1893 USGS Map, University New Hampshire, 

 Government Documents Collection) 

120: Name signs on Thoreau Way, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

121: Sand drive, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

122: Sand road, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

123: Shell driveway, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

124: Railroad, Truro, MA, 1910. (Courtesy: Diana Worthington as depicted in Images of America, Truro) 

125: Eastham roads, 1910. (Source: UMass based on map in Barnstable County Atlas) 

126: County road, North Truro, MA, ca. 1890. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

127: Postcard, “Mid-Cape Highway.” 

 (Source: James O’Connell, Becoming Cape Cod: Creating a Seaside Resort) 

128: Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

129: Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

130: Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

155
131: Building set backs, Route 6, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

132: Sheraton Four Points Hotel, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

 HOMES ON THE OUTER CAPE 

133: Aerial view of houses on bay shore, 2003. (Copyright: PANDION) 

134: Cape Cod cottage, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

135: Residential development, Cape Cod, 1951 and 1999. (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

136: Land use change, Orleans, 1880 and 1999. (Source UMass/MassGIS) 

137: Highland House, Truro, MA. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Museum) 

138: An outdoor shower, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

139: Aerial view, Day’s cottages, North Truro, MA. (Copyright: PANDION) 

140: Ocean View Drive, Wellfleet, MA, 1999. (Source: UMass based on 1999 USGS Map, 

 University of New Hampshire, Government Documents Collection) 

141: House, Ocean View Drive, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

142: Ocean View Drive, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

143: House, Ocean View Drive, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

144: Area plan, Surfside and Wellfleet-by-the-Sea, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass/MassGIS) 

145: Sketch, Surfside, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

146: Surfside cottage, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

147: Wellfleet-by-the-Sea cottage, Wellfleet, MA. (Source: UMass) 

148: Surfside section, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

149: Wellfleet-by-the-Sea, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

150: Wellfleet-by-the-Sea section, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

151: Area plan, dune shacks, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass/National Park Service) 

152: Harry Kemp at his dune shack. (Source: Images of America, Truro) 

153: Found art, Race Point Beach, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

154: “The Dunes” by Katherine Baltivik. (Courtesy: Charles-Baltivik Gallery, Provincetown, MA) 

155: “In Late Afternoon Haze” by Sheila Benzer. 

 (Courtesy: Lyman-Ayer Art Gallery, Provincetown, MA) 

156: Dune shacks, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

157: Euphoria dune shack, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

158: Restored dune shack, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

159: Nauset Spit, Eastham and Orleans, MA, Orthographic image. (Courtesy: MassGIS) 

156
160: Henry Beston’s beach camp, “Fo’castle”, Nauset Spit, Eastham, MA. 

 (Courtesy: Cape Cod National Seashore) 

161: Beach camp, Nauset Spit, Eastham, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

162: Heading to the dune shacks, Provincetown, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

Part III: Cape Conversations 

163: Trap fishermen, Truro, MA, ca. 1940. (Courtesy: Truro Historical Museum) 

164: Houses, Mayo Beach, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

165: Bicyclists, Wellfleet center, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

Part IV: Conclusions and Challenges 

166: House, Truro, MA, 2003. (Photo: UMass) 

167: Photo simulation of potential housing redevelopment, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

168: Photo simulation of potential housing redevelopment, Wellfleet, MA, 2003. (Source: UMass) 

157
158
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INTERVIEWS 

Johnson, Joyce, sculptor in Eastham. Interview by Bill Burke. 

 Cape Cod National Seashore, NPS, March 19, 2003. 

Johnson, Joyce, sculptor in Eastham. Interview by Emily Clarke and Laurice Ellsworth. Telephone 

interview. University of Massachusetts at Amherst Department of Landscape Architecture and 

Regional Planning, April 2003. 

Rosen, Paul. Interview by Bill Burke. Cape Cod National Seashore, NPS, March 10, 2003. 

Skowron, Cathy. Interview by Bill Burke. Cape Cod National Seashore, NPS, March 10, 2003. 

Thomas, John, Writer and Provincetown resident. Interview by Bill Burke. 

 Cape Cod National Seashore, NPS, March 19, 2003. 

 

 Graphic design and layout provided by Christopher Miller, Lauren M. Todd, Mark Wamsley, and Mary Lee 

York, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. 

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