{"nrhp_refnum":"87001501","name":"Chatham Light Station","other_names":[],"category":"structure","location":{"address":"Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chatham","county":"Barnstable County","state":"MA","lat":41.667703559000074,"lon":-69.95681727999994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1987-06-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Engineering","Transportation","Architecture","Maritime History"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A lighthouse station on a bluff on the west side of Chatham Harbor in Chatham, Massachusetts, built in 1877. It includes a cast iron tower, a double keeper's house and an oil house.","why_significant":"The 1877 cast iron tower is a well-maintained example of the period's cast iron lights and is the surviving in-place half of a pair of twin lights; the other was moved to Nauset in 1923. The station also keeps its altered double keeper's house and has associations with the development of aids to navigation in Massachusetts. It meets criteria A and C at the state level.","narrative":"Chatham Light Station occupies a bluff on the west side of Chatham Harbor, at the elbow of Cape Cod, overlooking the harbor inlet and the Nauset Beach sand bar. It warns ships of Monomoy Point and the Pollock Rip shoals. The main elements date from 1877: a cast iron tower made of five rings of iron plates, a 1 1/2 story double keeper's house with jerkinhead gables and sawn vergeboards, and a white brick oil house with a slate roof and cupola. The tower has Italianate windows with hooded cast iron surrounds and a spiral iron staircase inside. It originally had a twin 100 feet away, which was moved to Nauset Beach in 1923, so Chatham is the twin still standing where it was built. A 1930s storage house and a 1937 garage serve the station but do not belong to its main period of significance. The station was valued for its integrity and its role in coastal navigation, and it remained an active Coast Guard light.","period_of_significance":"late 19th century","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Italianate tower details; Gothic Revival detailing on the keeper's house","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Listed as manned and active in the form. A later letter says the 1930s garage lost historic integrity through alterations and does not contribute.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:01.725773-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/57/7891/63789157/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/87001501.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001501/82383ed860-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001501/82383ed860-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.0","author":"Ted Kerwin","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chatham_Light_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Ted Kerwin</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chatham_Light_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63789157","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Light","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5087672"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/barnstable-county/chatham-light-station-87001501/"}