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Sipson Island

Islands of Barnstable County, MassachusettsPrivate islands of Massachusetts

Sipson Island is an island on the eastern coast of Cape Cod, located on Pleasant Bay in Orleans, Massachusetts. It has a total area of 25 acres (10 ha).The Island has been privately owned since 1711. It was sold by the Nauset people to English settlers of the Plymouth Colony. In June 2020, the Sipson Island Trust, a non-profit conservation trust, purchased 22 acres of the island, which was put up for sale in 2018, and reopened it to the public for the first time in 300 years. Until its sale, Sipson Island was Cape Cod's last privately owned whole-island property.Funds were raised from private donations solicited by the Friends of Pleasant Bay and the Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts. At its 2019 town meeting, the government of Orleans decided not to buy a $1.5 million permanent conservation easement that would guarantee public access.To reach the island, it is necessary to travel by private boat to the eastern shore. Access from the west is by kayak or paddle board. Sipson Island Trust allows only shallow-draft boats under 22 feet to land on the shore in order to protect the natural marine life on the island.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Sipson Island (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 41.736944444444 ° E -69.963333333333 °
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Address

30
02662
Massachusetts, United States
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Nearby Places

Eldredge Park
Eldredge Park

Eldredge Park is a baseball venue in Orleans, Massachusetts, home to the Orleans Firebirds of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL). The ballpark is located adjacent to Nauset Regional Middle School along Massachusetts Route 28. It features the deepest centerfield in the Cape League at 434 feet, a bandstand just beyond the right-centerfield fence, and a playground beyond the left-centerfield fence. Fans on blankets and beach chairs take in the action from the grassy terraced hillside that runs the entire length of the first base side of the field. The oldest park in the Cape League, Eldredge Park opened in 1913, just one year after Fenway Park. The land for the park was donated to the town of Orleans by baseball enthusiast Louis Winslow "Win" Eldredge, “in consideration of [his] affection for and interest in the young people of Orleans and [his] desire to provide a playground for them.” The park quickly became a popular community gathering place. Thanks to the nearby transatlantic telegraph cable station, fans at Eldredge were among the first Americans to receive the news that Charles Lindbergh had touched down safely in Paris.The original configuration of Eldredge Park located home plate in what is today its left-field corner. After generations of batters struggled to hit against the visual backdrop of a setting sun, the configuration was changed in the mid-1960s. The newly-reconfigured park opened for the 1967 CCBL all-star game, a game attended by Massachusetts Governor John Volpe, who lauded Eldredge as the finest community field in New England.Additional improvements continued to be made to Eldredge, as when lights were added in 1979. The hillside was terraced in 1985 and 1986, and has become the preferred vantage point of the home fans. The press box, called the "Bird's Nest", originally constructed in 1981, was rebuilt in 2003. In 2010-2011 a grant from the Yawkey Foundation allowed for other major improvements such as a brick backstop, new dugouts and bullpens, fan-protective netting, and new infield turf. In 2019, artist Gwen Marcus' sculpture The Catch, which depicts a young ballplayer reaching to catch a baseball, was dedicated and installed on the hill behind home plate.Eldredge Park has been described as "a Norman Rockwell painting come to life," and "a sylvan setting so transcendently beautiful one's breath is swept away." The park has been pictured in Sports Illustrated, and has been ranked by Baseball America as the top summer collegiate ballpark in the nation. A two-page photo spread of Eldredge Park by renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz was featured in the photographic essay Baseball in America. The image is of a hazy evening at Eldredge Park with sun setting over the bandstand in the distance; in the foreground, fans in beach chairs take in the game from along the left-field foul line.Eldredge Park hosted the CCBL's annual all-star game and home run derby festivities in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2004 and 2019, and has seen Orleans claim CCBL championships in 1986, 1993, 2003, and 2005. The ballpark has been the summertime home of dozens of future major leaguers such as Carlton Fisk, Frank Thomas, Mark Teixeira, Nomar Garciaparra, and Marcus Stroman.