Provincetown History Snippets: What’s That Tower on the Hill, Anyway?

It’s the Pilgrim Monument, built by Cape Cod’s oldest not-for-profit organization to commemorate the Mayflower Pilgrims’ first landing in November of 1620.

President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in 1907 and three years later President William Howard Taft dedicated the finished 252-foot tower. The design was controversial because of its lack of relevance to the Pilgrims themselves; it’s actually modeled on the Torre del Mangia in Siena, Italy, the second such tower in the Commonwealth (Boston’s fire tower, now part of the Pine Street Inn, was constructed in 1892).

One architect quoted in the Boston Globe said, “If all they want is an architectural curiosity, then why not select the Leaning Tower of Pisa and be done with it?”

Was it an odd choice? What do you think of the Pilgrim Monument?

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