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Photograph of Highland Light
Photograph by Pentachlorphenol, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Highland Light Station

Built in 1797. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. 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 Light is an active lighthouse on the Cape Cod National Seashore in North Truro, Massachusetts. The current tower was erected in 1857, replacing two earlier towers that had been built in 1797 and 1831.”

Wikipedia article Highland Light, CC BY-SA 4.0.

one of 145 National Register listings in Barnstable County · listed in 1987 · category: Structure · built in 1797.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 structuress, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. Highland Light Rd., Truro, 02652
  • When was it listed? 1987-06-15
  • Category. structure
  • Also known as. Lighthouses of Massachusetts TR
  • Township. Truro town
  • When was it built? 1797
  • National Register reference number. 87001463 - 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.

The ground it stands on

40 words

This property stands in Truro Town. History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620-1637-1686-1890, published 1890 gives that township a chapter of its own.

The chapter covers the township.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Truro Town - 40 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

23 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 23 fires within 5 miles of Highland Light Station between 1992 and 2020, burning about 20 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/undetermined10
Smoking4
Recreation and ceremony2
Equipment and vehicle use2
Other causes1
Misuse of fire by a minor1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1
Arson/incendiarism1
Debris and open burning1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
6 September 1998Smoking3.0 acresCape Cod National SeashorePILGRIM HT
5 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreCape Cod National SeashoreHEAD OF THE MEADOW
15 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreCape Cod National SeashoreHORTONS ADVENTURE BOUND FIRE
11 September 2013Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreCape Cod National SeashoreFOX WILDFIRE
6 August 1992Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCape Cod National SeashoreARTSDUNE
5 July 1996Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.5 acresCape Cod National SeashoreNTAFB
4 July 2017Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
26 July 2010Smoking1.0 acresCape Cod National SeashoreSAND ROAD FIRE

Every fire recorded in Barnstable County

Specimens collected near this property

12 of 2,752 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 2,752 specimens collected within 10 miles of Highland Light Station between 1827 and 1975: 2,343 Animalia, 194 Plantae, 117 Unrecorded, 50 Fungi, 48 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
A photograph of the species Aralia hispida, not of this specimenAralia hispida Vent.1827A. M. Ottley
A photograph of the species Brevoortia tyrannus, not of this specimenBrevoortia tyrannus (Latrobe, 1802)1853Atwood, Nathaniel E.Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Pseudopleuronectes americanus, not of this specimenPseudopleuronectes americanus (Walbaum, 1792)1853Atwood, Nathaniel E.Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Scophthalmus aquosus, not of this specimenScophthalmus aquosus (Mitchill, 1815)1856not recordedProvincetown
A photograph of the species Ammodytes americanus, not of this specimenAmmodytes americanus DeKay, 18421859Weinland, David FriedrichCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Pomatomus saltatrix, not of this specimenPomatomus saltatrix (Linnaeus, 1766)1859Ordway, A.Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Aspidophoroides monopterygius, not of this specimenAspidophoroides monopterygius (Bloch, 1786)1860Smithsonian InstitutionProvincetown
A photograph of the species Prionotus carolinus, not of this specimenPrionotus carolinus (Linnaeus, 1771)1860Harvard MuseumProvincetown
A photograph of the species Stenotomus chrysops, not of this specimenStenotomus chrysops (Linnaeus, 1766)1860William BemisCape Cod Bay, Wellfleet Harbor
A photograph of the species Paralichthys oblongus, not of this specimenParalichthys oblongus (Mitchill, 1815)1862MCZ teamCape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Carex foenea, not of this specimenCarex foenea Willd.1864W. P. AlcottWellfleet
A photograph of the species Morone americana, not of this specimenMorone americana (Gmelin, 1789)1864MCZ teamCape Cod, rivers, Massachusetts

All 2,752 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Highland Light Station: 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
John F Wood Inc.Sand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
North Truro PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Barnstable County

Storms near this property

1 since 2012

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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2012LightningTruro$10,000Lightning struck a cottage on Coast Guard Road, starting a fire.

Every storm recorded in Barnstable County

Map coverage status

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

26,984 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 reproduced in full on its own page, word for word and 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.

The whole case file for this property - 26,984 words, 87 pages, reproduced complete.

Quoted from the National Register nomination for reference 87001463, 87 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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Highland House0.5 miles1975
Higgins, Jedediah, House2.7 miles1984
Union Hall3.4 miles1997
Cobb Memorial Library3.6 miles2013
Pine Grove Cemetery4.8 miles2013
Long Point Light Station5.1 miles1987

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 87001463 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Barnstable CountyAll 145 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • 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.