The Nantucket Railroad

The grand plans for the visionary developers of ’Sconset would probably not have been so successful if all those visitors had to rely on carriages to transport the mover the seven miles of unpaved road to their destination.The railroad made it all possible. Tracks were laid from town to the south shore in 1880, and in July 1881 the first train chugged its way to a depot in Surfside,where there was not much else except the broad Atlantic. By 1882, however, the Surfside Land Company had grand plans for a “cottage city” made up of tiny lots separated by ten avenues running parallel to the ocean, and intersected by thirty-nine streets. A hotel was constructed in Surfside in 1883, but a cottage city never emerged from the sand plain. Tracks were extended to ’Sconset in 1884, and ended at a depot on the beach where travelers arrived and departed six times each day in the summer season. Above the depot on Ocean Avenue were the Ocean View House and the newly constructed Ocean View Annex, for years managed by Levi Coffin, who owned Bloomingdale Farm west of the village.

Read a Historic Nantucket article about the railroad.

A digital exhibition by the Nantucket Historical Association