December 13, 2012 /
Photography News/ Nantucket is an island 30 miles (48 km) south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the United States. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and the Nantucket County.
The island features one of the highest concentrations of pre-Civil War structures in the United States. It also has the oldest operating windmill in the United States (since 1746).
The Nantucket Historic District, comprising all of Nantucket Island, was added to USA's National Register of Historic Places 46 years ago today, on December 13, 1966.
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| Clinton Folger's "Horsemobile" delivering mail, on South Beach Street, at Hayden's Bath House entrance. For nearly twenty years, from 1900 to 1918, Nantucket was the only place in the nation that successfully fought encroachment of the automobile within its limits. Opposing politicians on the mainland and large property owners, mostly non-residents, Nantucketers kept the island free of the "gasoline buggy" until the final vote of the town on May 15, 1918. By the narrow margin of forty the automobile was allowed entry. Clinton Folger was the mail carrier for Nantucket. Because cars were forbidden by the town, he towed his car to the state highway for driving to Siasconset. Source: Nantucket Historical Association |
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| Surfside Lifesaving Station, 1906. Source: Nantucket Historical Association |
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| Muskeget Lifesaving Station, 1917. Source: Nantucket Historical Association |
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| Tower view of downtown Nantucket, 1930s, showing Main Street, the Skipper Restaurant, and Brant Point. Source: Nantucket Historical Association |
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| Brant Point Lighthouse, c. 1940. The ninth Brant Point Lighthouse was built in 1901 and remains there today. Photo by James Barker. Source: Nantucket Historical Association |
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| The current, third lighthouse at Great Point, built after the previous lighthouse was destroyed by a nor'easter on 29 March 1984. Photo by Flint Ranney, 1986. Source: Nantucket Historical Association |
