Includes Cape Elizabeth Light, Portland Head Light, Crescent Beach State Park, and Two Lights State Park
General Information
From Portland, ME (8 miles): Head southwest on Congress St toward Chestnut St. Take York St to ME-77 S. Follow ME-77 S to Two Lights Rd in Cape Elizabeth. Drive to Two Lights Rd.
Cape Elizabeth Light (also known as Two Lights) is a lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, at the southwestern entrance to Casco Bay in Maine.
Only the eastern tower of the two that made up the light station until 1924 is active. The western tower is deactivated, but it is still standing and is privately owned.
The facility is adjacent to Two Lights State Park, a 41-acre (17 ha) state facility which allows a view of, but not access to, the grounds of the lighthouse.
Cape Elizabeth Light, designed in the Gothic Revival style, was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Two Lights on December 27, 1974.
Crescent Beach State Park is state-operated, public recreation area on the Atlantic Ocean in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The state park features a mile-long, crescent-shaped beach for swimming and sunbathing, fishing, sea kayaking, and trails for hiking and cross-country skiing.
Portland Head Light is a historic lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The light station sits on a head of land at the entrance of the primary shipping channel into Portland Harbor, which is within Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine. Completed in 1791, it is the oldest lighthouse in Maine. The light station is automated, and the tower, beacon, and foghorn are maintained by the United States Coast Guard, while the former lighthouse keepers' house is a maritime museum within Fort Williams Park.
The grounds and keeper's house are owned by the town of Cape Elizabeth, while the beacon and fog signal are owned and maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard as a current aid to navigation. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Portland Head light (sic) on April 24, 1973, reference number 73000121. The lighthouse was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2002.
Two Lights State Park is a public recreation area occupying 41 acres (17 ha) of headland on Cape Elizabeth, Maine, that offers views of Casco Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The state park, which opened in 1961, is named after the twin Cape Elizabeth Lights, although there are no lighthouses in the park itself. In addition to rocky headlands, the park includes the remains of a World War II-era seacoast battery bunker and a fire control tower. It is managed by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.
The nearby twin lighthouses were built in 1828, but cannot be viewed from this park. The easternmost light is still active; the other was decommissioned in 1924, served as a fire control tower in World War II, and is now a private home. Although the lighthouses cannot be seen from within the park, they can be viewed from a turnaround at the end of Two Lights Road. Edward Hopper made one of the towers the subject of his 1929 painting The Lighthouse at Two Lights which was used on a U.S. postage stamp in 1970 commemorating the sesquicentennial of Maine statehood.
The park offers a network of paths of nearly two miles, traversing both forested lands and seaside rock ledges. Facilities include benches along the shore, restrooms, playground, and picnic tables.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cape Elizabeth Lights", "Crescent Beach State Park", "Portland Head Light", and "Two Lights State Park", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
