Cape Cod Light

Cape Cod Light, also known as Highland Light, is an active lighthouse in North Truro, within the Cape Cod National Seashore. The current 66-foot brick tower dates from 1857 and is the oldest and tallest lighthouse on the Cape. It replaced two earlier towers, the first a wooden one built in 1797 on a station authorized by George Washington and the first light on Cape Cod, meant to warn ships off the dangerous coast between Cape Ann and Nantucket.

The light has changed with the technology. In 1900 it switched from a fixed beam to a flashing one, with a first-order Fresnel lens that made it the most powerful light on the east coast of the United States at the time. It was electrified in 1932, got modern beacons in 1946, was fully automated by 1986 and now uses an LED beacon installed in 2017. The Coast Guard operates it as an aid to navigation, while the National Park Service owns it. The Fresnel lens was badly damaged when it was removed in 1946, and fragments are on display in the museum on site.

Beach erosion put the lighthouse at risk of falling down the cliff, so in July 1996 it was moved 450 feet to the west. The work took 18 days and was done by International Chimney Corp. of Buffalo, New York, and Expert House Movers of Maryland, with money raised by the Truro Historical Society adding to government funding. The move left the station on National Seashore land bordering the Highland Golf Course, and after an errant golf ball broke a window, the glass was replaced with unbreakable material. In 1998 the keeper’s house became a gift shop and museum.

The lighthouse also appears in art. Edward Hopper, who owned a summer house in Truro, painted it in Highland Light, North Truro (1930), a watercolor now in the Harvard Art Museums. The light has since been moved, but the landscape still resembles the view he painted.