Framed Old Harbor Life Saving Station at Cape Cod National Seashore

The Old Harbor Life-Saving Station at Cape Cod National Seashore is one of the most significant surviving reminders of the United States Life-Saving Service, the predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard. Built in 1897 at Chatham's Old Harbor on Nauset Beach, the station housed crews of surfmen who patrolled Cape Cod’s treacherous shoreline, often called the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” and responded to countless shipwrecks using surfboats, life lines, and breeches buoy rescues. After serving the Life-Saving Service and later the Coast Guard until 1944, the building was threatened by severe coastal erosion. In 1977, the National Park Service famously cut the structure in half, transported it by barge to Race Point Beach in Provincetown, and restored it as a museum furnished to reflect life at a lifesaving station around 1900. Today, it stands as the last remaining life-saving station on Cape Cod, preserving the stories of the courageous surfmen whose vigilance and rescue efforts saved countless mariners along New England’s dangerous shores.