Nauset Light

Nauset Light is a 48-foot, red-and-white cast-iron lighthouse on the bluff above Nauset Light Beach in Eastham, with its keeper's buildings beside it. Its striped daymark is the lighthouse pictured on Cape Cod Chips bags. From the shared beach lot, a visit can be a quick look at the tower or a seasonal Preservation Society tour that climbs to the lookout room. Check the Society's calendar if you want to go inside.

Built in 1877 as the northern tower of a pair at Chatham, Nauset Light was moved to Eastham in 1923 and placed near the keeper's house. Its present red-and-white paint was added in the 1940s as a daytime marker, making the tower easy to distinguish from the sea as well as from shore.

By 1996, erosion had brought the bluff edge to less than 35 feet from the lighthouse. The tower was moved intact about 300 feet back from the edge, a second relocation that saved the landmark from the same shifting coast it helps sailors navigate.

Eastham residents petitioned for a lighthouse in 1836, worried about ships along the dangerous coast. The first station used three small masonry lights; from offshore they looked like women in white dresses with dark hats, earning the name Three Sisters. Those preserved towers are a separate stop on Cable Road, not the red-and-white Nauset Light.

The path gives a close view of the striped tower and the keeper's buildings; include one of the buildings for scale. From the beach below, the bluff shows how the lighthouse sits above the Atlantic shore.