10/15/2007 Annual Town Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Final Study Report Mashpee Historic District Page 3 of 15 The Preliminary Study Report was reviewed by the MHC staff and by the full Commission at its March 14, 2007 meeting. In response to Commission comments in a letter of April 5, 2007 to the LHDSC Chair, district boundaries were tightened and minor Bylaw revisions were made. A public hearing on June 7, 2007 was attended by, approximately 20 property owners. A notification letter was sent to all properly owners in the proposed district by certified mail, and notice was placed in the Cape Cod Times on May 24 and 31 prior to the hearing. The district was also publicized in the Mashpee Enterprise. The public hearing was televised on the local cable channel 18 and can be viewed on demand at the town's web site. The district will be proposed at town meeting in October 2007. Significance i The proposed Mashpee Historic District includes a mixture of 19th and 20th century buildings set within Mashpee's traditional town center area that together represent the town's evolution from an Indian Plantation, to a District, and finally to a Town. The significant buildings and historic resources in the district are defined as dating from the early 19th century up to 1962, before the era of rapid growth of the town's non-Indian population: ,One of the distinctive characteristics of Mashpee's traditional town center is how buildings are dispersed along the road edges with substantial natural landscapes between them. This rural town center arrangement is atypical of the more common Cape Cod, or a densely settled New England town center, that often has buildings organized along a main street commercial area, or around a town common. However, Mashpee's traditional town center testifies to the town's unique history as a 1 place where Native American Wampanoag and white residents have forged a vibrant and deeply connected community. 1 i The proposed district includes the Avant House that in 1973 became the Wampanoag Indian Museum and is individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places (National Register). The PAL 2000 survey recommended a portion of the proposed district,Area A-Mashpee Town Center,as eligible for historic district listing in the National Register. i i In 1869, Mashpee Indians were given citizenship and the Act to Incorporate the Town of Mashpee was passed in 1870, abolishing the district and removing the restrictions which prevented non-Indians from acquiring land in Mashpee. Mashpee lost much of its economic autonomy in the decades after 1.870 as small-scale farming gave way to laboring in white-owned cranberry bogs and to various types of employment generated by tourism. Tourism in Mashpee in the late 19t" and early to mid 20th centuries differed from that of richer Cape towns. Few tourist facilities were actually owned by Mashpee residents; Solomon Attaquin's Hotel (formerly located within the proposed district) was almost the only one. Mashpee residents relied Principally upon casual summer employment as guides or servants. ,A historic map of 1910 by the Walker Publishing & Lithograph Co. clearly shows how turn of the century development in Mashpee was concentrated in the proposed Mashpee Historic District area, with an additional few houses scattered around Popponesset Bay. The proposed Mashpee Historic District is clustered around the town's civic center, in the northern part of town at the intersection of Route 1 30/Main Street and Great Neck Road North,