Tonight's guest speaker, Martha's Vineyard Museum's A. Bowdoin Van Riper, presents: The World Between the Wharves: Oak Bluffs and Its Waterfront, 1866-2016. The great deep-water harbors of Edgartown and Vineyard Haven were a parting gift from the glaciers.
Oak Bluffs, in contrast, had no waterfront until its residents decided to create one. In the heady years following the Civil War, two great steamer wharves were thrust into Nantucket Sound on the flanks of the rapidly growing town: one at the end of Oak Bluffs Avenue, and one at the bend of East Chop Drive.
The land between the wharves was shaped and reshaped over the next 150 years, as the town grew and changed around it. This fast-paced talk traces the history of the Oak Bluffs waterfront--steamers and paddle boats, gas docks and grand hotels, a lost beach and a lake transformed into a harbor--using photographs, postcards, and other historic images.
Thursday, August 1, 2019 at 7:30pm to 9:30pm
Trinity Park Tabernacle
80 Trinity Park, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557
No recent activity