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There's a timelessness to the natural beauty of Cape Cod that keeps visitors coming back year after year, swarming the Cape with thousands of tourists each summer. Take a look back at some images of the summer hotspot from decades past with these images from the Globe archives.
Vintage images of Cape Cod
There's a timelessness to the natural beauty of Cape Cod that keeps visitors coming back year after year, swarming the Cape with thousands of tourists each summer. Take a look back at some images of the summer hotspot from decades past with these images from the Globe archives.
Construction progress was made on the Bourne Bridge in 1934. The gateway to the Cape would be completed and opened the following year.
Walking in the Provincetown sand dunes in 1977.
An old Dutch windmill was assembled in 1971 at Aptuxet Trading Post in Bourne. The windmill was imported from Holland in 1896 by actor Joe Jefferson, a friend and fishing partner of President Grover Cleveland.
Downtown Hyannis in May 1934, waiting for the summer crush of tourists.
As legend has it, Vikings may have landed on Cape Cod hundreds of years before the Pilgrims, and in an attempt to score some evidence, some Yarmouth residents dug for possible remains of a Viking ship in 1952.
Two men stood on a rock in Follins Pond, where some believe Viking ships were moored.
Workers walked the plank in 1934, sanding a cranberry bog in Harwich.
Robert J. Powers, 11 in 1971, of South Weymouth, waited nearly a half-hour in line at Bonatt Bakery in Harwichport to enjoy his favorite pastry, the famed Bonatt "meltaway."
A Provincetown clam shack in 1970.
A 1961 scene on Craigville Beach in Barnstable.
A street scene from Provincetown in 1970.
A scene at Craigville Beach in 1961.
A counselor kept youngsters in line at a Hyannis camp in 1959.
While Cheryl Nowick and Joan Fanaria, pupils of the Wixon Middle School in Dennis viewed their own art work at Dennis Spring Art Festival in 1974, the judges gave a concerned appraisal of the school's display on the opposite side.
Passengers in their autos drove aboard Baxter’s barge for voyage to Nantucket Island in 1960.
The Rev. John H. Williams, right, led a drive-in worship service at Hyannis Drive In Theatre in 1987. Harry Faher was the organist at left.
A shipwreck washed up on Nauset Beach in Cape Cod in 1964.
Harry Kemp, "Poet of the Dunes," pointed to prose he erected in Provincetown to put tourists straight on their history. This village on the tip of Cape Cod has always been annoyed by the popular conception that the Pilgrims landed first at Plymouth, Mass. Actually they landed here first, washed their clothes and rested up and spent several weeks exploring before they sailed up the coast to anchor at the site now called Plymouth Dec. 21, 1620. Harriet Paine, (left) whose forefathers really came over n the Mayflower and Ruby Cabral take part in the ceremony. (AP Photo)
A picnic in the dunes of Cape Cod in 1963.
A vintage Cape Cod scene from July 16, 1968.
In 1960, the Yachtsman Hotel was festooned with bunting and a photo of Jack Kennedy for the arrival of the Kennedy staff.
"Salvagers gather rich harvest on Cape Cod beach," reads the caption to this April 28, 1942, photo.
Summer neared an end after Labor Day on Quissett Beach in 1978.
Relaxing on Craigville Beach in 1974.
A dog rode in the front seat of an Orleans police car in 1960.
A beat up sign showed the way to First Encounter beach.
Members of the Chatham Yacht Club soaked up the sun on the porch of their new clubhouse which was dedicated in 1955.
A woman enjoyed her privacy in a Provincetown alley in 1976.
Walter Young, talking with Ed Tucker, was a Chatham fisherman who also built many of the boats in the Chatham fleet. From 1979.
A snack shack worked waited for business in Provincetown in 1974.
Town crier Fred Baldwin strolled on Commercial Street in Provincetown in 1969.
Residents of Provincetown dressed as Pilgrims as they reenacted the first landing of the Pilgrms in the harbor on the tip of Cape Cod in 1953.
A 1974 street scene in Provincetown.
A general view of Commercial St., Provincetown. in 1979.
A Memorial Day weekend scene at a lake in Provincetown in 1971. "Memorial Day weekend is generally vaccepted as the "starting gun" for the sleepers invasion of national seashore and national parklands," the caption reads.
