50 Fun Facts About Cape Cod

Cape Cod forms the southern boundary of which body of water that stretches northeast to Nova Scotia?

Cape Cod Bay and Massachusetts Bay are both part of it. Buzzards Bay lies to the Cape's southwest.

Which English explorer coined the name Cape Cod in 1602?

It is the ninth-oldest English place-name in the United States. Originally it applied only to the very tip, where Provincetown now sits.

Cape Cod is legally coextensive with which Massachusetts county?

The county has 15 towns and a population of about 229,000, nearly a third of whom are 65 or older, the oldest average age in New England.

How many towns make up Cape Cod?

They run from Bourne and Sandwich at the canal to Provincetown at the tip. Barnstable is the only one with a city form of government.

Which body of water lies between the peninsula and the Massachusetts mainland?

It is bounded on the north by a line from Provincetown to Marshfield. Nantucket Sound lies to the south, where beach water can reach 70 degrees.

Since 1914, what has separated most of the peninsula from the mainland?

The seven-mile canal was completed in 1916 and shortened the New York-to-Boston shipping route by 62 miles. Many agencies now treat the Cape as an island for planning purposes.

Which two highway bridges carry traffic across the Cape Cod Canal?

Both opened to traffic on the same day, June 22, 1935. A railroad bridge also crosses the canal.

Which financier directed construction of the working canal that began in 1909?

Toll revenue disappointed, and the federal government bought the canal in 1928. The Army Corps of Engineers now maintains it toll-free.

By how much did the canal shorten the sea route between New York City and Boston?

Ships no longer had to round the treacherous outer Cape, whose shoals had wrecked hundreds of vessels.

Where did the Pilgrims make their first landing on November 11, 1620, before moving on to Plymouth?

They had sighted the Cape two days earlier. The Mayflower Compact was drawn up and signed while the ship lay in Provincetown Harbor.

The Pilgrim Monument at the tip of the Cape holds what architectural distinction?

Built between 1907 and 1910 and dedicated by President Taft, it was modeled on the Torre del Mangia in Siena, Italy.

Which Italian tower served as the model for the Pilgrim Monument?

The Siena original was designed by Agostino and Agnolo da Siena in 1309. Provincetown's copy commemorates the 1620 landfall.

Which president created the Cape Cod National Seashore in 1961?

Much of the 43,607-acre coastline from Orleans to Provincetown had already been slated for housing subdivisions.

In which village is the Kennedy Compound, JFK's 'summer White House'?

Joseph P. Kennedy bought the property in 1928, and the family still keeps residences there.

From which Cape Cod town did Marconi make the first US transatlantic wireless transmission?

Theodore Roosevelt used the equipment for the 1903 message to King Edward VII. The beach below the bluffs is now called Marconi Beach.

Which is the oldest and tallest lighthouse on Cape Cod?

George Washington authorized the first station on the site in 1797. The current 1857 tower was moved 450 feet back from the eroding cliff in 1996.

Why were two of the Cape's lighthouses, including Nauset Light, moved inland in 1996?

Highland Light was 110 feet from the sea and Nauset Light just 37 feet from the bluff when the movers arrived.

Which Cape Cod town, founded in 1637, is the oldest on the Cape?

It is home to the Dexter Grist Mill, Hoxie House and the Sandwich Glass Museum, a legacy of Deming Jarves's colored lead-glass works.

Which Cape Cod town is home to a federally recognized Wampanoag tribe?

The Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims survive their first winter at Plymouth. The tribe won federal recognition in 2007.

Which famous ocean-research organization, founded in 1930, is based in a village of Falmouth?

Founded in 1930, it is the largest independent oceanographic research institution in the U.S. and operates the deep-diving submersible Alvin.

Robert Ballard of the Cape's ocean-research institution co-led the 1985 expedition that found which wreck?

The joint French-American team with IFREMER located the wreck off Newfoundland on September 1, 1985.

What kind of bats does the Cape Cod Baseball League use?

The switch came in 1985, making it the only collegiate summer league in the country using wood at the time. More than 1,000 alumni have reached the majors.

In what year was the Cape Cod Baseball League formally organized with four teams?

Falmouth, Osterville, Hyannis and Chatham were the founding clubs, though a Barnstable-Sandwich game had been played every Fourth of July since at least 1885.

How long is the Falmouth Road Race, held on the third Sunday of August?

Bartender Tommy Leonard dreamed it up as a run from the Cap'n Kidd bar in Woods Hole to the Brothers Four in Falmouth Heights. About 100 people ran the first one in 1973.

Which singer's 1957 record 'Old Cape Cod' became the peninsula's unofficial anthem?

Claire Rothrock, Milton Yakus and Allan Jeffrey wrote it, and Mercury released it as the B-side of 'Wondering' in April 1957.

Which naturalist wrote the book Cape Cod, based on visits from 1849 and published posthumously in 1865?

He found the Cape nearly treeless from colonial land use. He walked its outer beach four times between 1849 and 1857.

Which American painter owned a summer house in Truro and painted Corn Hill and Cottages at North Truro?

His Cape canvases from the 1930s also include Rich's House, Cold Storage Plant and Cottages at North Truro.

Kalmus Beach on the Mid-Cape is named after Herbert Kalmus, an inventor of what?

He left the beach to the town on condition it never be developed, possibly one of the first open-space preservation deals in the country.

Which town at the 'elbow' of the Cape has become known as a hub of great white shark activity?

A booming gray seal population off Monomoy has drawn the sharks. The ocean also broke through Chatham's barrier island during Hurricane Bob in 1991.

Which town's shellfish are celebrated at an OysterFest every October?

Oyster beds drove the town's early economy alongside whaling and fishing.

Cape Cod Potato Chips, founded in 1980, is headquartered in which village?

Steve Bernard sold his auto-parts business, bought an 800-square-foot storefront and a $3,000 slicer, and built a kettle-cooked chip empire.

Which Yale president coined the term 'Cape Cod house' after a visit in 1800?

The low, broad, steep-roofed frame house with a big central chimney was built from local materials to shrug off the Cape's storms.

The Cape Cod Rail Trail replaced abandoned railroad tracks east of which village in 1978?

The Shining Sea Bikeway between Woods Hole and Falmouth was similarly built over old tracks in 1975.

How far does Cape Cod extend into the Atlantic Ocean?

It varies from one to twenty miles wide and has more than 400 miles of shoreline. Its highest point, Pine Hill in Bourne, is just 306 feet.

Geologically, most of Cape Cod is made of what?

It marks the southernmost extent of glacial coverage in southeast New England, like Long Island and Block Island.

Which Portuguese explorer, sailing for Spain in 1525, called the Cape 'Cabo de las Arenas'?

Norse sagas may describe the Cape even earlier as the 'Promontory of Vinland,' though that is disputed.

Which painter opened the Cape Cod School of Art in 1898, said to be the first outdoor figure-painting school?

His school seeded the art colony that later drew the Provincetown Players, Eugene O'Neill and generations of painters.

Roughly how many acres does the Cape Cod National Seashore cover?

It takes in the entire east-facing coast from Orleans to Provincetown, including Nauset Light, Coast Guard Beach and Race Point.

Which national marine sanctuary lies about five miles north of the Cape's tip?

Its rich feeding grounds make Provincetown one of the top whale-watching ports on the East Coast.

Which pair of novelists are listed among Cape Cod's notable residents?

Mailer lived in Provincetown and Vonnegut in Barnstable. Julie Harris, Louis Brandeis and skater Todd Eldredge also called the Cape home.

What year did the Bourne and Sagamore bridges open to traffic?

Both were Public Works Administration projects that opened on June 22, 1935, replacing drawbridges that had bottlenecked canal traffic.

Which four towns make up the Upper Cape, the part closest to the mainland?

The Mid-Cape is Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis, and the four outermost towns are known as the Outer Cape.

Which training institution sits in the Bourne village of Buzzards Bay beside the canal?

Bourne was part of Sandwich until 1884 and hosts an annual Scallop Festival each September.

How many acres burned in the Cape Cod wildfires that broke out on 11 May 1887?

Fire historian Stephen Pyne calls the pitch-pine peninsula 'among the most flammable landscapes in America'.

In which year did the Mashpee Wampanoag win federal recognition as a tribe?

The tribal council formed in 1974 and petitioned Washington in 1975 and again in 1990.

Marconi's Chatham station, later RCA's WCC, supported radio contact with which famous airship?

WCC also handled traffic for Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes and Admiral Byrd; Walter Cronkite narrated a 2005 film about it.

Which president kept a summer home at Gray Gables in Bourne?

Later notable Cape residents included Justice Louis Brandeis, actress Julie Harris and skater Todd Eldredge.

Which writer's Cape Cod stories in The Saturday Evening Post helped promote the peninsula as a summer haven?

Improved rail links had made Upper Cape towns such as Bourne and Falmouth accessible to Bostonians.

Which peninsula airfield, renamed in 2020, is its largest with commercial flights?

Formerly Barnstable Municipal Airport, it took its new name in 2020; Cape Air has flown there year-round, with American and JetBlue running seasonal service.

Mashpee High School hosts the world's only high-school chapter of which professional body?

Barnstable High is the Cape's largest school, and the Cape Cod Collaborative has pooled special programmes since 1976.