West Chop

West Chop Light is a lighthouse station located at the entrance of Vineyard Haven Harbor in Tisbury, Massachusetts, on the northern tip of West Chop, a few miles from the village of Vineyard Haven.The first 25-foot (7.6 m) rubblestone lighthouse and dwelling were built on the bluffs of West Chop in 1817. Following constant erosion, the lighthouse was moved back in 1830, and again in 1846.The first lightkeeper was pilot James Shaw West who tended the light for thirty years, from 1818 to 1848. His pay was $350 a year. Subsequent lightkeepers were Charles West, 1849–1868; his son Charles P. West, 1869-c1909; George F. Dolby (1909–1919); James Yates (1919-?); and Octave Ponsart (1946–1956) Sam Fuller has also been mentioned as a lightkeeper.The present 45-foot (14 m) tall brick tower and dwelling were built in 1891. In 1976 West Chop Light became the last Martha's Vineyard lighthouse to be automated, but the original Fresnel lens is still in operation. The former lightkeeper's dwellings are now vacant but remains property of the U.S. Coast Guard and off limits to the public. The West Chop Light Station has been on the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places since 1987.

The William Street Historic District is a historic district in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha's Vineyard. The district includes houses on William Street from Woodlawn Avenue in the north to several houses south of Camp Street. It represents the single best preserved area of mid 19th century houses in Vineyard Haven.

Vineyard Haven is a community within the town of Tisbury, Massachusetts on the island of Martha's Vineyard. It is listed as a census-designated place (CDP) by the U.S. Census Bureau with a population of 2,114 as of the 2010 census.The area was called "Nobnocket" by the Wampanoag people and was first referred to by the colonial settlers as "Homes Hole", "Homes" from a Wampanoag term for "old man" and "Hole" meaning a sheltered inlet. By the 19th century, it was more commonly spelled "Holmes Hole" after the descendants of John Holmes (1730–1812) who had settled in the village during the second half of the 18th century. The village officially changed its name to Vineyard Haven in 1871. The name Vineyard Haven technically refers only to one section of the town of Tisbury, but the names are used interchangeably and Vineyard Haven is commonly used as a title for the whole town. Vineyard Haven is the main port of entry to Martha's Vineyard and one of the three main population centers (with Edgartown and Oak Bluffs). The Steamship Authority wharf is located in Vineyard Haven where ferries arrive and depart year-round. (A second, seasonal wharf is located in neighboring Oak Bluffs.) The year-round population is only about 2,000 people, but that number increases tremendously in the summer.

The Vineyard Playhouse is a professional, non-profit working theater company on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Housed in a historic building in downtown Vineyard Haven, MA, the theater produces shows year-round. It also hosts programs for children, and was described in the Vineyard Gazette as "the longest running professional theatre on the Island."

Tisbury is a town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,815 at the 2020 census.Vineyard Haven is the main village/town center of Tisbury. The two names are used interchangeably. As can be seen in the history section below, the town of Tisbury was incorporated within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1671, and remains the legal name of the town to this day. However, the port and harbor have had varying names. "Holmes Hole" was one of the first names of the port within the town of Tisbury. This name was later changed to "Vineyard Haven", which is the official post office name for the community. To residents of Martha's Vineyard, "Vineyard Haven" is by far the more common usage, although residents recognize Tisbury as the town's legal name. Vineyard Haven in Tisbury is the main port of entrance to Martha's Vineyard, and is the only operational port on the island during most of the year.

The Ritter House (also the Jirah Luce House) is an historic house on Beach Street in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, USA, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The house is one of the few remaining Federal period buildings in Vineyard Haven. It has had a succession of occupants and uses, and as of 2007 served as a retail establishment.

Martha's Vineyard Hospital is a not-for-profit regional medical center located in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. Founded in 1921, it is the only hospital in Dukes County.

East Chop, also known as the Vineyard Highlands, is a residential area located in the town of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts on the north end of the island of Martha's Vineyard. It is a peninsula surrounded on the North and East by Vineyard Sound and on the West by Vineyard Haven Harbor, and features the high, prominent bluffs that gave Oak Bluffs its name. A lighthouse, East Chop Light, stands at the north end of the chop on Telegraph Hill. East Chop has no obvious commercial businesses or stores, although it has a private yacht and beach club, the East Chop Beach Club. East Chop became a popular summer resort in the late 19th century. A steamship wharf, known as Highland Landing or Highland Wharf, served regular ferry traffic from the mainland during the 1890s, and a horse railroad connected it to the village of Cottage City, later renamed Oak Bluffs. East Chop and the Highlands became a popular camp meeting gathering ground for Baptists, and church members erected a wooden tabernacle in 1877. The remains can still be seen in Temple Park.

East Chop Light is a historic lighthouse standing on a bluff overlooking Vineyard Haven Harbor and Vineyard Sound, located along East Chop Drive in the town of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. It is one of five lighthouses located on the island of Martha's Vineyard.

The Tashmoo Springs Pumping Station is a historic waterworks facility in Tisbury, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha's Vineyard. The pump station and associated works were first constructed by private interests in the 1880s to provide a reliable water supply for the burgeoning resort areas of Tisbury as well as the port of Vineyard Haven. The facilities were taken over by the town in the early 20th century, after which some alterations were made to accommodate technological improvements. Followinga series of hurricanes in the mid-20th century, which highlighted the risks of the station's location and ability to provide reliable drinking water, the town abandoned the facility. Since then it has been largely abandoned, although it was used in the 1990s by a bottled water interest, and some work has been done to preserve the Late Victorian main pumping station building.

WCAI (90.1 FM) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, WNAN (91.1 FM) in Nantucket, and WZAI (94.3 FM) in Brewster, are NPR member radio stations serving the Cape Cod and Islands area of southeast Massachusetts. They broadcast primarily news and information programming and are owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston. WCAI's studios are located within the Newton Wing of the Conservatory building on the Falmouth campus of Cape Symphony on Highfield Drive in Falmouth, and its transmission facilities are located in Tisbury. Its studios were formerly at the Captain Davis House at 3 Water Street in Woods Hole (a census-designated place in Falmouth); in October 2024, WGBH announced it was selling the Davis House as part of ongoing budget cuts. The station, which first went on the air in 2000, was founded by independent radio producer Jay Allison and his organization, Atlantic Public Media, with construction and operation duties assigned to WGBH. Atlantic Public Media has also produced local programming for the station. WNAN went on the air on March 15, 2000. In 2005 the third signal, WZAI, went on the air, to improve broadcast coverage for the Cape and Islands. An online stream of the station is also available. In 2007, the station won the prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, often called the Pulitzer Prize of broadcast journalism, for a 20-part series called "Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands". The series was produced and reported by Sean Corcoran, and it highlighted numerous poverty issues in a region that often is thought of as playground for the rich. WCAI was the only radio station to win the award that year. In 2020, the station rebranded as CAI, as part of a larger rebranding underwent by WGBH (which similarly dropped "W" from its branding organization-wide). Apart from being owned by WGBH, there is no connection between the Cape and Islands NPR stations and WNCK in Nantucket, which formerly simulcast WGBH's primary radio service and later WCRB, a classical music station owned by WGBH. WCAI itself carries WCRB's programming on its second HD Radio channel, which was added in late 2013 after WCAI boosted its power.

Oak Bluffs is a town located on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,341 at the 2020 United States Census. It is one of the island's principal points of arrival for summer tourists, and is noted for its "gingerbread cottages" and other well-preserved mid- to late-nineteenth-century buildings. The town has been a historically important center of African American culture since the eighteenth century.