Wellfleet is well-known as a mecca for artists and art lovers, with over a dozen galleries and studios spread throughout town and supported by the Wellfleet Art Gallery Association. Since 1985, the award-winning Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT) has been producing new works, modern classics, and innovative theatrical events in its architecturally unique theater located on Route 6. The smaller Harbor Stage Company, an ensemble of professional theater artists, has been staging diverse material at an iconic seaside theater since 2012. ARTS In just ten years, Wellfleet Preservation Hall, a restored church, has become the community’s year-round arts hub. The Cape Cod Modern House Trust preserves Outer Cape modern architecture. The Wellfleet Historical Society and Museum shares the town’s story, while the public library hosts hundreds of events annually. The nonprofit SPAT (Wellfleet Shellfish Promotion and Tasting) runs the popular October Oyster Fest, and Wellfleet Cinemas on Route 6 has operated Cape Cod’s only drive-in theater since 1957. CULTURE Wellfleet Elementary School, located off Route 6, not far from the National Seashore, serves the town’s kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Wellfleet is part of the Nauset Regional School District, along with Brewster, Orleans, and Eastham. Middle school and high school students attend Nauset Regional Middle School in Orleans and the Nauset Regional High School in neighboring Eastham, respectively. High school-aged students may also choose to study at Cape Cod Regional Technical School in Harwich. EDUCATION Native American artifacts discovered in Indian Neck indicate that the Punonakanit people, members of the Wampanoag Federation, had lived in what is present-day Wellfleet for thousands of years. Europeans arrived in the early 1600s and, by 1650, Englishmen had settled the area, including a large island in the harbor, naming it all Billingsgate. In 1793, Billingsgate separated into the two towns of Wellfleet and Eastham. The once-flourishing fishing community on Billingsgate Island was eventually destroyed by erosion in the early 1900s. Now only a shoal exposed at low tide, the former Billingsgate Island serves as a rest area for tired kayakers and a rich fishing ground for anglers. Also noteworthy is Guglielmo Marconi’s historic transatlantic radio transmitter station, built on a coastal bluff in South Wellfleet from 1901 to 1902. The first radio telegraph transmission from America to England was sent from this station on January 18, 1903. HISTORY
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