Built in 1907. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1975. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Highland House is a historic hotel building, now serving as a museum, located at 6 Highland Light Road within the Cape Cod National Seashore in Truro, Massachusetts. It is located in the Cape Cod National Seashore near the Highland Light in the Truro Highlands Historic District.”
Wikipedia article Highland House (Truro, Massachusetts), CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 145 National Register listings in Barnstable County · listed in 1975 · category: Building · built in 1907.
National Register reference number.75000157- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 24 fires within 5 miles of Highland House between
1992 and 2020, burning about 21 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
11
Smoking
4
Debris and open burning
2
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Recreation and ceremony
1
Other causes
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Arson/incendiarism
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 2,716 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Highland House between 1827 and
1975: 2,308 Animalia, 195 Plantae, 119 Unrecorded, 50 Fungi, 44 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. K. Harrison, A. K. Harrison, G.C.H., A. M. Ottley and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
2 workings within 5 miles of Highland House: 1 past producer, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Truro, the town this property stands in, in 1 storm report between 2012 and 2012: 1 lightning.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
3,296 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The present-day Highland House was built by Issac M. Small in 1907. It lies in an area embracing the famous Highland Light (1797); an his- torically early golf course, and a former summer visitor complex com- prising some 86 acres. Taday, the building is used as a museum by the Truro Historical Society. It is a two-story clapboard and shingled building, 32 x 92 feet, Highland House was used as a restaurant as late as 1968. The doors, double-hung windows, door and window casings, metal ceiling, appear to be original; large, first-floor dining room, are as orig- inally installed, and are typical examples of the construction of this period. As a whole, the building is structurally sound.
- The second floor bedrooms, placed on either side of a central corridor which runs the length of the building, are supported within the corridor eho Butaing, ane sie walls by steel rods suspended from the wood frame trusses in the attic. These steel rods extend across the building--the trusses are supported by the side walls. Externally, this building presented a veranda around the West and North sides. Part of the West veranda remains--the North half, facing part of the historic golf course, has been converted to an extra room, leanto. Other changes include a kitchen built on the East end, and an ell added to the South side.
Besides the golf course, there were a half dozen "guest cottages" in the complex; these structures, several of which have been removed, once served an important visitational use in the life of summer visitors to Cape Cod. Some minor alterations have been made to Highland House by the Truro Historical Society, who uses the facility on Special Use Permit from the National Park Service.
In 1835, James Small built a two-story, clapboard farmhouse near the present Highland House. Isaac Small, for 50 years a resident of the area, states: "Henry David Thoreau visited our family twice on his journeys down the Cape, the first time at the Lighthouse when my father was Keeper in June of 1850, and again in 1855 when he stopped with us at the Farm." visitors as early as 1835. (This old building has unfortunately been moved out of the vicinity). Isaac Small built the present House in 1907. and continued the guest house tradition--he added several guest cottages. and a golf course, one of the two oldest golf courses in the United States (dating 1892), was part of the complex.
While the present Highland House is only 67 years old, it is import- ant as a survivor of a way of life gone forever on Cape Cod=-an architec- tural structure designed for visitor use years before the "summer people" began individual land and house purchases for summer retreats. Located as it is in the area explored by the Pilgrims in November, 1620, (before going on to Plymouth), utilized as the best farm site in Truro, placed in approximity to the important Life Saving Station (1872) and Highland Lighthouse (1797), and continuously watched over by Marine Weather Station Reporter, Isaac M. Small, the present Highland House, now used as a museum, stands assa monument to a historical past embracing some 350 years. 10 RECEIVED APR 1 1975 NATIONAL REGISTER 9.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75000157, 19 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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