Photo Gallery: Nantucket

For those of you who don't know, Nantucket Island is 26 miles (42 km) off the southern coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Settled by the Wampanoag Indians many years earlier followed by the English colonists in 1659, Nantucket, a small island (48 square miles (124 sq km)) with a population of a few thousand energetic and enterprising men and women, became the center of America's whaling industry from 1715 to about 1850.

Whaling declined after 1850 due to a shift in the economics of transportation; New Bedford, on the mainland, with access to the railroad, replaced Nantucket as the industry's center. Also at this time, Nantucket seaport became largely inaccessible to deep draft whaling ships as silt began to close the entrance to the harbor. Finally, oil had been discovered in Pennsylvania, providing a cheaper alternative to whale oil for lighting and lubrication. Population declined from about 8,500 in 1850 to about 2,800 in 1920. Permanent population today is about 10,000, sustained almost exclusively by tourism.

Most of the town of Nantucket was destroyed by fire in 1846 and rebuilt immediately thereafter. But because of the declining economy, little development occurred in subsequent years. Consequently, Nantucket retains to this day one of the largest collections of pre-1860 architecture in the United States. The entire island, now the Nantucket Historic District, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. Development and building renovation are very carefully controlled, making Nantucket an unusual location for photography.