The Chatham Railroad Museum was once a sight to be beheld when it was built in 1887. Today, you can still visit with your Cape Cod rental car. In the back of the museum, you can walk through a 1918 New York caboose.

Exploring Chatham

The town of Chatham is located at the southeast tip of Massachusetts and halfway down the 75-mile Cape Cod peninsula. Surrounded by water on three sides, this is a great place to stop with your Cape Cod rental car for some water activities. The downtown area of the town is laid out so that when you park your Cape Cod rental car, you don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day. Everything is within walking distance. Some of the activities that you may enjoy include the Chatham Lighthouse and Lighthouse Beach, the fish pier, and Kate Gould Park’s Friday night band concerts. Festivals throughout the year include the Chatham Maritime Festival, Spring Fling, the Fourth of July Parade, the Festival of the Arts, Christmas by the Sea, and the annual Chatham First Night Celebration.

Blown away

The Old Godfrey Windmill is located off Shattuck Place in Chase Park with your Cape Cod rental car. It was built in 1797 by Colonel Benjamin Godfrey to grind corn. Before the mill was built, un-ground corn was transported to Plymouth. This windmill was in use commercially until 1898 when it was closed. In 1956, the windmill was given to the town and moved to its current location in Chase Park. It is open everyday except Tuesday throughout July and August. Admission is free. There are also arts and crafts fairs held here in the summer.

Find the light

The Chatham Lighthouse on Shore road was once an important landmark in the town. In 1808, tow wooden lighthouses were built on a cliff east of the current lighthouse. These lighthouses were range lights that would help mariners find the channel to the harbor by lining up the two lights. By 1841, the cliff had eroded so much that the lighthouses fell to the beach below and another pair were constructed of brick and mortar. Again, the cliffs eroded at a rapid pace and these were destroyed in 1879 and 1881. Iron lighthouses were built to replace the old ones again. One of these remains as the Chatham lighthouse and the other was moved to Eastham in 1923. This is a great place to take pictures when you visit with your Cape Cod rental car, but the water below the lighthouse is some of the most dangerous along the Cape Cod coast. Tours of the lighthouse take place on the first and third Wednesday of the month from May through October from 1-3:30 p.m.

The Chatham Railroad Museum is a great place to visit to see what would have greeted Victorian visitors when they arrived in town. You can also see what travel was like on the rails at the turn of the century when you visit with your Cape Cod rental car.