A nice place to visit, but some of us actually live here! Simply scroll down or click on any item from the bulleted list below to jump directly to a spot you'd like to see:
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Between the Falmouth Inner Harbor and an area of East Falmouth called Menauhant, Falmouth Heights resplendantly overlooks the Vineyard Sound. It was once a picturesque series of bluffs called "Great Hill" until the early 1870's when a group of developers decided to buy the hill and turn it into a fancy summer resort. The company planning the resort went belly-up shortly after their unique web of little streets were layed out. Unfortunately, the striking little Falmouth Heights Observatory, which stood at the top of it all, is no longer there but the streets and some of the buildings still are.
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The Town Of Falmouth was originally called "Suckanesset" after the Narragansett name for the area. The first Europeans to settle here came down from the Plymouth Colony and purchased the land in 1660. Suckanesset was incorporated as an official town in 1686 and the name was changed to Falmouth shortly afterward. On the left is a glimpse of the old well on the Falmouth Village Green, just a stone's throw down the street is the childhood home of Katharine Lee Bates, immortalized as the lyricist of the song America The Beautiful. The Village Green is also where you will find the Falmouth Historical Society!
Just down the street from the well, along the Queen's Byway are these timeless words of wisdom! Not just a traffic sign...a way of life!
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Right on Buzzard's Bay, you'll find the idyllic and tranquil village of West Falmouth! West Falmouth is not only the home of some of the most incredible sunsets on Cape Cod, it also has one of the prettiest of Falmouth's little hidden harbors! And, of course, Chapoquoit Island!
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It's kind of hard to believe that about ninety years ago this location was once a quiet pond, separated from the Sound
by a causeway on Clinton Avenue. Formerly known as Deacon's Pond (and Bowerman's Pond before that), and tucked between
Falmouth Heights Road and Scranton Avenue, this waterway cut, dredged and built in 1908.
One of the advising engineers
for the project was General George Goethals, who would later acheive legendary status as the man who had the plan
for the Panama Canal (to paraphrase a famous pallindrome).
The Falmouth Inner Harbor almost never came to be.
One of the turn-of-the-century plans was to have an outer harbor and that would jut out from
Surf Drive where the Old Stone Dock used to be. Wiser plans prevailed, thank goodness. The Inner Harbor is the home
of a couple of marinas, the Falmouth Yacht Club and the Island Queen, which offers passenger trips to Edgartown and
and other spots on Martha's Vineyard. (No cars.)
