The center of Wellfleet is small but has several restaurants, shops, art galleries, and other facilities for vacationers. The town boasts of its First Congregational Church clock that strikes ship’s time.
The Massachusetts Audubon Society runs the 700-acre Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary west of U.S. 6 in South Wellfleet. Trails go through beach, marsh, and pine forest. It’s a good place for birdwatching.
Past the sanctuary, to the east of U.S. 6, is the National Seashore headquarters. Informational services are provided here when the Province Lands Visitor Center is closed in the winter.
The Marconi Station Site, located past the headquarters on a bluff facing the Atlantic, is where Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first transatlantic radio message, between Theodore Roosevelt and the King of England, in January 1903 (see [pages 78-79]).
While you’re at the Marconi Station Site, take the 1.2-mile Atlantic White Cedar Swamp Trail (see [page 97]).
On Wellfleet’s west side, another trail leads out to and across Great Island, a glacial remnant that has become a peninsula. This former island was once dotted with lookout towers for whales and was the location of houses and a tavern.
Other places of interest: Atwood-Higgins House (inquire at National Seashore visitor centers); Wellfleet Historical Society museum on Main Street; Marconi Beach.
Truro and Provincetown
