Accessibility: 
Geographic coordinates: 41° 37' 51" N 70° 41' 39" W
Nearest town: Bourne. Located in the Cleveland Ledge Channel in Buzzards Bay, about two miles offshore.
Established: 1943. Present lighthouse built: 1943. Automated: 1978.
Height of tower: 70 feet. Height of focal plane: 74 feet.
Previous optic: Fourth-order Fresnel lens. Present optic: 190 mm.
Characteristic: White flash every 10 seconds.
Fog signal: One blast every 15 seconds.
This unique concrete tower was one of the last lighthouses built in New England. It was established to help guide shipping traffic through the Cape Cod Canal, which opened in 1914. The sleek architecture is classified as Art Moderne, a trendy style of the 1930s and 1940s.
The new lighthouse was put through a grueling test a little over a year after it went into service. On September 14, 1944, a hurricane battered Buzzards Bay. A Coast Guard crew of nine men was in the lighthouse. At the height of the storm, at about 12:30 a.m., a skylight dislodged, and seawater flooded the engine room. When the seas subsided slightly, two of the men, with lifelines around their waists, made it to the broken skylight and managed to plug the break with oil drums, mattresses, and planking.
The last Coast Guard crew departed when the light was automated in 1978. In April 2007, it was announced that the lighthouse would be available to a suitable new owner under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. No organization showed interest, so the lighthouse was auctioned to the general public. It sold for a high bid of $190,000 in December 2010.
Cleveland Ledge Light can be seen very distantly from Old Silver Beach off Route 28A in North Falmouth. Be sure to bring your binoculars. There’s a parking fee for the beach from late May to Labor Day. To get a closer look, you’ll have to arrange a charter cruise or flight.
Fascinating Fact 
Cleveland Ledge is named for President Grover Cleveland, who frequented the area to fish in the days when his summer White House was at the Gray Gables mansion in Bourne.
