Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving Station
a.k.a. USCG Station
NE of Chatham on Nauset Beach, Chatham, MAFrom Monomoy to Provincetown, some forty miles, there remains only the Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving--U.S.C.G. station as the oldest of these buildings remaining on the shores of Cape Cod National Seashore.
Today, with the modern Coast Guard and its maritime, seaplane, and electronic equipment, this old station is a rare reminder of the days of Sail, the days when shipwrecks were commonplace. (Over 2000 shipwrecks have occurred on this 40-mile, inhospitable beach). The heroism of the highest order was made manifest by the acts of the small crews who manned the surfboats and set up the elaborate breeches buoy equipment, to save lives in unbelievably terrible weather.
In the first five years of operation, this station's crews rescued 21 persons by surfboat and removed 13 people by breeches buoy. Old Harbor Station was abandoned on February 10, 1947, and sold as surplus.
In retrospect, the old Life-Saving Service (which became the Coast Guard in 1915) was the single most important activity on Cape Cod for seventy years--add another 75 years of sea rescue work by the Massachusetts Humane Society, from 1795, and we have over a century and a half of heroism which should not be forgotten. In World War I and II, beach patrols, using these stations, were a vital part of Coast defenses.
Although the old Harbor station was built at the turn of the century, when new methods were introduced, its historical value, as representative of a vital part of the Cape's past, is obvious. Soon, no Coast Guard buildings will remain.
Nauset Beach, on which the station is located, is subject to very rapid natural erosion. Any moving of the building to a new location on this fragile sandspit will be only a temporary solution to the problem of preserving the structure. While moving it to the mainland would be a more permanent solution, costs would be high and its historical integrity and interest would be reduced.
There is a possibility that local groups might be interested in participating in efforts to preserve this old structure.
Bibliography
Reports of the Life Saving Service (1897-1915).
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.