MassMoments: Pilgrim Monument Completed

Mass Moments reminds us this morning that on this day – August 21 in 1909 – the iconic Pilgrim Monument on the highest hill in Provincetown was completed clearly declaring that the Mayflower’s first landing was in fact here at the tip of Cape Cape .

On this day –  …in 1909, two young girls, using ropes and a pulley, helped haul the last stone into place to complete the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown. The town’s Yankee residents had long been seeking funds to erect a monument to the Pilgrims, who landed on the tip of Cape Cod weeks before they ever laid eyes on Plymouth. It took until 1906 to raise enough money. The following year, President Theodore Roosevelt sailed to Provincetown in a yacht appropriately named the Mayflower to lay the cornerstone of the monument. Three years later, President William Howard Taft spoke at the dedication. 116 steps and 60 ramps lead to the top of the 252-foot tower, which is still the tallest all-granite structure in the United States.

Read the full story here at MassMoments: http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=242.