Parke Madden

Featured exhibit at Heritage Museums & Gardens opens today 4/23/22

How did Cape Cod move from the “Yankee backwater” that Henry David Thoreau described in 1855 to a destination that more than 5 million people visit each year? This story is revealed in Creating Cape Cod.

Over a hundred years ago, Cape Cod was plagued with a faltering economy and a dropping population. Community leaders decided on tourism as the answer to the region’s woes. Marketing the Cape as a place where history lived on through rugged sea captains and hard-working fishermen, and historic windmills and lighthouses, their efforts to draw tourists were more successful than anyone could have imagined. In the past two centuries, what’s been gained? And what has been lost? READ MORE